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In Reply to: DVD-Audio, are we waiting in vain, what's the deal man?? posted by audioman on March 30, 2001 at 01:12:33:
1. SACD hybrid discs are backward compatible with CD players. Last year 50 million CD players were sold versus 5 million DVD players. You can't play DVD-A in your car, PC, boombox, or non-DVD based stereo system. Many DVD-A owners need to also buy a CD of their favorate albums. I own about 30 SACDs. I own none of these on CD or LP, but I am thinking about buying one, Abraxas, which by the way, I own in LP and CD remastered. This SACD is getting rave reviews.2. SACD does not require a video monitor.
3. SACD sounds better.
4. SACD has a better stereo tracks than DVD-A.
5. SACD's copy protection has no effect on the audio signal, DVD-A's does. The Forum still hasn't solved this problem. (Sony's protection detection occurs only in the player. The signal is imprinted on the disc, and is kept separate from the audio signal. Since many DD/DTS decoders are in the preamp, receiver, or separate DAC/processor, detection needs to occur with the processor--so the copy protection signal must be embedded into the audio signal.)
6. Much of the DVD-A hardware has been mid-fi (e.g. Panasonic A7, JVC). Even the step-up Technics A-10 and Denon are no competition for the lowest priced SACD player, the SCD-333ES.
7. Much of the current DVD-A software is poorly engineered.
8. There's over 400 SACDs available world-wide--about 40 DVD-As. EMI, Linn, and Virgin just released their first SACDs. Now over 10 Labels produce SACDs. Right now, only Warner and DTS are the main DVD-A producers.
9. In this month's Stereophile Recommendation List, in the A+ category there's 4 CD players recommended. Three are SACD players, and the fourth is a $15,000 Meridian CD player. There's no DVD-A player anywhere in the Recommended list. Not even Class D.
10. The latest The Absolute Sound states that they will increase their coverage of SACD hardware and software.
11. Sony is coming out with $300 and $400 list SACD players this summer. SACD is being added to Sony's Dream Systems.
12. I bought two DVD-A players (a $500 and $600 player) and returned them both. CD, DVD-V audio, and DVD-A wasn't good enough. I thought this was a cheap way to a universal player. I now have 3 DVD-As (Nevelle, Merchant, and Nelson), which are supposed to be the best DVD-As, sitting on the shelf gathering dust. I can play the Nevelle in compressed DD, but it's too grainy. SACD has spoiled me.
Now, why is SACD going to take a big fall?
Follow Ups:
Paraphrasing a comment posted on the Naim forum recently, SACD fans should poll their coworkers and friends as to how many non - audiophiles need a new medium that has better than CD sound. Don't forget to mention that to get that better - than - CD sound they'll have to replace their current music collection at $30 a disk.
are irrelevant in 2001. If they're not interested in 2005, that's another story.
Please cite another medium that succeeded without mass market support. Elcaset? Betamax? DBX encoded LPs?The mass market has already chosen the medium to replace CDs, and it's MP-3 or other similar highly compressed downloading formats. Convenience trumps quality, always has.
the mass market is completely irrelevant in the early stages of any new product introduction. The length of the "early stage" varies depending on the type of product. For consumer electronics, the "early stage" is typically measured in years, not months.
No medium survives solely by appealing to a niche audience, no matter if it's better than existing alternatives. Just look at what happened to Betamax - most people agreed that the picture quality was superior to VHS, then bought VHS anyway because the latter format could hold a few hours more at the slowest speed. Getting "early adopters" to buy a new technology is a step to mass marketing the technology, not an end in itself.SACD is unfortunately a medium without a reason to exist other than to enable Sony to milk some new money from their existing patents and licenses (and also to screw with DVD-A by intentionally sewing confusion about "format wars" among consumers). How many audiophiles are there in the USA? A few hundred thousand maybe? Once Sony sells an SACD player to every one of them, growth of SACD stops. Unlike, for example, DVD which has an obvious qualitative superiority to VHS on just about any TV, the average consumer will not see any reason to buy an SACD player. Plain old Redbook CD sounds great on their Bose lifestyle system or boombox or car audio system. The growth of Napster has largely been fueled by consumer resitance to the price of CDs; do you really think that people who balked at paying $16 for a Limp Bizkit CD will happily pay $30 for a Limp Bizkit SACD?
I hate to say this, but to my knowledge Sony get a royalty payment on DVD-A anyway! The arguements for SACD are really negated by the source material. Its ok to select source material that is well recorded, or remaster material that was badly mastered. But having been privy to equipement that vastly outperforms CD and SACD on a technical level, all I can say is any difference you are hearing is not really down to these players. 16 bit recording can quite easily outperform a lot of equipement in the studio chain, and almost anything available to the home listener. During a recording sesion, air noise of -60db onto tape is considered to be very, very good. Indeed I record in some very good accoustics that are considered to be some of the finest venues for recording and we often are working with background noise in excess of this. I often transfer material recorded on many different formats to CD, and I can tell you that what you get on the CD is exceedingly close to the original masters.
The bigest difference in the sound is usually the DA conversion in the CD player itself, together with the amplification and speakers. In actual fact I saw a CD from a well known record company where they claimed a 24bit recording which was covered with artificial 16bit reverb. How did I know the reverb was artificial? I record in the same venue, with the same band and it has very little ambience. Consequently my recording also had more detail and was definately 16bit.Roland
to have a clue about marketing. Stick to two-bit reviews or consider a career in politics. Either would suit you better.
Enjoy your wide variety of Jennifer Lopez and Toto SACD disks, pal. In a year or two when Sony drops support for the medium you can apologize.
been babbling on and on about what you erroneously believe I've said. Reading comprehension is obviously not a strength of yours.***Enjoy your wide variety of Jennifer Lopez and Toto SACD disks, pal. In a year or two when Sony drops support for the medium you can apologize.***
I couldn't care less and besides, who do you think you are? Beijing?
nt
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