Post by mdt March 28, 2005 (21 of 56)
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Dan Popp said:
True. Obviously a LOT of advertising money should be spent. But when that happens, there is a cry, "look at all they money they are throwing away on advertising! - They should be improving their quality (or broadening their catalog) with that money!!!" The armchair quarterback always wins.
m, as to your other comments I don't want to stray too far off topic. As a general remark, it seems to me that there is plenty of greed to go around - by the consumer, the retailer, the corporation, the government - but somehow the rich guys in suits are often cast as the villain, with everyone else in the role of victim. I just don't think that's an open-eyed assessment of the situation.
The thing is not even that a lot of advertising money should be spent, but that their should be advertising at all !! Every new album by a star, who everyone knows anyway, is backed by lots of promotion like full size adds, posters in the windows of retailers etc., all of this for a product, that the fans are going to buy anyway, and to promote names allready known. On the other hand now adds for SA-CD, no kind of advertising for it at retailers at all. Sales personal often doesn't even know what SA-CD is. I dont think it's asked to much from sales people, as professionals, to be informed about new developments in their field.
It seems ridiculous to me, that i, as customer, had to inform the vendors about SA-CD !
About my other remarks. The examples i gave, are from what is actually hapening hear in Europe, it concerns world known companies.I didn't give names, because i used the example only to underline the general statement, which you obviously thought came from my fantasy.
I dont cast rich guys in suits to be villains, i know some myself that i very much respect. What i dont go allong with, is having profit as the ONLY ! objective, not giving a d.. about anything else.
If something isn't open eyed, than its the common way of raising profit by cutting expenses the easiest way, namely firing people and producing in far east. Germany, e.g., has over 5 mio out of work now. People without work aren't the best consumers, are they?! This is a downward spiral, because there will be less and less people to buy the, oh so cheaply produced, product !
Thinking about the Entire social situation, will show in the end to be the best way to go, ALSO from a business point of view.
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Post by Dan Popp March 29, 2005 (22 of 56)
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mdt said:
The thing is not even that a lot of advertising money should be spent, but that their should be advertising at all !! Every new album by a star, who everyone knows anyway, is backed by lots of promotion like full size adds, posters in the windows of retailers etc., all of this for a product, that the fans are going to buy anyway, and to promote names allready known. On the other hand now adds for SA-CD, no kind of advertising for it at retailers at all. Sales personal often doesn't even know what SA-CD is. I dont think it's asked to much from sales people, as professionals, to be informed about new developments in their field.
It seems ridiculous to me, that i, as customer, had to inform the vendors about SA-CD !
About my other remarks. The examples i gave, are from what is actually hapening hear in Europe, it concerns world known companies.I didn't give names, because i used the example only to underline the general statement, which you obviously thought came from my fantasy.
I dont cast rich guys in suits to be villains, i know some myself that i very much respect. What i dont go allong with, is having profit as the ONLY ! objective, not giving a d.. about anything else.
If something isn't open eyed, than its the common way of raising profit by cutting expenses the easiest way, namely firing people and producing in far east. Germany, e.g., has over 5 mio out of work now. People without work aren't the best consumers, are they?! This is a downward spiral, because there will be less and less people to buy the, oh so cheaply produced, product !
Thinking about the Entire social situation, will show in the end to be the best way to go, ALSO from a business point of view.
m,
As one who has also had to educate sales people on their own products, I totally agree. They should know all the ins and outs of every item they sell (though that may be unrealistic these days, with thousands of "features" in every unit and models changing every 6 months)!
I did not think that you were drawing from fantasy when you opined on CEOs killing their companies and bailing out with golden parachutes. Whatever you have going on there, it's at least as bad here in the US, though perhaps lately we have seen a decline in such behavior. I do suggest that we ask "Who set up the conditions making it advantageous for CEOs to behave this way?" CEOs are not self-employed. They work for a board of directors which has set up the incentives that the CEO is responding to.
I don't know if you have access to Thomas Sowell's book, "Basic Economics," but it deals with a lot of the issues you are raising. I highly recommend it.
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jojopuppyfish said:
I wrote them an email on Sat and Today to get it back up. I am still waiting for a response.
-Brett
Nothing changed. Same message.
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Alexandre said:
Nothing changed. Same message.
The Petition Page is now back up. It took them 3 days to turn it back on.
Here is the link again:
http://www.petitiononline.com/SACD/
Thanks for your patience.
