With CD sales still in a slump, will the industry give DVD-A or SACD a second chance? (1 Viewer)

[Marc Colella]

Actually, that wouldn't be smart at all.
There's very little interest in the hi-rez formats and hybrid SACDs cost more to produce than CDs, so why would labels want to decrease their profits?

The other day at work I noticed just how unimportant sound quality is to people. Someone purchased a CD and ripped it to MP3. He then offered the MP3s and CD copy to his co-workers. Noone wanted a CD copy (even though the blank CDs are available to all employees at no charge) and all opted for the MP3s. I know it's anecdotal, but I think this is somewhat indicative of consumer's mindset.

The overwhelming majority of people don't concentrate on music. It's background noise while they're doing other things. Sound quality is not noticed and certainly isn't a concern with most people.

I think the music industry has known this for some time that the answer to slumping CD sales isn't higher quality sound.

 

[Phil A]

I concur. They need to cope with medicrity at prices the public feels are too high. They can make some money off selected hi-rez themselves or farming it out, but it is clear it is too small a market in the sceme of problems. What I find somewhat odd is that when a DVD is new one can buy it on sale at places like Circuit City or Best Buy for $15-17. Then it might sit for $20 for a bit and when it gets a year or so older you might see it for $10 or less. CDs are on sale when they come out and years after that you go into Circuit City or Best Buy and it is regular price - $14.99. There may be some things in the bargain bin for $9.99 or there but you hardly ever see $5.99 CDs by mainstream artitsts on mainstream labels the way you might see DVDs. Downloading is an issue but only part of the problem. When the record cos. have paid big bucks to so-so artists and release albums that are not necessarily quality from start to finish and tend to stay higher priced it just does not do anything to cut-down on downloading. It likely adds to the problem.

 

[Marvin]

They tried that on the Stones' back-catalog CDs but then dropped the SACD layer due, I assume, to lack of interest.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

They never asked me if I was interested or not. If EVERY CD put out since 2002 had an SACD layer on it, then the record or electronics companies could keep telling people "Hey, this is a cool new format and you've ALREADY got stuff to play on it!" There wouldn't have to be separate SACD sections in stores either, just put them in with the regular CDs and put big stickers on the front explaining that they can be played right now in any CD player, but if you upgrade your sound system you'll get even more out of it. They just haven't pushed it even a fraction of how hard they should have. If I were in charge of marketing and getting stuff put out, SACD wouldn't fail until after it really had been given a chance with 100% of the public.

I don't think I will EVER see what the attraction of MP3 is to anybody. The only good thing I can say about it is that it's an efficient way to deliver sound over the internet, but not a substitute for an actual CD. I got a free portable MP3 player from my job a few months ago, and I've put all the music that will fit on it but I never actually use it. At home I'll listen to the CD, I've got a CD player in the car too, and anywhere else I'd rather listen to the real world than music- makes it a lot easier to not get run over!

 

[Dave Moritz]

I agree, I other than the ability to store alot of music on a small player. I see no reason to use MP3 and I don't see the attraction. I don't see pc's as audiophile quality so that may be another reason I don't listen to music on my pc. Another big reason is that I feel that pc speakers leave alot to be desired. The sound cards in pc's are getting alot better but they keep marketing these tiny toy speakers for the computer. I would rather listen to CD's even though I have riped over 300 CD's to my hard drive. I have a really nice set of Sinnheiser HD-555 headphones and I still dont want to be tied to the computer listening to mp3's. And I rip my mp3's at 192kHz so I know its not becuase I am ripping at under cd resolution. IMHO even if someone was to rip mp3's at full bandwith you can not make 16bit CD audio sound better than it does allready. Your master will always limit you audio wise. You can oversample audio and video but there is allways a point where you reach the limitations and you ether do not see or hear any differnece what so ever.

As far as the Roling Stones SACD hybird discs go I wish I had gone out and purchased ever one that was available. Maybe I will just have to go find used copies of these discs.

 

[Marc Colella]

The thing is you don't have to be tied to the computer to listen to music.

MP3s are extremely convenient is so many settings, all you need is a player that supports them. The portability and quantity are definite advantages.

For years commuting to work by train I would rarely see anyone listening to music. The past 2 or 3 years it's incredible how many people have MP3 players.

Personally I love having an MP3 player on the train, and listen to MP3s on my PC (I work in IT so that's a lot of time). I prefer CD/SACD listening when I'm at home, but it's not hard to understand why others find more value in MP3.

If people don't notice the decrease in sound quality going from CD to MP3, what makes you think they'll notice the improved sound quality that SACD has to offer? For those who do notice the "small" difference in sound between MP3, CD and SACD, would they be willing to sacrifice conveniece to "upgrade"?

 

[Dave Moritz]

I don't own an MP3 player and I keep finding it hard to justify buying one. There is not alot of times I would use it. I have on a few ocations hooked up my pc to my HT system and with my Altec Voice Of The Theater A-7's MP3's even at 192kHz sound like MP3's. I dont have pc speakers because I can not find PC speakers I can stand that are good enough to listen to on a regular basis. I use Musicmatch Jukebox to rip my MP3's so I know its not the software thats creating the MP3's. I can even play MP3's in my Denon DVD-2200 but I do not play MP3's that way ether. Even though I can put alot of songs on a CD and play alot of music without having a CD jukebox player. I am a big supporter of new technologies like SACD, DVD-A, HD-DVD, Bluray, Dolby Digital, DTS, Dolby True HD and DTS-HD. So I know its not a matter of being affraid of technology or not believing that new tecnology can outperform the old. I just don't care for MP3 even though my roomate loves MP3 and swears up and down its as good as CD.

