Just an observation on high-res from overseas (1 Viewer)

[Danny Tse]

I spend last week in Guangzhou, China visiting my aunts and cousins. While there, I checked around for any possible hi-rez bargains that I can pick up. Of all the music stores I visited, only one store carried any hi-res titles. And they are all SACD, no DVD-A. There were "Air Supply: The Definitive Collection", "Kenny G Live", "Joe Weed: The Vultures", "A City of Sadness - Soundtrack", and some classical Chinese music titles on SACD. Prices are comparable to what we pay here in the States for domestic SACD releases. But no Police, Pink Floyd, or any of the Sony SACD releases in sight.

While returning to the States via Hong Kong (I didn't have time to venture into the city to damage my credit card balance), I picked up a copy of HK's audiophile magazine, HiFi Review. Since the issue was splited into 2 separate magazines, hardware and software, I checked out the software section with interest. Wow!! Talk about ads for SACD releases....separate full page ads for the Air Supply and Kenny G SACDs, Kiki Dee's "Almost Naked" SACD, Rebecca Pidgeon's "Retrospective" SACD on Chesky, 2 page full color ad by HK Sony Music on all titles done by its mastering studio (including releases from BMG, Warner Bros., and Universal Music and others), and local HK label Crown Records on 2 of its upcoming SACD releases. The lone DVD-A ad was one for a McIntosh (the high end audiophile equipment manufacturer) demo disc that doesn't require turning on a video monitor for setups.

Just reporting what I saw....

 

[Michael St. Clair]

Nintendo sells way more Gamecube than XBox in Japan, but XBox sells more than Gamecube here.

Different markets aren't always in the same state.

What sells really well in Asia are bootleg redbook CDs and CD-ROMs of MP3 files. I have aquaintances who travel regularly to China and Thailand and they bring back stacks of them, along with bootleg DVDs.

 

[Danny Tse]

You are right about pirated discs....should've purchased that all-region "Finding Nemo" DVD when I had the chance....

 

[Lee Scoggins]

Just reporting what I saw

This is consistent with what I have seen recently in Europe (London, Milan, Frankfurt, Amsterdam) and Japan (Tokyo) as well. Super Audio seems to have a much stronger hold than DVDA in these countries.

This may be in part due to the more visible Philips and Sony presence in some quarters. There are a number of new German labels that are just doing pure DSD recordings and only releasing Super Audio discs.

It is also rare to see much discussion on DVDA in the British audiophile mags like HiFi + (one of my faves) or HiFi News & Record Review. Philips has a particularly strong brand in the UK. Most of the major recording studios do both but friends there tell me that since they have recently purchased DSD converters and editing stations, they like to do Super Audio.

And to be fair, there is a ton of interest in vinyl in London. A recent story in HiFi news talked about locals doing half-speed mastered albums.

 

[LanceJ]

Like Michael said, different markets like different things.

Over in the U.K., Robbie Williams is huge.

EMI tried to market him here recently, and as far as I can tell, nothing happened.

LJ

 

[Lewis Besze]

European market seems to embrace many technological advances before the US.Ask them how many years they been selling WS tvs.
I remember when I came to the US in 1989 from Austria,I thought I took time travel,however prices seemed to be lower on similar products here.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

EMI tried to market him here recently, and as far as I can tell, nothing happened.

They gave him a reported $150 million record deal

Seems like you would have to get big global market share to make the economics work on that silliness. Think about all the great musicians who do not get to the next step since that $150mm got soaked up.

 

[Tomoko Noguchi]

SACD is bigger here in Japan, that is for sure.

 

[Sathyan]

We have five big labels:
Sony (Columbia)
Vivendi (Universal/MCA/Philips/DG/Blue Note)
EMI (Virgin)
Warner (Atlantic/Elektra/Teldec)
BMG (RCA)

I've noticed most of my US pop is Atlantic, my French/Francophone pop is Sony, my British pop is Virgin and Atlantic, and my Latin pop is Universal. Whether these companies actually have regional strengths or my purchases are not generalizable.

