Have Circuit City stores finally given up on SACD? (1 Viewer)

[Michael St. Clair]

I develop software for managing retail promotions, and I wouldn't blame CC and BB for not promoting the format. Retail promotions are typically driven by manufacturer incentives. With DualDisc, manufacturers are obviously funding or subsidizing displays and advertising to promote the product...

 

[Jesse Skeen]

So why WEREN'T there any incentives?? I still don't have a DVD-A or SACD player yet, I'm hoping they'll at least last long enough to be included with the new HD players.

 

[Max F]

So true. CC probably had some incentive from Sony to do SACD in the begining. Unless customers keep asking for these products (i.e., demand) or the manufacturers provide incentives for promoting these formats, they will dwindle away on the shelves. Its not CC or BB fault at all.

 

[Patrick Larkin]

Sony should have put SACD support in every DVD player they produced above the most basic models.

I'm not sure what hardware manufacturers would have an incentive to build in DVDA support however.

One issue is hardware. Its tough to find players unless you are looking specifically for that feature and then your options are limited.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

I think what people here are forgetting is that Sony has promoted SACD as an audiophile format. They ran print ads in Stereophile and The Absolute Sound. They gave interviews to same and started to show up at Home Entertainment shows and they seeded the professional studios with workstations and helped subsidize audiophile labels with new releases and original recordings...

This audiophile/serious music fan market does not shop at Best But or Circuit City (not many are shopping at CC these days for much).

So if you look at the marketing of the discs at such standard brick & mortar stores you will notice inventory fading.

The real question is will this niche product stay with us for a while. I believe it will for these reasons:

1. Most major recording studios have DSD equipment now so doing the recording in DSD is no problem. Also, Sonoma workstations now offer a full 24 tracks so editing is no problem, although audiophile labels rarely use that many tracks.

2. While hit or miss on pop/rock titles, there is a proverbial motherload or jazz and classical releases which is important for the audiophile community. There are over 2,800 total titles available.

3. New high end players are coming out all the time and universal players are getting cheaper. Companies like Sony, Marantz, Meitner and several dozen other mfrs have players and are bringing out new models. We saww the new Marantz models recently and sound quality is definitely improving.

4. There is a large base of audiophile record labels supporting the format. Universal has stated on several occasions they will release 150 titles this year on Super Audio. Some labels like Channel Classics only record in DSD and only release hybrid discs.

I would have like to seen SACD replace CD so we would all get better sound quality and more value for our money, but with the music downloading genie out of the bottle, this is the best we can do.

For those of us that like SACD, we should enjoy the music as this is probably the latest generation's version of DCC or MoFi-great sound targeted at a niche of music lovers.