 

[JeremyErwin]

Tower Records still has them, and I still buy them. Look for the digipacks rather than the jewelboxes. IIRC, the releases share the same product codes, so buying them online might well be a crapshoot.

Btw, it's just the early stuff (abkco).

 

[LanceJ]

IIRC, there were 22 RS albums released as sacds, so many in fact that supposedly the sacd pressing plants had no time for other artists so for a few months afterwards, there was literally a lull in new sacd album releases.

 

[Chris Gerhard]

I think hybrid SACD is a great format. Apparently the increased royalties, additional manufacturing cost and unwillingness of the consumer to pay a premium meant the format was not profitable for popular music releases. For classical and to a lesser extent jazz music, it seems to work for smaller labels. I watch for new releases on hybrid SACD but rarely see a thing that interests me now.

Chris

 

[JeremyErwin]

Here's a comprehensive track listing.

22 disks, but nothing after 1970.

 

[MarkHastings]

I believe you NAILED it!!! This is definitely one of the biggest reasons.

I personally love high res audio, but hate that I'm tied down to my living room to listen to it. I bought a couple DVD-A's and ended up buying the CD versions because I never listened to the DVD-A's since I barely listen to music through my HT setup. 99% of my music is listened to on the go (ie. Car, Work, Laptop, etc.)

I would definitely invest in some sort of high-res / CD combo pack that allowed me the freedom of CD and the high quality of the high res discs. But for now, the versatility of CD is what gets my $$.

 

[JeremyErwin]

And that's what I love about SACD.

 

[KevinJ]

What we need imho is a DVD-A/SACD portable player....imho the portable cd player is what really made the cd the success it was.

 

[Kevin C Brown]

I think a DVD-A/SACD portable would go absolutely nowhere. The world has changed since CD portables were big. I.e., iPod, MP3 players, etc. All of these are a fraction of the size of anything that plays a disc. And most people don't care about the differences in sound quality. And anything multichannel becomes moot over headphones.

 

[JeremyErwin]

I recall reading statements such as this. Yet no sacd discman was ever released.

And sony was planning on releasing this player. It would have been very cool-- but most portable CD players released today are quite grungy.

edit: damn. It was an april fools joke....

 

[David_Rivshin]

Actually, that's not entirely true. By using what are known as Head Related Transfer Functions (HRTF) surround sound can be accomplished with only 2 speakers. It's the same concept as when you deliver a different rendition of an visual scene to each eye to create a 3D image; you simply deliver a different rendition of the sound field to each ear. It's actually more complicated, because everyone's earlobes and heads (which are the basis of our brain's ability to tell the direction of sound) are slightly different in shape, one-size-fits-all solutions are not as accurate as carefully calibrated ones, but still convincing. Indeed, I'd hazard to guess that a reasonably well done implementation with headphones would be better than the ill-configured multi-speaker setups that many people have since it is a more controlled environment with fewer variables.
I believe such technology was first commercialized in the consumer sector with the Aureal A3D technology for their line of computer sound cards, until Creative sued them out of existence (while actually losing the lawsuit), and later purchased their remains. But now the hype is in multi-speaker setups instead, so I'm not even sure that functionality is available in computers anymore.

More to your statement, though, I believe Dolby Headphone does largely the same thing, targeted specifically for the HT. A portable player with Dolby Headphone support and a decent pair of cans should actually be pretty convincing. Actually, if you have the ability to re-encode the audio, you could do an offline conversion from a multichannel signal to a stereo signal with whatever HRTF is available, and then use any player you wished afterwards.

-- Dave

 

[Phil A]

I agree. Even the die hard audiophile who likes to listen via headphones is not going to jog around with a cheapo set of headphones outdoors. You rarely see portable CDs players vs. iPods and MP3 players these days. One of the walking trails in my community is down the hill below me and I can't remember seeing anyone walk or job with a CD player over the last several yrs. but have seen many iPods.

The inside environment of autos along with road noise probably would not do much for the hi-rez market either. Many newer autos include iPod docks.

I wish more stuff was hi-rez but I am the minority. Who knows, perhaps if priced right the Warner DVD album with MP3s and ring tones might fare better. Time will tell if they really go full scale with releases. That's the problem with the music industry. They take risks paying so-so artists releasing so-so albums but won't take a risk and go full scale committed to a new format.

 

[Chris Gerhard]

I think DVD Album makes a lot of sense. Having audio files ready to write to an iPod or CD-R along with surround sound on a single disc works for me. I hope we see 96kHz/24-bit LPCM and surround on many releases. I doubt if we see much or any MLP, but I like DTS and Dolby Digital surround well enough.

Chris

 

[Phil A]

I'd love to see 96kHz/24-bit LPCM. I have a dozen or so DADs that are 96/24. With video extras and other stuff (depending on how much space they take up), I'm not sure of what can physically fit on a disc. But I'll be satisfied if we see some 96/24 and 48/24.