[RobertR]

anyone seen the current issue of Absolute Sound and the rave review of the Sony sacd player for 250.00.
This makes sacd a serious contender.
I've always been a little skeptical of A.S. beacause they can't rid themselves of their holy grail: analogue recording which they always use as their reference.

 

[Calanctus]

They are not the only ones to use analogue recording as their Grail.

But lately they have run some articles praising multichannel sound (by none other than J Gordon Holt himself). They seem to be a bit more open than Stereophile (for example, TAS reviews DVD-A and SACD releases, Stereophile seems not to).

 

[RobertR]

I still have the first issue of stereophile 1962 when the father of hi fi J. Gordon Holt was editor and publisher. That issue dealt with tinnitus and phasing of stereo headphones among other things.
among the recommended components in those days?
Class A: Beyer DT-48, DT-90 $79.00 & 49.95

Class B:Koss PRO-4 $ 48.00

Class C:Superex ST series,Sharpe HA-10,Jensen HS-1 $29.95

Class D: Koss SP-3 $24.95

You could trust those guys back then.

excuse the lapse into nostalgia.

 

[mbriant]

There's a pattern that develops with high end audio manufacturers and the magazines they support ( with advertising )

All the high end turntable manufacturers ( and magazines ) totally crapped over CDs for the first few years until CD's massive consumer acceptance made it economic suicide to continue to do so. ( Linn's an excellent example....after several years of strong anti- CD sentiment, the CD format was suddenly OK once Linn had a $10,000 CD player for sale ) Same thing with the high end mags. Now there was advertising to be had.

Many of the high end audio manufacturers crapped over video products for the first few years until video started gaining too much consumer interest. ( and taking too much money away from audio-only purchases.) Then they started making high end (read "high priced") Dolby decoders, multi-channel amps etc. The high end audio mags followed suit with acceptance and editorial coverage because now again there was advertising to be had.

If you were to go back a few years and pull out opinionated quotations from the owners and marketing managers of high end audio equipment, and from the publishers and editors of high end audio mags, you'll find most of them eventually become hypocritical to some degree or other.

 

[elambo]

mbriant - I have to agree with you about companies completely dissing the CD during it's launch - they all did. But 20 years later CD technology has improved enough to at least compete at even the highest levels of vinyl playback. Now these companies have all rolled over into supporting CDs, but CDs have improved since the first Bruce Springsteen CD. Both the recording and playback convertors and filters have improved so much that Linn no longer has a case, but I think they did in the 80's. Back then CD was definitley an improvement over cassettes, but it was still a little harsh.

Not really a concern anymore with a properly recorded SACD.