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SACD and DVD is only surround sound. Just imagine that you have a band playing around you in the middle.
Clearly from last week's survey, most of you feel that SACD and DVD-Audio are on the skids. But is it terminal? Do you think that high-resolution audio has a future?
I choose "Maybe" referring to the "general population" because they'll "generally" accept garbage, now high quality garbage (which is questionable it appears) "Maybe" another thing. For myself i say "Not likely" because any person with an "actual musical excellent taste" know that (at least the ones that haven't made the digital realm their god), there's a good chance that its a waste of their time amongst other things. Same song n' dance over n' over.
I choose "Maybe" referring to the "general population" because they'll "generally" accept garbage, now high quality garbage (which is questionable it appears) "Maybe" another thing. For myself i say "Not likely" because any person with an "actual musical excellent taste" know that (at least the ones that haven't made the digital realm their god), there's a good chance that its a waste of their time amongst other things. Same song n' dance over n' over.
I sure hope so, although it may get relegated to the same niche market that laserdisc did in the nineties. I love SACD's sound quality, but I only own a handful of discs. Most of what's available isn't music I actually listen to-it's music I demo. The biggest benefit to buying my SACD player so far is how much it improved the sound of Red Book CDs over my old player.
The bad news: Most people think MP3 sounds just fine, and they wield the the bulk ot the purchasing power. The good news: Even Red Book CD can sound great if done right. The reality: as usual, we audio nuts will be in the tiny minority, disregarded by the major music producers, playing the same few "demo" discs on our megabuck rigs, waiting for everyone else to wake up (they won't).
SACD hybrids with a Red Book CD layer would have to become the standard. If sold at the standard CD price, they can survive. I think the emphasis on multichannel material was a big mistake. Audiophiles have typically maxed out their budgets on two channel systems. Going multichannel would involve either a huge additional investment in hardware or a big step down in quality of components. Neither of these alternatives appeals to me.
High-rez music will at least survive as a niche market. Classical SACDs are doing reasonably well, considering that classical music as a whole is facing hard times, except Naxos. In fact, the saving grace is that most recordings are becoming more and more of a niche market, with the proliferation of formats and sub-sub-sub genres.
There is probably little future because digital audio is viewed as 'good enough'. Anything with a higher resolution than CD won't ever have a mass takeup -- unless a breakthrough in some other characteristic happens to carry a high-rez medium along with it. Plainly, mass-market playback systems would have to improve first. The sound potential from CD is still largely unrealised; that would be the first step along the line. However, improvements in technology seem to now be employed to reduce physical size (MP3 players, and integrated micro-systems with tiny speakers) rather than enhance sound. So I misdoubt that high-rez music media will ever reach critical mass on its own.
How about higher resolution analog media as a goal? Is there a better vinyl, for example? Until I get B-format Ambisonics on a digital disc, I'd rather stick with plain old affordable HDCDs and a player without pre-echo (e.g. Wadia or T+A) -- or better vinyl.
CD is very well established, with the high-end companies servicing this medium diligently. There is no clear winner in the CD/SACD/DVD-A sound-quality stakes. Recently, there have been reviews in Stereophile and other publications saying that sound quality from the latest CD players rivals that of the new formats, so what hope have they? I for one am not happy with CD playback quality within my price limits and get better high frequency detail and imaging from my old turntable, which cost one-third the price of my much vaunted CD player, so at the moment vinyl is the path for me. The question I'd like to ask is: how much do I have to pay for reasonable digital playback? If SACD or DVD-A can provide this at a reasonable price and the software companies release relevant recordings in these formats, maybe I'll give them a go.
Sure. A great many recordings these days (for any end format) usually start life as 24-bit (or greater) and 96kHz (or greater) LPCM. Moreover, "Wintel" PCs and Macs will increasingly incorporate sound CODECs of similar standards. Both new "blue-laser" type high-density audio-visual media will also use multichannel LPCM as their core audio system, with greater total bandwith capability than today's DVD carrier. I therefore believe that the transition to high-resolution audio and video combined will be a question of 'when', not 'if'. Meanwhile I see that standalone DVD-Audio and SACD releases will continue in their respective niches, while high-resolution DVD-Audio content will be seen increasingly either on DualDisc, or on standalone DVDs included in the same box as mainstream CD music albums (or on both).
High-rez most certainly has a future. Equally certain is that the audiophile community does not have enough market power to determine which format becomes dominant. CD is more than 20 years old, and sooner or later entrepreneurs in the record industry will realize that it is unrealistic for consumers to pay top dollar for a product that is obsolete. A good start would be if Sony released its entire catalog on both DVDA and SACD. SACD clearly isn't driving their corporate profits much ... what do they have to lose?