[Michael G.]

Hahahaha! What? Who even cares? No suprise that almost nobody cares about SACD. SACD is just another ill-fated marketing ploy. We know that SACD is (was?) a format designed to offer copy protection for the record business, the promise of something "new" for the general consumer, and a few special perks for the hifi enthusiast... in just about that order. My experience with 2 channel SACD left me with mixed feelings about the format. Instrumental timbres and vocals sound *slightly* more natural, and soundstaging is *slightly* better. But the best redbook CD recordings are almost as good-sounding as many SACD's. Sometimes, good CD' sound better. Multi-channel? I believe that I do speak from the "audiophile" perspective when I say that it is hard enough, expensive enough, to get two channel stereo right. Why add to the misery? SACD? Who cares?

 

[Garbz]

ACtually I think it may have been less of a marketing ploy and more of an emergancy thought when sony realised their patents on the CD were expiring and they could no longer collect royalties from every CD produced.

 

[Michael G.]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garbz ACtually I think it may have been less of a marketing ploy and more of an emergancy thought when sony realised their patents on the CD were expiring and they could no longer collect royalties from every CD produced.

You may be right about that state of "emergency". Someone must have been in a panic, and not even thinking straight: So many of Sony's first SACD players would not even read a variety of discs reliably (I should know - I used to own a PAIN IN THE ASS Sony DVPS-9000ES). What a way to introduce a new format!

 

[fewtch]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AdamCalifornia "Question: Do you carry any SUPER Audio CDs? She answers: I beg your pardon SUPER-what??!!

Try asking about "SACD" next time, people are more likely to understand. You'd probably get the same reaction if you walked into a store and asked "Do you carry Digital Versatile Discs?" (DVD's).

 

[boodi]

 

[boodi]

didn't want to miss the party

 

[Oski]

Just picked up two SACDs today (Snow Patrol and Roxy Music). Lack of marketing is a large problem and product placement is the other problem. Every store I've been to buy SACDs they've been relegated to shelf Siberia. I walked around J&R for about 15 minutes looking for them today and finally had to ask a clerk (to his credit actually knew what SACDs were) and of course it's on 2 small isles facing the back room where people are most likely to walk right past...and this is in their upstairs where they have classical, blues, soundtracks, musicals, etc...not the high trafficed areas.

I think the largest problem is the general consumer's lack of ability to distinguish better sound. Keep in mind to the VAST majority of the population BOSE is the leading audio brand. The other problem is people are migrating to MP3/AAC playback of music, with the popularization of DAPs and computer music now. I for one have been listening to music much more on my computer than my speaker rig...this trend may even doom CDs in the coming years.

Oddly most everyone can immediately appreciate that an HDTV looks much better than the regular TV...I guess people have much better visual acuity than aural.

 

[bigshot]

It's not a matter of not caring about sound... SACDs just don't sound any better than good CDs. If the little blue light didn't light up on my player, I would never know which layer I was playing.

See ya
Steve

 

[Wodgy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot It's not a matter of not caring about sound... SACDs just don't sound any better than good CDs. If the little blue light didn't light up on my player, I would never know which layer I was playing.

You may not be listening critically then, or you may have below average perceptual abilities. If you search through past AES conference proceedings (peer-reviewed scientific papers), you'll find several papers showing that individuals can reliably distinguish between high sampling rate DSD (SACD) and low-resolution PCM (CD).

On the other hand, there is little scientific evidence that people can distinguish between SACD and high-resolution PCM (DVD-A). One of the recent papers demonstrating that is available online:
http://www.hfm-detmold.de/eti/projek...paper_6086.pdf

 

[Garbz]

I wonder how the sources were made. If they were recorded from DSD mastered for the SACD and then run through a downsampler and converter i'm sure there'll be a difference. However if the CD layer was mastered seperatly it may be a different story. Just like this it's my firm belief that a CD can sound as good as vinyl given the completely different ways they are mastered.

