CNN article critical of SACD and DVD-A (1 Viewer)

[Josh Lowe]

Rife with misinformation..
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/ptech/1....ap/index.html

 

[Jed M]

I actually didn't find the article too incorrect. I think think the headline "New discs: Unfriendly but better sound" is justified, or at least I would agree. If these two formats don't get their act together I don't see either surviving very long even though I do enjoy listening to DVD-A. Time can't move fast enough for 3/3/3's release of "Dark Side of the Moon" (talk about an album made for multi channel sound).

 

[AustinKW]

Have you ever noticed that when you read an article in the media about something you really know about the "information" is invariably incorrect, incomplete and over-simplified? Kinda makes you wonder why, when you read something you don't know a lot about, you tend to believe what you read. Hmmmm.

Austin

 

[Jack Briggs]

I don't see anything wrong with the story. It's an essentially correct piece of reporting aimed at a non-audiophile readership. The simple fact is, most people still haven't even heard of the formats.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

The simple fact is, most people still haven't even heard of the formats.

And it's no wonder. I stopped by Best Buy today to use a 10% discount on music coupon and hopefully add a couple of SACDs to my collection (I upgraded to a SACD/CD player a couple of weeks ago). Well, they only had a handful of titles, and they were tucked away next to the DVD players, on the complete opposite side of the store from the rest of the music CDs.

I ended up only buying The Rolling Stones: Hot Rocks, which was located in the regular music section. However, this title has absolutely no labelling to indicate that it is a hybrid SACD/CD, so very people would even realize this was a SACD disc.

 

[DeanR]

Scott, I noticed the same thing regarding the new Rolling Stones discs. Why don't they at least have a sticker saying they have a SACD format music on them?? I don't have a player yet, so I can't take advantage of this option, but I am completely mystified why they wouldn't trumpet this capability all over the plastic packaging. Another reason why I question if this format will make it.

 

[greg_t]

Scott,

I'm not sure about your Best Buy, but my local ones have a bigger selection of DVD-Audio and SACD titles actually in the dvd department. At my local one, they are in the same area as the Music DVD's. You might want to take a look in that area the next time you're there. Mine has a few titles by the dvd players like you said, but they have many more in the actual dvd department.

 

[Brent_H]

I have a couple of questions about that CNN article:

1) I think the whole copy-protection issue is bogus on this high-end audio formats. If you are going to invest in DVD-A/SACD formats, its obviously for sound quality reasons, putting it on MP3 and playing it in your car would be...for lack of a better word, RETARDED. I am fine with the record companies copy-protecting them anyways, just for preventive reasons. Anyone who wants to turn their HIGH RESOLUTION audio discs into MP3's should be slapped. That's sac-religious.

2) It mentioned that comapnies aren't putting digital outs on their SACD/DVD-A players right now because they want to wait for a "secure" format or whatever.....Well, how is a digital output going to improve the sound over the analog 5.1 hookups? I thought SACD sounded so good despite the analog hookups....and I figured they never planned on having digital outs. Maybe I am amiss, but please explain.....

End.

 

[John Kotches]

Brent,

By using a digital transfer you gain a few things.

1) You go from 6 cables to 1, easing setup.

2) All digital inputs have identical handling to the end user, also easing setup.

3) The same tools for Bass Management, Time Alignment (and eventually) Room EQ will be at your disposal.

Regards,

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I'm not sure about your Best Buy, but my local ones have a bigger selection of DVD-Audio and SACD titles actually in the dvd department.

Greg,

All three Best Buys in my area do have a small selection of DVD-Audio and DTS CDs in the DVD-Video section. However, they are stuffed on a bottom shelf, where you have to get down on your hands and knees just to look through the titles. There are no SACD titles in this section -- there are only a handful of SACD titles tucked away in the DVD/CD hardware section of the stores.

Luckily, I discovered that the local Dearborn Music store within walking distance of where I work has a bin with DVD-Audio and SACD titles, and they were marked at a 20% discount. That makes them competitive with the online prices I've seen, and they had a decent selection of titles.

 

[Thomas Newton]

1) I think the whole copy-protection issue is bogus on this high-end audio formats. If you are going to invest in DVD-A/SACD formats, its obviously for sound quality reasons, putting it on MP3 and playing it in your car would be...for lack of a better word, RETARDED. I am fine with the record companies copy-protecting them anyways, just for preventive reasons. Anyone who wants to turn their HIGH RESOLUTION audio discs into MP3's should be slapped. That's sac-religious.

I find the copy protection to be an excellent reason to avoid both formats. Just because a car or portable player or computer might not be as high-resolution as your main stereo system does not imply that you only want to listen to music in one place.

I for one do not feel like buying multiple copies of the same prerecorded album in multiple prerecorded formats just to enrich the coffers of a record label that's deliberately taking steps to cripple their products.

The whole bit about not being able to pull music into a computer to make compilations is another drawback.

Finally, I don't care for having vendors treat me like a criminal. Funny how that makes me close my wallet.

 

[Brent_H]

Thomas....you make a good point, but IMO, XM is the way to go in the car Sound quality isn't there but it sure is fun to hear a song I haven't heard in years

 

[Philip Hamm]

Rife with misinformation

I must have missed all that "misinformation", the article seems right on the mark to me.

