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More on DVD-Audio and SACD
Spock the Baptist writes "This article at CNN covers the drive of manufacturers to get the public to convert from the CD format to two relatively new formats, DVD-Audio, and Super Audio Compact Disk. The manufacturers cite the superior audio quality, and 3-dimensionality of the new formats' reproduction as the reasons for customers to embrace these formats. The article also goes on to say: "An added bonus for record companies and retailers, who are engaged in a battle against piracy, is that the relative complexity of DVD-Audios and SACDs makes them much harder to copy. At the same time, that might turn some consumers off the format.""
People aren't going to buy into another format change just yet. Especially since it'll involve buying a whole new system to get the "benefits". 16bit/44.1 audio CDs are here to stay, for at least another 10 years. I mean jeez, most people actually think mp3's and CDs burned from them sound good enough!!!
...
The only hope the labels have is to release exclusive content on SACD and artists arent gonna stand for that
the 'slide
"Corporate rock still sucks. What are you gonna do about it?"
But - to get me to buy a new player and a new library of music..
You'll definitily need to buy a new player to play those, but why would you buy a new library of music? It would seem logic to me that those players are backward compitable, it uses an DVD drive, and DVD drives can play CD's...
If at first you don't succeed, then sky diving definitely isn't for you.
Casettes broke and were non-random access. CD were vastly more reliable, and you could skip the filler tracks on most contract-bands. Oh, and they sounded better.
.... Maby when I get a third ear, I'll need the third speaker.
My point being - what non-quality reasons are there for me to move to these new formats?
I've already moved my mucic to a network: I can access all of my music anywhere there's a net connection and there are no jewel cases to lose.
Be damed if I'm going back to physical media just to gain 'headroom' or for a third channel...
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
That might constitute a bad example. I think that record companies distributed Heavy Metal bands on vinyl far longer than any other genre because the improved quality of CDs just didn't make any discernable difference to either the listeners or to the music.
Let's face it: primarily the record companies moved us all to CDs to allow them to let slide their back catalog of LPs and secondarily because CD sound is better. I don't want to hear that the sound is better from any "audiophiles" either. Audiophiles are the same morons who bought distilled water from discWasher for $5 for 4 ounces and buy "directional" speaker cables today and who use a green magic marker on the rim of their CDs. And then claim to be able to hear phase-shift distortion in CD music.
Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
Ignoring the copyright issues for a second...
It seems to me, the cost of CDs is a sore point with some (many?) consumers already. Why would anyone think think those same consumers would rush out to adopt a new technology that's likey going to be more expensive?
It is quite simple
Haiku should not be funny
Try a Senryu
Basically, yeah - I'm with you on this one.
The public only switched from LP and cassette to CD because it was several magnitudes of order better. (No more rewinding and fast-forwarding tapes that tend to wear out, or accidently get erased when someone runs by them with the vacuum cleaner. No more flipping the record over to hear the other half of the album. No more background hiss or pops and clicks.)
In fact, I'd wager that the actual ability for CD to reproduce sound more faithfully than the other formats was the *last* thing on people's list of reasons to switch, truth be told. (Most of the consumers who raved about CDs sounding so much better were really referring to the afore-mentioned lack of pops, clicks, tape hiss, or warbling effects of a turntable not spinning at the perfect speed, or tape transport mechanism slipping. They weren't really referring to improved high-frequency response, etc.)
(Heck, most of the CD players people first purchased were built onto sub $200 boom-boxes, that certainly weren't paragons of quality audio reproduction!)
The public simply won't switch formats again, simply on claims of "better than CD quality" sound. Most people won't even be able to notice the improvements, when they go to check this new technology out.
SACDs and DVD-Audios, when coupled with the right speakers, sound superior to regular CDs.
"if you're working around the house, then it (the enhanced sound) doesn't really matter."
In order to get the benefit, you have to be sitting right in the middle of the stereo (or surround) field of your new $600 Klipsch speakers, with a new $500 deck, $550 reciever, and maybe a nice preamp. Also, the difference in dynamic range between 16 bits (CD) and 24 (DVD-Audio), while nice, isn't even going to be noticed on any piece of music destined for the radio, because they compress it into oblivion before it gets anywhere near the station, let alone your reciever.
(Pop in any rock album from the last 10 years. Watch the levels -- they won't vary more than about 10dB. Do the same with a Beethoven Piano Sonata. The levels are all over the place.)
You've also got to care. The only people who are interested in this are classical music fans (so we can hear the difference between the 300-year-old Stradivarius and the 275-year-old Stradivarius), and the muscians, producers, and engineers who think that everyone's an audiophile too.
I'm not even sure that I'd want to hear Britney on SACD. It would probably rupture my eardrums.
Amen. Glad someone else thinks as I do. I guess everyone needs to feel that they're special, eh? :) I recently got a Dolby Digital capable stereo system (the old shelf-top Aiwa crapped out, $200 for ~3 yrs, not bad). Panasonic's shelf-top, Dolby Digital 5.1 system for $250 at Circuit City seemed a decent buy. I'm happy with it - my DVDs sound discernably more clear than through the analog RCA jack connection. I don't have the rear surrounds hooked up (doesn't make sense in my apt.), but having a cleaner sound is nice.
... c'mon. How many folks out there are perfectly happy listening to 128kbps MP3s now, and you're selling more hi-fi sound than CDs? Nevermind the signal processing that systems like Bose's live audio do to translate a normal stereo signal into multiple surround channels, in an effort to "encompass" the listener with the music ... think what you might about those technologies, but they already exist and I dare say we don't need much of anything better!
Now, talking with my bro this morning (owner of a multi-thousand dollar home theatre system w/ THX EX, DTS ES, and all the other acronyms) and I have to say - I doubt that the subtle differences between Dolby Digital 5.1, THX, and DTS are even perceptible, lest you have a special room that you've sound proofed, dampened, accounted for any possible standing waves, etc.
Same goes for the higher quality D/A conversion on the SACD and such
Cheers.
...there is an entirely new form factor.
8track->cassette->CD
Super8->VHS->DVD
LP's are in there somewhere, along with all the lost formats (DAT, ElCassette, Minidisc, etc)
With each new toy, there was a real form factor change along with a fidelity change.
A 5" round thing that looks like a CD, plays in what looks like a CD player, plays only music, plays music at no real discernable quality gain, yet costs significantly more, and carries the potential of no copying...
That's dead before it leaves the gate.
At least come up with some new player and format. Maybe a solid state chip or something. Not just another "CD".
That it is possible for a person to tell the difference between brands of instruments simply by hearing them is not in dispute, whether it is true or not. My problem is with the garden-variety audiophile working at the local A/V specialty shop, who looks positively assaulted when you suggest that you might want to listen to your heavy metal or new age CD's when auditioning equipment there. As in, "You can't possibly get anything more out of that music from our equipment that a pair of $50 KLH 2-ways wouldn't give you."
It's fine to know a lot about audio. I applaud people who are experts in a field (well, most fields, anyway). But one shop has already lost my business because the fools who ran the shop were elitist assholes who refused to admit the mere possibility that I can tell the difference between Megadeth played on a shitty $300 setup and Megadeth played on a $2,000 system.
After an awful experience purchasing a (great) HSU subwoofer from this store, I then proceeded to drop over $2,000 at a competitor, Ensemble Audio in Arlington, MA, because the salesfolks there were both audiophiles (in the literal sense) and great guys (in letting me listen to my music the way I wanted to). I highly recommend them, by the way.
Power to the free market!
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