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Post by JDlog March 30, 2005 (25 of 56)
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This petition is fine. I just added my signature. HOWEVER...
...we need to send another the new CEO of Sony.
...they have to:
1. produce cheaper players that include sacd PLUS probably dvd-a (it hurts me say so but it's true, DVD-A can probably help the cause)
2. come up with a good cheap SACD Walkman-styled player with nice headphones that may help lure people back to full-rez music
3. Launch at least one reasonably priced SACD car radio that allows people to hear how good it is...specially when compared to satellite radio and MP3 (which should be included as well).
I am forgetting items, and even these are probably debatable so pitch in.
The point is Sony needs to be prodded and this is a good time to do so. NO MORE Betamaxes!
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Post by Jovian April 12, 2005 (26 of 56)
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I have recently completed setting up my HIFI system and thanks to Pioneers DV-676A player I could afford to listen to SACD's. I bought my first SACD (Norah Jones, Come away with me) and was converted straight away. I think I will continue to but SACD's as long as they are available. However the problem for the format is that besides an SACD player, you require some really good speakers and a good amp to actually hear a difference between the CD version and the SACD version. People in general do not see the difference between a $100 pair of speakers and a $1000 pair of speakers so I'm afraid SACD will remain as a format that only Audiophiles can appreciate. The other thing is that I think SACD can only improve the sound of certain types of Music, such as live performances containing acoustic and percussion instruments. I doubt that "50 cent"s new album or the new Britney Spear's album would sound any different on SACD as opposed to CD since everything was digital in the first place (unless multichannel can add something), therefore it is not required in mainstream music. The number of us that can appreciate "analogue" style music is small enough as it is, but being able to afford the equipment to make SACD worth while is a whole other issue. The only way I see that SACD can be popularised is to release multichannel albums by popular artists and to sell the format on multichannel capability. There are a few cheap SACD players around (like the Pioneer DV-676a and I think Sony has a universal disk player as well) and there are plenty of cheap multi channel systems around as well. Trying to sell SACD on sound quality is not viable because of the expense of good speakers and HIFI amps.
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Post by Dan Popp April 14, 2005 (27 of 56)
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Jovian said:
However the problem for the format is that besides an SACD player, you require some really good speakers and a good amp to actually hear a difference between the CD version and the SACD version.
Jovian,
That hasn't been my experience, as I've written before. I've demo'ed SACD vs. CD on my very modest system for perhaps a dozen folks, from audiophiles to the nearly deaf. Every person except one has heard a difference. Now, do they care enough about the difference to change their buying habits - that's another question.
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Post by mdt April 14, 2005 (28 of 56)
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Dan Popp said:
Jovian,
That hasn't been my experience, as I've written before. I've demo'ed SACD vs. CD on my very modest system for perhaps a dozen folks, from audiophiles to the nearly deaf. Every person except one has heard a difference. Now, do they care enough about the difference to change their buying habits - that's another question.
I think its more in long time listening, than in the imediately noticed difference. I also find the difference between SA-CD and CD layer of the same recording quite subtle at times. Still i have found myself listening to recordings longer in average with SA-CD than i did with CD. Also after having listened to SA-CDs only, for some time, CDs seem harsh and congested from the first tone.
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Post by seth April 14, 2005 (29 of 56)
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2. come up with a good cheap SACD Walkman-styled player with nice headphones that may help lure people back to full-rez music
3. Launch at least one reasonably priced SACD car radio that allows people to hear how good it is...specially when compared to satellite radio and MP3 (which should be included as well).
A SACD Walkman would be an even bigger disaster than Sony's 'it's an mp3 player but not really an mp3 player' that was supposed to compete with the iPod. Even with good headphones, ambient sound when listening on the street, in a plane, on the bus to work, would cancel out the improved resolution. But more importantly, the public overwhelming prefers thousands of songs in a compact unit with reduced audio quality than to walkmen and minidisc players which offer greater sound quality, but hold fewer songs.
SACD in the car is equally problematic. Once again, ambient sounds would make it impossible to notice the improved sonics, especially when you're driving on the highway and in the summer with the air conditioner on full blast. Also, most cars, even luxury ones, have poor to average speakers. Heck, it seems like half the new cars today have Bose speakers.
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mdt said:
Still i have found myself listening to recordings longer in average with SA-CD than i did with CD. Also after having listened to SA-CDs only, for some time, CDs seem harsh and congested from the first tone.
Exactly! SACD sound more ... comfortably.
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