 

[MikeSh]

What am I missing here? The Toshiba 4800 is a DVD-A player that has the 5.1 analog outputs and it has an opticl digital output. The specs on it do say that the digital out isn't at full strength, Mhz or something, whatever. Sorry I don't remember the technical term they used. But it does have a digital out that can be used on DVD-A. So who says they don't have digital out for these?

MikeS.

 

[Bill Law]

Doesn't the Pioneer 49TXi/47Ai combo get full digital out?
And Denon digital link?
And Meridian?
Any more to come?

 

[Josh Lowe]

Doesn't the Pioneer 49TXi/47Ai combo get full digital out?
And Denon digital link?
And Meridian?
Any more to come?

Exactly, but apparently "there's no misinformation" in the article. Not to mention the whole J6P tone of "they're not user friendly", give me a f'n break. How difficult is it to put a disc in and press play?

 

[Scott Merryfield]

The Pioneer, Denon and other digital connection solutions for DVD-Audio and/or SACD multi-channel support are all proprietary (i.e. you can't digitally connect a Pioneer DVD-A/SACD player to a Denon receiver).

What am I missing here? The Toshiba 4800 is a DVD-A player that has the 5.1 analog outputs and it has an opticl digital output. The specs on it do say that the digital out isn't at full strength, Mhz or something, whatever. Sorry I don't remember the technical term they used. But it does have a digital out that can be used on DVD-A. So who says they don't have digital out for these?

The Toshiba (and just about every other brand) players will not send DVD-Audio or SACD signals through their digital audio outputs. You must use the 5.1 analog outputs on these players for those audio formats. The digital connections only support Dolby Digital, DTS and PCM signals.

 

[David Susilo]

what's wrong with the article? it's pretty dead-on.

 

[Han]

Not to mention the whole J6P tone of "they're not user friendly", give me a f'n break. How difficult is it to put a disc in and press play?

My impression was that this isn't always the case. I can't remember which titles, but I remember when auditioning some DVD-A discs a while back that some go by the DVD-Video style. Not a simple insert and press play thing, but more of an insert, select the audio format, then press "enter" (not "play").

 

[Ian Montgomerie]

The article is right on the mark. There are serious problems with these technologies that mean they are of little interest to the average consumer, even if the available titles were plenty (they're not... there are several hundred titles available but they are mostly typical "audiophile" stuff aimed mainly at the taste of older males). The major manufacturers are well aware that these formats are not CD replacements, they are and always will be a smaller market.

First, the new formats only have two real attractions to the consumer. They can support uncompressed multichannel playback, and they can support higher bit depths and sampling frequencies.

Multichannel playback is nice, but although 5.1 setups are becoming popular, most people still don't have them. Those that do, almost all just have one setup in their living room. None on their PC, the stereo in their bedroom, the headphones on their walkman, etc. So for most listening purposes, the multichannel is useless.

The higher bit depths and sampling frequency are also not very useful. CD was reasonably well designed. It is really "just about enough" to take advantage of actual real-world musical content, recording processes, effects, and playback devices. No matter how much data you can cram onto a disc, you can get only slightly better than CD in terms of , and getting even slightly better requires you to have a really good process to minimize recording noise, to run digital effects and mixing on the music in the right way, to mix it to take advantage of the full dynamic range, etc. On SACD taking advantage of the slight improvement is even harder because very expensive, custom hardware is recommended to take "proper" advantage of the DSD stream.

Not only are the highest bit depths and frequencies of both DVD-A and SACD about as useful as teats on a bull (except for selling to audiophiles who will conveniently believe the music is vastly better once they've noticed the "incredible stats" of the hardware), in reality most people don't perceive such very small audible differences as quality differences. (For example, 256 kilobit MP3 is audibly _different_ from MP3 at least on certain bitstreams. But a while ago a German publication ran a blind test of 256 kilobit MP3 vs. CD, asking a bunch of audiophiles to pick which sounded _better_ when played back on some very expensive systems. The audiophiles behaved as if they were flipping coins, they did not consistently rate more CD streams than MP3 streams as better quality. I expect something similar to hold for DVD-A and SACD, you can measure some differences on a scope, but as for reliably perceived quality difference, it's a dubious prospect on most content).

Measured against the limited advantages, are huge disadvantages: analog-only outputs, copy protection schemes, and for DVD-A, the menu system.

The analog only outputs are really nasty for the average consumer. To hear this stuff at higher-than-CD quality at all, you need a receiver with 6 channel analog inputs. These cost enough extra that I expect they're a minority of all receivers sold. Older receivers with analog inputs will often digitize them at 48 KHz so effects can be run on the input... oops. Or you could buy a HTiB system with SACD support built in, but buying a new integrated system to get SACD is not the greatest idea. Even if you have the 6 channel input on your receiver, it is a hassle of an extra connection.

The copy protection schemes are another huge disadvantage. Basically you can't get any copy at more than CD quality. So again, this is really limiting you to just being able to play it in your living room. Even if you have 96 KHz playback on your PC, or got some hot stuff 96 KHz walkman next year, you couldn't transfer the music to hard disc or flash card to play on these other devices. You couldn't burn a copy to put in your car's new SACD player, while leaving the main one in your changer at home. Etc.

Then on DVD-A there is the problem of the menu system. The discs use different menus to start playback, so unless you memorize the start sequences for all the different publishers, you basically have to have it hooked up to a TV to actually start the disc. So DVD-A players anywhere but hooked up to your TV are an inconvenient proposition even if you have a surround sound system away from your TV.