Oski i don't think it's the perception. If any of my friends every get into a converstaion about audio / hifi then I'll usually end up being a great friend to gloat about, but they just don't care. Most couldn't be bothered spending that kind of money for music when most only listen to radios anyway.

 

[jimmyjames8]

Quote:

Originally Posted by soundboy Roger Water's opera "Ca Ira" is being released on multi-channel hybrid SACD at the end of this month. On 9/20, Joshua Bell's "Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto, Op. 35" will also get a domestic release on multi-channel hybrid SACD. In Europe, Super Furry Animals' "Love Kraft" was just released on SACD. All from SonyBMG. A couple of albums from SonyBMG has also been licensed out to MoFi for release on SACD. Depeche Mode's next album, "Playing The Angel", has also been announced as a SACD release.

I hope you are right and Sony continues some sort of SACD release program/schedule. I am still waiting for their promised release of the entire Miles Davis catalog on SACD. It will never happen, at least not by Sony.

On happier news, the 3000th SACD release was recently announced (I was think we were over 5000 titles). See here: http://highfidelityreview.com/news/n...umber=17927789

 

[soundboy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jimmyjames8 I hope you are right and Sony continues some sort of SACD release program/schedule. I am still waiting for their promised release of the entire Miles Davis catalog on SACD. It will never happen, at least not by Sony. On happier news, the 3000th SACD release was recently announced (I was think we were over 5000 titles). See here: http://highfidelityreview.com/news/n...umber=17927789

Denon "rejoined" the inexpensive universal player market with a fully-loaded DVD-1920 (MSRP US$400.00). Harman Kardon, formerly a DVD-A only supporter, just announced 2 new universal players.

The current total at sa-cd.net is at 3,263 titles worldwide. However, the total should be higher but owner of sa-cd.net has informed me that it will no longer add SACD titles from China/Hong Kong/Taiwan to that site. The market over there for SACD is really taking off.

 

[jimmyjames8]

I guess the announcement on HighFidelityReview was from a European consortium (Sony Europe?) I knew we were over 3000 but that bulletin was a little old. I posted the Sony and SACD quandry on AudioAsylum, HiRez to see if I get any quotes or links. I either dreamed or read that Sony was abandoning the format. Was it Denon or Sony that said they would stop building in SACD decoding on there most inexpensive players? Marantz continues to build it in with at least 3 machines being released this year in the US. I have 2 of these new machines. They have whole families of machines available in Japan and Europe that are not currently available here (???)

 

[soundboy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jimmyjames8 I guess the announcement on HighFidelityReview was from a European consortium (Sony Europe?) I knew we were over 3000 but that bulletin was a little old. I posted the Sony and SACD quandry on AudioAsylum, HiRez to see if I get any quotes or links. I either dreamed or read that Sony was abandoning the format. Was it Denon or Sony that said they would stop building in SACD decoding on there most inexpensive players? Marantz continues to build it in with at least 3 machines being released this year in the US. I have 2 of these new machines. They have whole families of machines available in Japan and Europe that are not currently available here (???)

It was Denon that announced that it would "abandon" the low end of the market, but it has come back with the DVD-1920.

I am actually helping to update the website at superaudio-cd.com, which is run by Sony Europe. It currently list 3,067 titles there. Just noticed this morning that Roy Orbison's "Black and White Night" SACD is not listed.

 

[bigshot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wodgy You may not be listening critically then, or you may have below average perceptual abilities. If you search through past AES conference proceedings (peer-reviewed scientific papers), you'll find several papers showing that individuals can reliably distinguish between high sampling rate DSD (SACD) and low-resolution PCM (CD).

I was listening critically, and I have average perceptutal abilities. You can find my method described in detail by searching this forum. Scientific papers are great, but if people can't hear a difference, it really doesn't matter.

SACD extends frequency response beyond the range of human hearing and improves resolution in low volume portions of the sound. Neither of these things mean much in the real world.

SACD is great for multichannel playback. But for 2 channel, it's a bust.

See ya
Steve