Big SACD News! BMG Group joins!!! (1 Viewer)

[Lee Scoggins]

Friends,
Seems Sony and Philips ARE making real progress behind the scenes...check out this link about the 112th AES conference:
http://www.highfidelityreview.com/ne...snumber=104443
1 million players - ahead of schedule
650 titles - more than I thought
Much activity in the recording studio
and the big news: BMG Group is joining the club. They own RCA and Arista among others. Now we may see some real big titles coming forth...
This is a great day for us Super Audio fans!
Lee

 

[Jeff Keene]

 

[Lee Scoggins]

I spoke with some friends in the recording world today and they do confirm that DSD is gaining hold.
We may still see some life from the Sony & Philips project...
What really intrigues me is the possibility of some very big title announcements at the upcoming Home Entertainment 2002 show in NYC.
I think a two-pronged attack with (1) lower cost, more convenient DSD studio recording/workstation/mastering; and (2) giant, brand name recognition titles generating consumer side demand is the way to go for acceptance.

Lee

 

[Mike Broadman]

Ah, Lee Scoggins, once again the bringer of good news.
This is great. Now I won't have to throw my SACD player out the window in disgust.

 

[KeithH]

Lee, thanks for the info. This is good news. I still would like Sony Music to get going with more new releases. Things have been awfully slow there.

 

[Doug_B]

Nice to know, as I'm in my virgin week with a SACD player.

Just got my Home Ent Show ticket.

Doug

 

[Jeff Keene]

Now let's just hope they are Hybrid releases. Sony's current marketing scheme of selling SACD with no CD layer is So Damn Dumb. If Sony released only a Hybrid SACD of their bigger releases and sold them for a reasonable price, all of a sudden millions of people would discover than they own some of these discs and will look into a player to take advantage of the fact.

Consider the number of people that bought the most recent Michael Jackson alone.

NP: Steely Dan - Two Against Nature DVD-A

 

[Lee Scoggins]

Jeff,
I have to agree. It seems hybrid discs would enhance the selling effort quite a bit.
Lee

 

[KeithH]

Sony should absolutely be selling hybrid discs. It's high time for Sony to make SACD a mainstream format, not merely a format for the audiophiles. It's ridiculous to market SACD in Best Buy and have single-layer discs buried in the back of the store. Imagine if Sony's Essential series consisted of hybrids. I'm talking about two-disc sets of works by Billy Joel, Barbara Streisand, Journey, Miles Davis, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, and Neil Diamond. These artists are heavyweights. Imagine how many members of the CD-buying public would have SACDs in their homes right now. These folks would open up their Barbara Streisand sets and have the small SACD insert drop in their laps. I can see it now:

Wow! Oh my! Oh, Barbara is in my house! I'm a little verklempt!

That's what I want to see.

 

[Mike Broadman]

That's funny, Keith. The last I'd want is to see Barbara Streisand in my house.
I've bitched about Sony's single layer SACDs before. Until you guys pointed me to elusivedisc.com I thought that single layered discs were the norm, because Sony SACDs are the only ones I see in the store. Until my order from elusive arrived in the mail today, all my SACDs have been Sony single layered- and I managed to get over 50 SACDs without getting a single hybrid in the bunch!
If Sony seriously SACD to have an edge over DVD-A, making hybrids are a must. "Look, you can play these in any CD player!" It just seems silly otherwise.
NP: Cannonball Adderley, Somethin' Else, DAD

 

[Rachael B]

Geez, I hope Universal and BMG make hybrid discs. I hope they're not as daft as Sony. As members of the "big five", they too may be trying to do away with those pesky, non-copyguarded CD discs (or layers) as it appears Sony is. SACD just cannot happen, in a big way, without hybridization. Let's hope the new guyz don't punk out like Sony! Is there a chink of sanity out there? We'll see...?

 

[KeithH]

Mike said:

That's funny, Keith. The last I'd want is to see Barbara Streisand in my house.

Thanks. I don't want to see Barbara Streisand in my house either. However, I would like to see people a little verklempt upon hearing Barbara on SACD.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

KeithH,

I just read on Audio Asylum that Warner is going to play surround music demos in DVDA at the movie theater.

Gosh, that will be a boon for Super Audio in Atlanta, our theaters have terrible surround!

Wonder if Sony will respond to this?

