Why DVD-A and SA-CD cannot succeed. (1 Viewer)

[Marvin]

OK, OK. I just found a $24.77 copy on eBay and bought it.

See what you made me do?

 

[Phil A]

Rachael, I don't follow car stereo that much either but have seen these type units in the store and while it is not something that I will likely end up buying (an old retired guy like me drives to the gym or out to dinner), they certainly look attractive if the price comes down and one can pull the hard drive out of the car and download files from home. While, I am not a downloader, I can certainly see the appeal of using it with something like that.

I still don't think cables are the worst thing about the set-up but I do undertand the posts about the costs of good quality cables. Yes I do think like an 'audio-vidiot' since that is not a factor for me. I make my own and have had friends sell $1k+ interconnects after borrowing what I made. I especially think it is more true at the low end of the market where someone buys a Pioneer 563 and takes it home and starts shopping for quality cables and then finds out the cost of using the player went up. I've seen it happen in a store (mass market one) where an annoyed customer came back to buy 3 pair of $30 Monster cables and was pretty unhappy about the $90 since his sales person said all he needs to hear all formats is a digital cable. He was even more annoyed when he found out he needs to keep the digital cable he bought to watch movies. I did say that education of sales people is important. I would hope that more manuals on the lower end are written better and that they throw in cheap cables so that someone does not have an experience like that which can't do hi-rez any good.

Yes, Mo-Fi's are priced high. I usually order them at CD Universe as they are usually $20.99 (which is still way too high for the general public) on pre-order or for a short time after the disc gets released for a bit. It even gets sillier when they release stuff like Lennon's 1st album and it is not on a hybrid, just a CD layer.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

I doubt they had anything to do with that; it was probably an estate (Yoko) decision.

 

[Phil A]

Michael, I agree, but it is still a lot of money for just a CD.

 

[LarryDavenport]

It was Yoko's decision, I think she will do a deal with EMI first. Plus now those that you bought the MOFI will have to double dip (make that quintuple dip if you bought all previous versions of the CD, or dectuple dip if you bought all the vinyl and tape permiatations as well).

 

[Rachael B]

I think we can all aggree that quite a few software providers are charging year 1, early adopter prices after 5 years of the format, not good. But, that's not everybody and there is some competatively priced software out there. Too few current titles at any price, particulary rock, is an ongoing grievence.

However, I think there's alot aggreement about the reasons the format is really floundering. We've all put our heads together and 2 reasons stand out.

1. Stupid connections and difficult set-up after that!

2. No automobile suppourt, period! This looks bigger to me all the time given the estimates of how much music many folks are listening to there.

 

[Rachael B]

Oh, ironically relative to this discussion anyway, Sound & Vision's latest episode (febuary/march) has an article about uni players with a big chart listing them all with their features.

I think Sony and Philips have hurt themselves and their format by not being on that chart!!! "...stupid is as stupid does..."

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

I think the biggest thing hurting the format is availability of low or mid cost universal players. If you don't have a player, why buy the software?

I don't think the media cost is out of line for the size of the market at this point, however, it certainly doesn't encourage second stage adopters to jump on board.

 

[Jay_J]

I'll give you hi-rez from a Canadian perspective. Dead on arrival, basically non-existant. Practically no hardware available now, and very little when it first arrived. Sony and Warner did no marketing of either format. We have a Sony store in our city that refused to even stock the small bit of software available a couple of years ago. That was when they had the SC-775 and XE-670 available.

I'm in a city of approximately 400,000 people. We have only one store that stocks any hi-rez titles....Best Buy. And even they only carry Sony and Universal sacds, nothing else. DVD-A is a bit better,titlewise, but again, nothing to jump up and down about. Prices, $22.99 up to $50.00 for GBYBR. The manager of the Best Buy has said he's probably going to get rid of the hi-rez titles, as they don't sell and are just taking up floor space. Even in Toronto, very little new titles available, all at high prices...Analogue CCR sacd's....$49.99 + 15% tax!!!!

The only thing keeping SACD and DVD-A alive at all are the internet stores

Maybe, as some have mentioned, hi-rez is growing in the far east, but in the great white north it doesn't even register a heartbeat!

Jay

 

[ElevSkyMovie]

Wow Jay, that's bleak. :frowning:

 

[Marc Colella]

I'll confirm what Jay has already mentioned.

Hi-Rez is basically non-existent in southern Ontario.

Prices for software is out of wack. The Dylan hybrids and Norah Jones are $30+. Why would anyone want to purchase those hybrids when the CD version is less then half the price?

Futureshop doesn't seem to carry any of the hybrids with the exception of The Police - which is $20+.

The very few small shops that have Telarc and Chesky SACDs price them close to $50. And I was pretty unhappy to see a used CD shop selling their SACDs for close to $30 and higher. Ridiculous.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

I'm not sure why things are so expensive in Canada. I'm always amazed how much fun Toronto can be but also how expensive it is.

 

[Bobby T]

Me thinks until prices and content get better on SA-CD & DVD-A I'm going to continue my torrid love affair with CdBaby

.

 

[Marc Colella]

If the high prices of hirez software was limited to Toronto, I would almost accept that since many things are more expensive there. However, it's the same for anywhere in Southern Ontario - so it's not just Toronto.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

I'll repeat a quote of mine from a past thread:



I can't take a car serious for critical listening any more than I could take my listening room serious if I was running a 60db box fan while auditioning music.

Car players are still essential for a format to be taken seriously, though.

 

[ElevSkyMovie]

I agree, Michael. I think surround in a car would be nice, but I don't see a need for dvd-audio or sacd. I would think a dts cd would be more than sufficient.

 

[Phil A]

"I can't take a car serious for critical listening any more than I could take my listening room serious if I was running a 60db box fan while auditioning music.

Car players are still essential for a format to be taken seriously, though."

I definitely agree with that and that is why I said to a degree hi-rez is a waste in a car. I too have heard the Acura DVD-A system, both not moving and one the road. The DVD-As sound better in the TL than they do on my DVD-V player in my MDX, but with CDs and the extra cabin space and sub in the MDX, I'm not so sure the system in the TL does anything better. The same holds true to DADs I tried. My friend works at the Acura dealer so I have lots of access to it. They do however need hi-rez car players that are at least a moderate upgrade.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

I'm not sure I follow the logic here...on the one hand you are saying that the sonics can't be noticeably improved by adding hirez, but on the other you are saying that the lack of automobile playback is a serious weakness. That seems inconsistent to me.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

Jay's experience is typical. It's the same in Western Canada, although there are more titles available, there is no hardware.

Also, on the industry side, there is ONE guy who can do SACD mastering. This is the home of one of the biggest studios on the planet, and no one is doing SACD mastering here.

 

[Rich Malloy]

While mainstreaming has its definite upside (and some downside, to be sure), I'd be satisfied if hi-res digital remains a niche format like LPs. After all these years, I still don't think they've been able to develop a phonograph for automobiles. Or a personally portable model.