Super Audio CDs Rolling Your Way

donutello writes "Slate is running an article about the Rolling Stones Remastered series discs having two layers: CD and SACD. The article contains some interesting information about how Sony is sneakily distributing SACD players without the buyers noticing it. This FAQ provides some information about SACDs. Don't expect to be able to play or reproduce these on your computer anytime soon. The SACD format contains a physical watermark on the disc. SACD players will only play discs with valid watermarks. Music watermarks had two opponents: The audiophiles who didn't like their music distorted and people who didn't like the watermarks preventing copying of the music. With the physical watermarks, they have found a way to appease the former while still stopping the latter thus causing a break in the ranks of the opposition."

Comments

Independent recording?

[Space Coyote]

Is the watermark system going to affect how people produce music? Say for example, the SACD format becomes adopted as the standard audio format. If I own a small record label, how am I supposed to distribute my bands' music? Will I have to pay some arbitrary royalty fee to someone like Sony just so people can listen to music? Will such fees and required equipment make the barrier to entry for the recording business significantly higher? This kind of thing affects many more people than just your average slashdotter with an mp3 habbit.

SACD, mp3, and more

[cheinonen]

First, if you're mad because you can't rip your SACD to an mp3 to listen to, then you're totally missing the point. Go buy a CD for that, it'll rip just fine, you can listen to it on your iPod, and everyone is happy. The point of buying something on SACD is to have far better sound quality, not to compress it down. SACD's secondary layer uses a DVD to hold the information, so that's 4.7 gigs of audio for the same amount of tracks.

The idea of buying something to listen to on your iPod, or in your car, or on your computer that is SACD makes no sense. You're going to have hardware that is holding you back far more than the qualify of the medium. Unless you're listening on a computer with a really nice DAC and some Grado RS1 headphones, you can probably stick to CD audio or mp3's and notice not much difference. However, if you are listening on a real stereo with decent speakers, then listening to a well made SACD compared to a CD will blow you away.

If I want to make a backup copy of my music, I can buy a copy on CD since I'm not going to be able to make a copy of a SACD myself anytime soon. To me, the compromise of incredibly high quality sound, that does beat the high end vinyl I've listened to, and having copy protection that doesn't interfere with that sound quality is a tradeoff I'm alright with. If you're mad over not being able to rip them for mp3's, then you should just buy the CD.

Re:SACD, mp3, and more

[Amoeba]

You said:

If I want to make a backup copy of my music, I can buy a copy on CD since I'm not going to be able to make a copy of a SACD myself anytime soon.

Ya know, I though that same thing too.... initially. See, the problem is what happens when the day arrives that the only format available in drives and media is SACD? Can't make archival exact copies of your own media. Can't get a replacement for the disc if gets scratched. So much for Fair Use.

And that's my problem with it. Call me kooky but I'm wary of companies that try the "Oooh.. look over there, SHINY!" distraction tactic while they take away my money/rights/stuff. Sony has lots of practice in that particular area.

Amoeba

Re:SACD, mp3, and more

[EllisDees]

>However, if you are listening on a real stereo with decent speakers, then listening to a well made SACD compared to a CD will blow you away.

Are you sure about that? Until I see a few double blind ABX tests comparing a SACD with a CD mastered from the same source, I'm going to have to consider it all marketing. "Ooh! This format can store *four times* more sound than the human ear can discern, where a CD can just produce a little more than anyone can possibly hear!"

Bleah.

Re:What kind of CD

[Neon Spiral Injector]

No, they have not been approved, this is a Sony "standard". DVD-A (DVD-Audio) is a real standard, and more labels than just Sony's are producing material in this format.

There are players than support both SACD and DVD-A, I guess those are okay, not that I'd touch a SACD. Sony does make SACD only players.

Here are some facts about Sony's SACD players. They don't have a digital output. So that $1500+ DAC that you have is going to do no good. Sony wants only analog coming out of their box. Sony says this will get you better quality, cause most recievers won't be able to decode the 96kHz/24-bit audio as well as their built in decoder. I think they are wrong. Just about anyone who is adopting the better than CD formats at this point will surely have a better quality DAC than what they put in the box.

I'm not sure about the region coding on SACDs, but I know for a fact that DVD-A don't have any sort of region coding on their audio only portion. They are like regular CDs. If they include a standard DVD session it can contain all the usual DVD codes, including regions, but the ones I've seen have been region free. Also the DVD-A players I've seen have had TOS-link and/or S/PDIF outs.

I have a full Sony setup at my house, but I'm not going to buy any more Sony gear. They are restricting content more and more, while other companies are freeing up more (see the majority of DVD players with region hacks, except Sony's). You can't trust a content provider to produce content players that let you use the content as you want.

Worse than hypocrisy...

[Wee]

...are people who not only get on their soapbox before knowing what they're talking about, but also tell us what the view is like from up there.

People here (and elsewhere) attack Microsoft for very good reasons: Microsoft is evil incorporate and puts its own interests far ahead of its users' needs (whether it be privacy, security, stability, etc) in a very heavy-handed and public way which makes for easy bashing. Many people also tend to be unfairly nasty towards them. Microsoft BOB, for example, got a very unjustified bad rap, as did the paper clip in Office and the jumping "search dog" in XP.

Is Sony any better or worse than MS? I don't know; I don't own any Sony stuff and I don't keep up on their practices. The new CD format thing sure does seem to suck, though, and judging from the ~50 comments I've read many people here agree it's a bad idea. They also appear to think that Sony aims to prevent fair use by adopting it. That sentiment would seem to be in opposition to your assessment of the Slashdot readers. So why all the harsh words?

You've come to the wrong place for unbiased opinions. You'd do better to complain about the weather.

-B