scrypt
Head-Fi's Sybil
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2002
- Posts
- 2,382
- Likes
- 125
[Members: No, I'm not returning to Head-fi; the political climate is still too charged for my liking and, what's more, I must keep to my word until that changes. Still, I do want to post this one report, as I thought of many of you (especially Jude) while writing it.]
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No, I can't forecast the consumer's video destiny, since no knows which HD format will prevail. However, I have seen my own aesthetic future and it is blu-ray.
On my day off, I found myself wandering toward Sony Style, the vast hulking Sony store/complex in NYC. I'd hoped to hear the new Hi-MD MZ-NH1 and, possibly, the Qualia MDR-EXQ1 earphones we've all seen for sale at audiocubes.com. I'd already heard and loved the 9000ES and wondered what else might be in the works for SACD. In other words, I ventured into the Qualia section of the Sony Store not as a rear projection enthusiast but as an audiophile.
Imagine my glee when Qualia salesman Cyrus, a quietly ebullient man with a weakness for opera, numerology and Wordsworth, invited me to listen to SACDs on a pair of 010 Headphones for as long as I liked.
The climate in the Qualia room was one of orgasmic austerity: black interior, minimal seating and a white glass case containing the 9000ES and three exquisite Qualia devices: the 010, 016 and 016. Des Esseintes (hedonist protagonist of Huysman's Au Rebour) would approve.
First, the headphones. The 010, successor to the Sony's legendary R10, were as described: visually striking, with sheepskin leather and custom-fitted band. I listened to the 010 for roughly an hour, pausing only to discuss Yeats, Blake, oversampling and future Sony developments with Cyrus. (One tidbit: If I understood Cyrus correctly, Sony is about to release a series of rare sought-after vinyl LPs remastered for stereo-only listening on gold SACD.)
Stravinsky's _Petrouchka_ and Miles Davis's "So What" sounded exquisite through the 010, with previously unattainable highs, breadth and soundstage painfully within reach. Since I knew I wouldn't be spending $2600 on headphones, I spent as much time as possible listening to them with the 9000ES (my favorite Sony player).
Next came the 016 camera, with its provokingly chiseled crafting, ingenious touchpad and delicious case design, which has the particularity and purity of sashimi (albeit a god's course of hand-lasercut sashimi inset in foam and presented in an impeccably crafted leather case). I was able to play with the camera a bit and change the lenses but, as I said, I'm an audio veteran and a digital camera neophyte.
Last came the notorious 017, the minidisc portable with a body sculpted from a single block of brass (the rest of the block is thrown away after) and innards hand-soldered by Sony's best audio surgeons: there was no seam, no hole, on the surface of this device. The remote alone was so lust-worthy, so luxurious, that I no could longer ask why anyone would buy such a device. It is like asking a pop star why he would pick out three gradations of a $5,000 Gucci suit. Yes, of course, there's a difference in quality and conception at that price point. Yes, of course, those who can afford to procure such things would snatch up the 017. Why, if I myself were a millionaire, El Ray, I'd own an 017 in each of its three plated versions: silver, gold and chrome.
Was I able to listen to the 017? No, of course not. The appeal was visual purely, despite its touted surround modes, et al. The 017 is currently the best-selling Qualia product in Japan. But it is worth mentioning that the earphones that come with the 017 look suspiciously like the MDR-EXQ1.
I thought I'd finished looking at the Qualia line, but that was before Cyrus and I were joined by Qualia marketing director, Philip Boyle. Philip, a seasoned, informed and self-professed cinema addict, asked if I wanted to come into the next room to see their 004 HD front projection/blu-ray demo.
The picture was incomparable. I sat at various distances from the vast 120-inch projection screen studying the resolution of the image. No, it did not look like film; it did not have film's texture, but it was *filmic*, imbued with a level of depth and clarity I had not seen before in digital video. After being seduced by a blu-ray demo of Spiderman, I was treated to a jaw-removing excerpt from Lawrence of Arabia, in which one could discern several gradations of shadow in the countless black shawls and robes on-screen, and subtle stirrings of wind and sand in the otherwise static background of the men on horses. Sand was moving around them, of course. But it was also moving *several yards ahead*.
The final stage of the demo came with a split-screen version of Lawrence of Arabia: DVD on the left, blu-ray on the right. Sony's DVD image was not calculatedly low-res; rather, it was the best-looking DVD resolution I've seen so far. Even so, as the crowd of riders moved from DVD left to blu-ray right, they seemed to emerge from fog, gaining not only sharpness but photographic detail, and the revealed depth of the surrounding landscape suggested the slow withdrawal of a plate of milky glass.
The 004 did a superb job with blu-ray, of course. But I've never seen a DVD image look as good as (let alone better than) through the 004.
Philip and I discussed Sony's quest to make the experience of blu-ray as film-like as possible; he confessed that he would "always go to the movie theater" to enjoy the spectacle and the medium. He also spoke of owning a room-filling collection of DVDs, which he intended not to sell. Even so, he said, blu-ray was in his future.
Mine, too, I'm afraid.