Lee

 

[John Kotches]

Audio Asylum, that great bastion of knowledge and a great place for clear headed, thoughtful discussion. :rolleyes
At the Asylum, it breaks down very simply: Anything Sony/Philips/SACD does is great. WG-4 Not great.
Were this Sony/Philips doing the demos, it would be heralded as a great method for introducing the format to the masses.
But, it's WG-4 and DVD-Audio, so the usual respondents, with their predictable retorts are participating.
We're supposed to be in the "mass market" phase of adoption for SACD Lee. Sony has yet to do something like this for a mass demonstration. CES/CEDIA/Stereophile shows? Not mass demonstrations to the public at large.
Unlike your sarcastic tone, I think it is a brilliant and relatively speaking inexpensive way to expose DVD-A to the population at large.
Regards,

 

[Lee Scoggins]

John,
Actually I think it is a reasonable attempt to get DVDA mainstreamed - maybe this will lead to even more big titles!
I was actually slamming the poor nature of Atlanta's theaters. Many have poor surround speaker capability - I think the JBLs are blown in half the locations. I actually would be happy to hear a good demo in the theater of DVDA. I would also like to hear a Sony SACD response as well

We're supposed to be in the "mass market" phase of adoption for SACD Lee. Sony has yet to do something like this for a mass demonstration. CES/CEDIA/Stereophile shows? Not mass demonstrations to the public at large.

I think you are being a little tough on Sony and remember it is early days in adoption. It seems Sony is aiming for the high end community and then to trickle down to the masses, while simultaneously pushing workstation solutions into the pro market and making DSD mastering/recording more convenient.
I think Sony is clearly trying, however. They have installed many kiosks at Tower Records and my local Best Buy and Circuit City.
Congratulations on the Widescreen Review gig. Wish I had time to go to Tecumsah, CA to say that awesome reference setup...
By the way, I don't disagree with your assessment of the Audio Asylum but more and more DVDA fans have been making some good points. The navigating software is horrible, however, which is why I never post. Also, you can't tell when there is content or not - someone buy these folks some Ultimate Bulletin Board software as a humanitarian gesture
Lee

 

[KeithH]

John,
I agree with you. Demoing DVD-Audio in movie theaters is a great idea. As I said on Audio Asylum, they could couple the demo with an on-screen ad showing popular titles with a message to the effect of "Available now!". Maybe a partnership with Best Buy is in order since Best Buy stores are all over the country and sell the discs. Circuit City, on the other hand, does not sell DVD-Audio discs. So, the on-screen ad could say "Available at all Best Buy stores!".
I also agree with your assessment of Audio Asylum. While some good information is shared there, many of the regulars have their heads stuck far up their a$$es. Given how swelled their heads are, that shows we are talking about some big a$$holes.
Lee,
Unless the sound is absolutely atrocious (static, other defects), which I would not expect, I think people will be impressed with the demos in theaters. Their biggest complaint is likely to be the selections used, as peoples' musical tastes obviously vary widely. Regarding the sound quality in movie theaters, let's remember that we are far more discerning than most people. The average person probably thinks the sound quality in movie theaters is great, unless there is static, as I mentioned before. I have never heard static in a movie theater.

 

[John Geelan]

JohnK, I agree with you in regards to the Audio Asylum crowd that thinks DVDA is the Devil and all things Sony are God.

DVDA seems to get a real short drift with some of these so called audiophiles.

I think DVDA sounds damn good as the recent A Night At The Opera has shown. At least DVDA has put out some fun titles.

I'm still waiting for SACD to get going and put out something absolutely great..like Dark Side Of The Moon or something.

I'm all for SACD turning into a winner since it is a great format. But why does this have to turn into a war between these two mediums.. their both fantastic.

JohnG

 

[Mike Broadman]

The competitiveness between the two formats is probably due to the fact that very few people have the ability to play both formats, so they want the one they invested in to "win." Also, the titles released seem to support that idea that SACD is more "audiophile" than DVD-A. SACD gets more jazz and classical while DVD-A is getting more rock. Even the classical titles are the really big "safe" releases, like Bach's Brandenburg Concertos and the Four Seasons. SACD, meanwhile, has three versions of the Goldberg Variations and DSD recorded Mahler symphonies and Rachmaninoff concertos.

However, I still think the classical releases are a little safe. Hopefully, with the success of the format, we'll seem some Bartok and Prokofiev on SACD soon.

NP: Bach, Organ Works, DVD-A (a very "safe" but fun disc)

 

[AaronD]

The sony mega-corp has stake in quite a few theaters... They could just as easily do this with SACD. I think it'd be really cool, but would it really be effective?

-Aaron

 

[KeithH]

Aaron, I think movie-theater demos of DVD-Audio or SACD could be effective. However, the push would really have to be surround sound, not better stereo sound. The problem then is that only a small percentage of the general public have surround-sound systems in my estimation. So, there could be a lot of people who would be impressed with the demos but would then do nothing about it, so to speak. Still, I would like to see such demos.