Marc Colella

Washington Post: Audio Formats Stumble In Quest to Replace CDs

This was posted on the AA.

There are some inaccuracies in the article, but overall they aren't far off IMO.

(you may get prompted first with a tiny survey)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2004Jan19.html

Mike Broadman

This article makes the incorrect assumption that many do: that industry leaders are trying to make high-res a mainstream format to supplant CDs.

Nothing in their marketing or release schedule supports this assumption.

My awesome music collection

Phil A

I did find this tidbit in the article interesting:

"During the six-month period ending in June 2003, only 100,000 DVD-Audio discs were sold, compared with 245 million CDs, the Recording Industry Association of America reports. Even traditional vinyl records outsold DVD-Audio -- by a factor of six to one.

Rather than growing, sales of DVD-Audio discs are actually down from the same period a year ago."

This is pretty much in line what people from Linn noted at a seminar I attended last week that unless something major happens with DVD-A in the near term, the only shot at a hi-re format succeeding will be SACD. DVD-A needs a shot in the arm soon. Each month that passes, it seems to fade deeper into the background.

Michael St. Clair

How on earth could that be possible when the original CDs were taken out of print.

Those sales figures for DVD-A are sad. Does anybody have SACD sales figures (not including single-inventory hybrids that were marketed as CDs) for the same time periods? Why on earth does the RIAA not track SACD sales?


The recording/production/mastering techniques are more important than the format...

Lee Scoggins

Sony has stated several times they are going after a premium paying market so the reporter is not doing his job.



Interesting statistic. Is this because vinyl sounds better?

Another interesting ratio:
A German audio magazine mentioned on Audio Asylum has stated that 10 million SACDs have sold versus just 500K DVD-Audio discs. I wonder if Edgar Bronfman is aware of this?

no fears alone at night she's sailing through the crowd
in her ears the phones are tight and the music's playing loud
~skateaway

Phil A

With hybrids, it is probably impossible to separate CD from SACD. While a DVD-A may just be bought to play DD oe DTS on a DVD-V player, in a similar manner as a hybrid, it's sales are evidently tracked differently. If and when flippers become commonplace, it should be interesting to see how they track those, especially if there also is a CD only release vs. a flipper. This article indicates the Stones sold over 1M and Sting's album is 650k -

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentSe...=1073280831250

Lee Scoggins

http://www.highfidelityreview.com/ne...umber=12404812

Apparently Sonopress produced 3.3 million discs last year alone. This speaks to the strong global sales in part.

no fears alone at night she's sailing through the crowd
in her ears the phones are tight and the music's playing loud
~skateaway

ElevSkyMovie

Lee,

Why does SACD have to win? Why can't we have two formats? Good grief, neither is selling well enough for any label to give two craps about. Why must you always do this?

Michael St. Clair

The constant negativity and bashing is ironic, isn't it?


I agree, but since over 90% of the titles released are not single inventory, it confounds me that the RIAA does not track/chart those discs in an SACD category. Where are the numbers?

Phil A

Michael, Sony single layers at this point in time make up a small % of the (around 1,600) total SACD titles worldwide (perhaps 15% at most). There are some other single layer discs, but Sony's represent the lion's share. Sony has started to announce the re-release of those titles as hybrids. It is obvious that the sales of single layer discs (makes no difference to me personally as I only play hi-rez discs at home and make CD-Rs for the car) vs. hybrids are going to be much smaller. I doubt Sony will ever do anything to help make that public as their strategy seems to be to replace CDs with hybrids (in some cases stealth hybrids like the Stones or Police). They are not about to release numbers, although likely better than those of DVD-A, will still be a tiny fraction as compared to CDs and far less than even vinyl. It's much easier for them to point to sales of the Stones or DSOTM and get other record cos. to releasr stuff so they can benefit from the licensing fee.

LanceJ

The fact that someone only listens to the Dolby Digital or DTS surround tracks doesn't mean those people are irrelevant in a survey of hi-res format popularity. This would (falsely) assume everyone thinks that to enjoy surround music it must be in hi-res form. But unless a strictly monitored survey is done of dvd-audio buyers we'll probably never know the true numbers of dvd-audio hi-res surround fans vs. dvd-audio Dolby/DTS (non-audiophile?) surround fans.

We'll have to keep an eye out for any sales figures from Universal since they have released several titles in both the dvd-audio and the non-hybrid sacd format; then we will have a decent idea of which format is doing better as far as fans of those particular musicians are concerned.

LJ