[Squalish]

Quote:

Originally posted by Alex Altorfer Really, guys. All moving media will sooner or later become extinct. The time will come when all music will be downloaded into microscopic chips far more powerful than any blue laser disc could ever be. So, are we doomed to listen to MP3 for all eternity then? Not really. A chip can hold MP3 as well as PCM or DSD or whatever format you record into it. You can hold something physical. You can hold the chip. You can download your music's promotional materials, images, lyrics, MTV videos and everything into a chip and see it on your palmtop PDA's screen. Non-moving media will hold the high resolution formats of the future. Both SACD and DVD Audio will disappear. So will redbook and DVD video. Cheers, Alex Altorfer

Incase this wasn't a joke: How you plan to pack your own EUVL fab into a 5.25" slot?

 

[Squalish]

Quote:

Originally posted by Anders What I do not understand is those people who seem to have a heavy emotional investment in this, unless they are developers or investors.

Perhaps a monetary investment leads to(or comes from) an emotional investment.

 

[markl]

Quote:

What I do not understand is those people who seem to have a heavy emotional investment in this, unless they are developers or investors.

Or, perhaps simply sitting down and actually listening to the new formats is what gets you involved. That's what did it for me, anyway. Once you saw DVD, could you bear to go back to VHS?

Rumors of the demise of SACD appear on a daily basis over at audio asylum, and have since it debuted years ago. It's actually just now picking up steam with dozens of exciting new titles being announced all the time. Spend some time in the hi-rez forum at audioasylum and see for yourself.

All this talk is just idle speculation and hearsay.

Mark

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Yeah, I'm puzzled too--seems like there are finally more titles coming out, and last I counted, SACD had 2 racks to DVD-A's half a rack in HMV.

Re: mp3 replacing everything: well, you could also put mp3s on CDs

But really, with RIAA so pissed off about mp3s, do you see it becoming the dominant format anytime soon?

 

[Pepzhez]

Quote:

I am happy that you agreed that the initiation of the thread was based on a silly rumour. But how about the Sony rep? He said something to your dealer how then told you. Could the message be distorted on the way, especially if the final recipient wanted to hear something really bad? And what could the rep really know. Are Sony secret corporate plans of the Japanese top management forwarded to a salesman in USA?

As I stated in my post, the rep said he was not at all privy to any Sony corporate plans. He is surmising the inevitable demise of the format based on its dismal sales performance. Now the dealer in question is actually a fan of SACD, but he is rather dismayed that the units only sit on the shelf. After all, he was unable to sell me an SACD player, even (or especially) after I spent a week and a half with a loaner (XA777ES). I wrote in detail on a previous thread that I find redbook performance from my Van Alstine DAC more satisfying than SACD performance from the Sony unit. So, no, there is no heavy emotional or financial investment in hi-rez from my end of things.

Look, I don't think it requires any insider information for anyone to see that these hi-rez formats are going nowhere fast. A rack or two at the local HMV Shop and countless posts from neurotic audiophiles at Audio Asylum (apt name, as that place is crawling with hysterics and just downright nasty people who obviously have "issues") add up to no more (and probably less) than the market share attained by "audiophile" specialty labels such as Mobile Fidelity or DCC at their peak. This is simply not enough to sustain an entirely new format which requires a substantial investment from the consumer in both hardware and software. As I said, the average person knows what a DVD is; three years or so down the line and they still couldn't tell you what an SACD or DVD-A disc really is. (Then again, they probably couldn't tell you what an MD is either.) A combination of bad marketing coupled with consumer indifference, I'd say. The first could be rectified, surely, but you'll never surmount general apathy - and you can't sell something to someone if they feel they have no need for it. It's well kinown to all of us that most people have systems that aren't even capable of reproducing decent fidelity from redbook CDs - and this is just fine for them. I am sorry, but does anyone believe that an SACD-capable boombox from Philips is going to reveal sonic nirvana to the uneducated, non-audiophile masses? I really don't think so.

Again, keep in mind that Sony et al. did not intend to launch a niche market format for a few audiophiles. SACD (and DVD-A, for that matter) are meant to replace CDs entirely. If after three years the general public doesn't even know or care what it is, can you truly say with a straight face that the format is coming along nicely? Even the few audiophiles interested in these hi-rez formats cannot even agree on them - witness the truly insane level of infighting amongst the "SACD fans" and the "DVD-A devotees" at places like Audio Asylum.

But let's also keep in mind the real reasons behind the hi-rez formats:

1) Sony and Philips wishing to prolong patent royalties (SACD)
2) RIAA et al. wishing to stop so-called piracy
3) Sony, Philips, et al. wishing to stop so-called piracy
4) DVD consortium wishing to grab patent royalties and stop so-called piracy
5) Sony and Philips wishing to sell expensive DSD recording and mastering equipment to studios and pressing plants
6) Record industry wishing yet again to sell you the same catalog for the umpteenth time, this time around on a "new" format (which, they wish, will stop so-called piracy).