----------------------------------------
Qualia enthusiasts who wish to receive the kind of spontaneous access and personal attention I did might do well to visit Sony Style before September 22, at which time the Qualia line will be launched officially in the U.S. and its products will be auditionable by appointment only.
----------------------------------------------
No, I can't forecast the consumer's video destiny, since no knows which HD format will prevail. However, I have seen my own aesthetic future and it is blu-ray.
On my day off, I found myself wandering toward Sony Style, the vast hulking Sony store/complex in NYC. I'd hoped to hear the new Hi-MD MZ-NH1 and, possibly, the Qualia MDR-EXQ1 earphones we've all seen for sale at audiocubes.com. I'd already heard and loved the 9000ES and wondered what else might be in the works for SACD. In other words, I ventured into the Qualia section of the Sony Store not as a rear projection enthusiast but as an audiophile.
Imagine my glee when Qualia salesman Cyrus, a quietly ebullient man with a weakness for opera, numerology and Wordsworth, invited me to listen to SACDs on a pair of 010 Headphones for as long as I liked.
The climate in the Qualia room was one of orgasmic austerity: black interior, minimal seating and a white glass case containing the 9000ES and three exquisite Qualia devices: the 010, 016 and 016. Des Esseintes (hedonist protagonist of Huysman's Au Rebour) would approve.
First, the headphones. The 010, successor to the Sony's legendary R10, were as described: visually striking, with sheepskin leather and custom-fitted band. I listened to the 010 for roughly an hour, pausing only to discuss Yeats, Blake, oversampling and future Sony developments with Cyrus. (One tidbit: If I understood Cyrus correctly, Sony is about to release a series of rare sought-after vinyl LPs remastered for stereo-only listening on gold SACD.)
Stravinsky's _Petrouchka_ and Miles Davis's "So What" sounded exquisite through the 010, with previously unattainable highs, breadth and soundstage painfully within reach. Since I knew I wouldn't be spending $2600 on headphones, I spent as much time as possible listening to them with the 9000ES (my favorite Sony player).
Next came the 016 camera, with its provokingly chiseled crafting, ingenious touchpad and delicious case design, which has the particularity and purity of sashimi (albeit a god's course of hand-lasercut sashimi inset in foam and presented in an impeccably crafted leather case). I was able to play with the camera a bit and change the lenses but, as I said, I'm an audio veteran and a digital camera neophyte.
Last came the notorious 017, the minidisc portable with a body sculpted from a single block of brass (the rest of the block is thrown away after) and innards hand-soldered by Sony's best audio surgeons: there was no seam, no hole, on the surface of this device. The remote alone was so lust-worthy, so luxurious, that I no could longer ask why anyone would buy such a device. It is like asking a pop star why he would pick out three gradations of a $5,000 Gucci suit. Yes, of course, there's a difference in quality and conception at that price point. Yes, of course, those who can afford to procure such things would snatch up the 017. Why, if I myself were a millionaire, El Ray, I'd own an 017 in each of its three plated versions: silver, gold and chrome.
Was I able to listen to the 017? No, of course not. The appeal was visual purely, despite its touted surround modes, et al. The 017 is currently the best-selling Qualia product in Japan. But it is worth mentioning that the earphones that come with the 017 look suspiciously like the MDR-EXQ1.
I thought I'd finished looking at the Qualia line, but that was before Cyrus and I were joined by Qualia marketing director, Philip Boyle. Philip, a seasoned, informed and self-professed cinema addict, asked if I wanted to come into the next room to see their 004 HD front projection/blu-ray demo.
The picture was incomparable. I sat at various distances from the vast 120-inch projection screen studying the resolution of the image. No, it did not look like film; it did not have film's texture, but it was *filmic*, imbued with a level of depth and clarity I had not seen before in digital video. After being seduced by a blu-ray demo of Spiderman, I was treated to a jaw-removing excerpt from Lawrence of Arabia, in which one could discern several gradations of shadow in the countless black shawls and robes on-screen, and subtle stirrings of wind and sand in the otherwise static background of the men on horses. Sand was moving around them, of course. But it was also moving *several yards ahead*.
The final stage of the demo came with a split-screen version of Lawrence of Arabia: DVD on the left, blu-ray on the right. Sony's DVD image was not calculatedly low-res; rather, it was the best-looking DVD resolution I've seen so far. Even so, as the crowd of riders moved from DVD left to blu-ray right, they seemed to emerge from fog, gaining not only sharpness but photographic detail, and the revealed depth of the surrounding landscape suggested the slow withdrawal of a plate of milky glass.
The 004 did a superb job with blu-ray, of course. But I've never seen a DVD image look as good as (let alone better than) through the 004.
Philip and I discussed Sony's quest to make the experience of blu-ray as film-like as possible; he confessed that he would "always go to the movie theater" to enjoy the spectacle and the medium. He also spoke of owning a room-filling collection of DVDs, which he intended not to sell. Even so, he said, blu-ray was in his future.
Mine, too, I'm afraid.
----------------------------------------
Qualia enthusiasts who wish to receive the kind of spontaneous access and personal attention I did might do well to visit Sony Style before September 22, at which time the Qualia line will be launched officially in the U.S. and its products will be auditionable by appointment only.
