Post by hiredfox May 24, 2011 (31 of 59)
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Seriously, Sony have had some very bad years financially and of course there were the rumours of interest from Apple Corp not so long ago. Figures published yesterday reveal another huge loss over the past year. Even for a mighty corporation like Sony such losses must be unsustainable so drastic cuts in operations seem inevitable.
One could not bet with confidence on SACD related activity surviving a cull.
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hiredfox said:
Seriously, Sony have had some very bad years financially and of course there were the rumours of interest from Apple Corp not so long ago. Figures published yesterday reveal another huge loss over the past year. Even for a mighty corporation like Sony such losses must be unsustainable so drastic cuts in operations seem inevitable.
One could not bet with confidence on SACD related activity surviving a cull.
I just watched the HBO special "To Big To Fail" outlining the recent financial crisis which was compared to the Great Depression save for the Federal Reserve's bailout of the big banks.
I will only echo hirefox's assessment of Sony's own financial crisis (they lost 3 billion and counting).
That they're at least licensing their masters to MoFi and Analogue Productions is probably all we will conceivably have this year in SACD form (and a few imported domestic releases).
Times are not great and from what I hear, this financial crisis is FAR from over (especially with Wall Street up to its old tricks again).
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rammiepie said:
Is this one of those "Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road" stories?
Interesting thought. I'm curious about your opinion.
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The Seventh Taylor said:
Interesting thought. I'm curious about your opinion.
My opinion regarding the chicken or why SONY in their infinite wisdom included SACD playback in their budget~priced BD players......
My opinion on the latter: They were severely threatened by OPPO's sudden sales surge and great reviews and even refused to supply OPPO with the disc drives they had formerly been supplying them.....citing conflict of interest.
I thought it may have been a ploy to start manufacturing SACDs again but that doesn't seem to be the case as their "fortunes" reside with BD.
But as I did state, at least MoFi and AP are starting to ramp up their SACD schedules with SONY products (that's if AP EVER announces the upcoming QUAD Sony SACD releases).
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Hello,
i think that Sony's policy/strategy for the development of SACD is non existent at this moment in time.
All over Europe, on 1999 and after, i got via magazines and on several audio related events huge amounts of marketing data, and even small manuals (also available thought Sony services, i still have them!) about the format.
Nowadays nothing comes out to "new generations" of audio enthusiasts, only new and overpriced dedicated players and amplifiers on audio magazines.
To make things worst i find SACD as a very small niche regarding the NEW music titles and NEW music artists availability. Jazz and Classical music are the best examples.
I do hope that Pink Floyd can change this a litle durint 2011 and also 2012, but that's it... In Japan we still have some activity via the SHM SACD titles, but it's only re-editions of old titles.
I wish Sony could change this, if they could, but the markets are not good these days to invest and Sony seems not to be on a good financial situation overall.
Best regards,
hr_muadib.
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hiredfox said:
Seriously, Sony have had some very bad years financially and of course there were the rumours of interest from Apple Corp not so long ago. Figures published yesterday reveal another huge loss over the past year. Even for a mighty corporation like Sony such losses must be unsustainable so drastic cuts in operations seem inevitable.
One could not bet with confidence on SACD related activity surviving a cull.
I understand that Sony have ceased production of ES receivers
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Disbeliever said:
I understand that Sony have ceased production of ES receivers
Really, I have an ES receiver - it's old now VA555ES, but I like it a lot. That is a pity if sony shrink bank from such products.
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If it's any consolation or corroboration, Sony's ventures in photographic equipment seem just as deranged, zipping around from technology to technology almost at random, introducing and then seemingly abandoning customers who - for instance - invested in their (rather good, actually) full-frame sensor cameras and (Zeiss) lenses.
They seem to be thrashing around looking for a new killer cash-cow and not finding it (apart from the Playstation, and look what happened to THAT).
I would never buy their camera gear, as I never know whether it'll be around or even supported in ten minutes time. So serious pros won't go near it with a bargepole.
It seems like a corporate-wide malaise. The shame is that Sony's engineers, scientists and innovators are as good as ever, I suspect. However, they are now run by a motley crew of corporate shysters, lawyers, marketing men and bean counters; the days have long gone when technology-led and market-leading visionaries like Akio Morita called the shots.
Frankly, they’ve been on the skids since he died in 1999.
How are the mighty fallen...
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Post by steviev May 25, 2011 (39 of 59)
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hr_muadib said:
[...]
To make things worst i find SACD as a very small niche regarding the NEW music titles and NEW music artists availability. Jazz and Classical music are the best examples.
I do hope that Pink Floyd can change this a litle durint 2011 and also 2012, but that's it... In Japan we still have some activity via the SHM SACD titles, but it's only re-editions of old titles.
Classical was always the first genre to get the most hi-tech up-to-date sonics from record companies, starting with stereo recordings, CD, SACD, DVD-A, etc. And then pop/rock/country/folk/jazz tended to trail by a few years. For example, the Beatles' first stereo album was "Help!" and that was in 1965. By that time, classical recordings had been made in stereo for 5 to 10 years already.
In the '90s, something odd happened, though. A lot of the "grunge" bands prided themselves on releasing AAD CDs, even when fully-digital DDD equipment was available. It's as if they wished their CDs to sound as lo-fi as possible within the medium. Also, vinyl started making a comeback at that time.
And then when you get to the early oughts, the internet took over, and most people were (and are) perfectly satisified with limited-dynamic-range lossy-compressed audio when it comes to pop/rock. However, classical has increasingly gone with hi-rez multichannel, so there has been a break from the past as far as classical leading the way in sound quality; there's been a divergence. It seems pop/rockers don't care about sound quality anymore, they just care about convenience. So as far as the dearth of pop/rock on SACD goes, such consumers have no one to "blame" but themselves, assuming they ever cared anyway.
I have no idea why Sony includes SACD playback on their budget Bluray players. Considering the foreseeable dominance of Bluray for both video and music, SACD playback seems redundant. I almost wonder if somebody with power inside Sony has a sentimental soft spot for Super Audio, and that's why they include it. It's hard to imagine any economic rationale for its inclusion.
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Post by steviev May 25, 2011 (40 of 59)
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rammiepie said:
My opinion regarding the chicken or why SONY in their infinite wisdom included SACD playback in their budget~priced BD players......
My opinion on the latter: They were severely threatened by OPPO's sudden sales surge and great reviews and even refused to supply OPPO with the disc drives they had formerly been supplying them.....citing conflict of interest.
O, lawd, I do loves me a good conspiracy!
I guess the passion is so great because the stakes are so small...
So Sony's gonna corner the SACD market and surge to massive profitability because of all those folks snapping up SACD-capable Bluray players, since they have no other way to get that much-coveted SACD playback? Look out, Sony, Department of Justice Antitrust Division is coming at ya!
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