I happen to agree with Alex. The public is not interested in a non-flexible and deliberately crippled format. The time for dedicated hardware and proprietary formats are gone, and this is precisely why SACD and DVD-A are met with utter indifference. People have already got a taste of doing what they damn well please with their music files - making mix CDs and MDs, using their computers as jukeboxes, loading the bits into their ipods, etc. etc. How will those people react to a format they'll be told will not play on their computer, will never join their iTunes playlist, will never be compressed into their ipod or burned onto CD-R for the car?

I've always maintained that high resolution audio is needed - and I do want it. But not like this. It needs to be done correctly and openly - and both SACD and DVD-A fail miserably in this regard.

 

[kelly]

Honestly, as someone who owns an SACD player, if the format goes belly up and Sony doesnt' even do a relaunch (which they almost always do, which is almost always successful at least as a small niche), then I'll simply try to get prices on the bulk of good music already out on SACD. No skin off my back--I'm still able to listen to good quality redbook on my player.

I'm used to dead formats, though. I'm a video game fanatic. Colecovision only had 82 games released on it but they rocked.

 

[Alex Altorfer]

Squalish,

Quote:

Incase this wasn't a joke: How you plan to pack your own EUVL fab into a 5.25" slot?

By the time all music formats become recordable in 'non-moving' media, who's going to be using 5.25 slots anyways? Of course, by 'you can hold the chip' I meant to say you can hold the hardware (PDA, future iPODs, upscale hi-fi hardware or whatever) into which the hi-rez formatted music will be stored.

Cheers,
Alex Altorfer

 

[grinch]

Quote:

Originally posted by kelly I'm used to dead formats, though. I'm a video game fanatic. Colecovision only had 82 games released on it but they rocked.

he'll do it. i can imagine me and kelly (if we were to shop in the same store/time zone) a few years ago, fighting over the last laserdisc copies of empire in the store.

pepzhez has made some really great comments. i pretty much completely agree with what he's saying. the reasons for high-rez audio ARE to kill piracy. the launch of dvd-audio was even delayed for two years because the copy-protection scheme (css) for dvd movies was cracked.

it's all very silly. i haven't heard dvd audio yet, but i do own a (cheap) sacd player and have really liked what i have heard so far. i'm not big on multichannel audio though and i think that's one reason why i'm not liking the whole dvd-a idea yet. those mostly seem to be concentrating on the 5.1 (correct me if i'm wrong).

 

[andrzejpw]

Quote:

A chip can hold MP3 as well as PCM or DSD or whatever format you record into it.

Sure they can. But what's the incentive? The average customer doesn't CARE how good it is, imho. If they can cram, say, four cds instead of one on a disc, they'd go for it. What's the incentive not to? Charging for 4 discs, instead of one?

 

[Alex Altorfer]

andrzejpw,
A few people are always bound to go for quality instead of quantity. The average consumer is ignorant and imbecile, spending endless hours watching mind numbing 'reality' shows and soap operas in front of the idiot box every day. But there are others, a minority, who know better.
Cheers,
Alex Altorfer

 

[gloco]

Quote:

Originally posted by Alex Altorfer andrzejpw, A few people are always bound to go for quality instead of quantity. The average consumer is ignorant and imbecile, spending endless hours watching mind numbing 'reality' shows and soap operas in front of the idiot box every day. But there are others, a minority, who know better. Cheers, Alex Altorfer

So what, we know better. Are we going to make SACD/DVD-A the rage? Nope. Sony and the gang need to market the new formats to the average consumer who is ignorant and imbecile happens to make the majority of consumers.

 

[Alex Altorfer]

gloco,
I'm looking beyond SACD. I'm looking at hi-rez playback on chips and HIFI hard disk players. I'm looking at what it's going to be like in ten years. Yes, there will be enough people interested in downloading hi-rez audio files.
Cheers,
Alex Altorfer

 

[Calanctus]

Quote:

Originally posted by Pepzhez (lots and lots of words)

Pepzhez, I did not have the stamina to read your entire mile-long post. But since you consider yourself to be someone in the know, perhaps you can enlighten us: how is vinyl doing in relation to hi-rez? Specifically, what are the sales of vinyl in comparison to hi-rez, and what are the trends (i.e. is vinyl staying the same/increasing rapidly/fading a bit, and the same for hi-rez)?

This is relevant because vinyl is definitely a niche product at this point. The vast majority of music listeners don't know or care that records are still being pressed, and if you told them, they'd most likely say, "What for?!!?" If you think this is reminiscent of hi-rez...bingo! Consumers have the same reaction to SACD and DVD-A.

But guess what? Vinyl is alive and well. So why not hi-rez? And by 'why not', I don't mean, "Why do I think it should not succeed", but rather, "Why couldn't it succeed?" I too would prefer the ability to copy the hi-rez layer on my disks, but I don't really care that much. Regardless of my personal preferences, hi-rez may just succeed despite them.

 

[mecano]

Um there are millions of titles on vinyl and CD hanging around…

and almost nothing on hi-rez formats.Almost all of my audiophile and non-audiophile friends(male and female) know what a MD is (and some of them own one)of course none of them doesn't even know or care what SACD is.And I think it was Stereophile editor who said that SACD is like the monster of Frankenstein. it will turn against its master(Sony)and CD is like Count Dracula-it will live forever! Hell , even Eskimos know what a CD is!