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I guess I don't really care.
Industry representatives for both SACD and DVD-Audio claim they are not in a format war with each other. Do you disagree with them?
It isn't Beta vs VHS for one simple reason: A single machine with minimal added hardware (or maybe even software) can play BOTH discs and DVD Video, as well. We are done with format wars as we know them. Now we just add standards as we go. It's all about universal players. Format wars are the result of lazy or greedy manufacturers; they only want to promote their own format, but there is no physical reason not to just use whatever you want and let the player figure it out.
If, and I repeat IF, there was ever a format war between SACD and DVD-A it is over and the winner is: 5ISD (5 Inch Shiny Disk). Outside the arcane world we audiophiles inhabit nobody sweats the fact the 5ISD come in a variety of formats containing data ranging from computer operating systems to video games to the latest first run movies. Some devices read a wide variety of 5ISD and others just a few and we accept it as a part of living in this wild and zany 21st century. Welcome to The Future. But oh so many audiophiles long not for the 21st century but rather the always rosy
No, there is no war between the SACD and DVD-A camps because NOBODY CARES! Other than Tower Records, Best Buy, and Circuit City you can't walk into a store and buy any of the discs. How can you call that a WAR?! It's more like a bad boxing match on the Fox TV network. Celebrity boxing is more fun than high-rez audio right now. War, huh! You have got to be kidding me! ROTFLOL!
I invested in CD technology way back at the start, because everyone agreed to one standard, for better or for worse. If all the labels could get together on one format, it might stand a chance of becoming a niche market. Now both high-rez formats are still oddities.
I expect I'll probably end up with players and software from both SACD and DVD-A, but yes they are in conflict. After all, neither has made a serious attempt to appeal to the mass market, and the small audiophile community has only so many dollars to spend. The tragedy is that the competition over best may drive out 'better'. Which means that music lovers lose
It will be a war until there are universal players which do a great job on DVD, DVD-A,SACD and Red Book CDs. Then the war will slowly go away. But the industry needs to hurry up and get these machines out there. I don't think consumers are willing to commit to one format or the other. So the industry will end up destroying high-rez audio.
how can there be a war when no one has any ammunition!? there are, however, casualties: the early adopters who always like to get in on the ground floor. now they're standing there looking upstairs with NO STAIR. i have noticed, however, that the local HMV (do those letters somehow stand for poor selection, shitty prices, and lousy discounts) has a number of jazz titles on SACD. but why bother? luckily, i wasn't one of the stupid/gullible folk who sold all my vinyl when the "perfect sound forever" was introduced. i don't understand how people can be suckered more than once in a lifetime. as i type this i am listening to stevie ray vaughn's texas flood on my new project debut/creek 4330/paradigm mini monitors...3-5 albums for $20 OR $1000 for an SACD player and $30+ for SACDs? as public enemy said "don't believe the hype"
There is no way this could be called a war. War, to me, denotes something of size. With the very poor market penetration we have with these formats it amounts to no more then a dual using blanks. This is not on John Q. Public's radar and without mass sales volumes neither one can survive.
It's a war since you have to make a decision which one you will support unless you want (and have the money) to buy two separate players. As I understand it, a choice means having two or more alternatives and once you decide on one, you cancel the access (at least momentarily) to the others.
I don't think so. Vinyl has been around forever, right along with reel, cassette and CD(now over 20 years old. Just as they learned to use better quality Vinyl, improved oxides for magnetic tape, and over/upsampling to decrease audibility of brickwall filters(less audio note), they will fix the aluminum oxide problem with all those crappy little plastic disks, and maybe even come up with a coating to reduce scratches (think lightweight eye glasses). I personally prefer vinyl and dvd-audio. SACD sounds too single bit-oversampled and thin. Maybe thats just me. It's a big hifi world and there will always be something for everyone.