The other thing I've noticed is my RBCD purchases have become overwhelming non-American pop. Where possible I've shifted to high rez. This has been rather successful in Classical, Jazz and older American pop but I can't seem to get my French pop titles on SACD (I have a list of some 20 titles I want to buy but have been holding out for high-rez), etc. Are these titles just not getting exported to the States or have they not made it to market in France/Canada either?

Sathyan

NP Suite Flamenca (LP)

 

[Michael St. Clair]

Widescreen TVs have become the norm, but cropped and/or stretched broadcasts have become commonplace.

Hardware does not automatically lead to properly presented, high-quality content.

 

[Lewis Besze]

Hardware does not automatically lead to properly presented, high-quality content.

That was hardly my point,the fact that WS tv's are more widespread,and been around longer in Europe, is.

 

[Rich Malloy]

And I find that I've actually purchased more import than domestic SACDs this summer, and it'd be a ton more if I could convince myself to pay the premiums for the Miles Japanese-SACDs (which I can't help but think Columbia/Sony will eventually release domestically).

 

[Lee Scoggins]

but I can't seem to get my French pop titles on SACD (I have a list of some 20 titles I want to buy but have been holding out for high-rez), etc. Are these titles just not getting exported to the States or have they not made it to market in France/Canada either?

That's a good question but I don't know the answer. I saw Super Audio in a few places in Paris...France is sort of an emerging hot spot of fine audio gear (Focal/JM Lab, YBA, etc.).

 

[Phil A]

It would certainly appear based on the below that the SACD format is doing much better in Europe than DVD-A:

http://www.highfidelityreview.com/ne...umber=12508104

http://www.highfidelityreview.com/ne...umber=12508104

 

[LanceJ]

Dvd-audio hardware sales don't say much because I'll bet many people that buy dvd-audios just play them on their dvd-VIDEO players. I did that for almost two years. Not everybody is into hi-res but many might be into surround music & don't care if it's from a compressed format like Dolby or DTS.

DSOTM sales? We've all been down that road before.

LJ

 

[Lee Scoggins]

DSOTM sales? We've all been down that road before.

Yet you don't seem to understand that such a HUGE sales number is all the record big shots care about. It really does not matter if there were 10 Super Audio buyers or 100,000-just that the album sold so well. You can beat your sweet bippie that Floyd will soon be putting out another one.

All these record labels are global concerns, several HQed overseas, so Super Audio presence in Europe and Asia is a big deal. Players being outsold 4:1 is an interesting stat. Another interesting stat is that the number of SACd players doubled in just eight months. That's fairly outstanding for such a young format. 2 million installed in Europe alone is a good start.

 

[Danny Tse]

Hmmmmm....the names we are looking at are all global entities....Sony, Philips, EMI, Warner Bros., Panasonic, etc....yet from all indications within this thread, the SACD camp seems to have much better marketing worldwide.

Going back to the Hong Kong market, while Sony and Philips have always had strong presense there (especially when Philips owned Polygram Records, now Universal Music), so did Warner Bros. and Panasonic. Especially now with Warner Bros. being the dominant music company in that market. Yet HK Warner Bros. chose to go with the SACD format. Looking through Hong Kong home theater/audio websites like Review33.com, there's hardly any mention of DVD-A. In a extremely small market such as Hong Kong (where sales of 25,000 copies gets you a gold record), one would think riding on the success of DVD-Video would be one way to ensure success.

For me, this is not about which format is better. It comes down to the availability of titles that are of interest to me, and able to provide me a better music listening experience.

 

[JimChan]

Basically, DVD-A in HK is really a non-starter. There are only a few stores which sell DVD-A and one of them primarily sells DVD video, which is not a music store itself. Whereas many stores which sell CDs also sell SACDs. None of the local artist have issued one DVD-A yet.

 

[Phil A]

Lee, it is likely a bit off. Levinson/Madrigal is going through a learning curve since they closed the CT plant and shipped everything in trailers to Lexicon's MA plant. They have trouble finding things and will need to do catching up with their current auto and home stuff, although I would bet that a good part of their car system stuff is retweaked JBL which has extensive experience in the auto market.

I don't know with hybrids coming out what the big deal is with having a hi-rez player in the car, paticularly with the noise environment and the likely premium price for initial systems of either DVD-A or SACD. Most auto enthusiasts I know want the stuff they have now that has a big hard drive that gets pulled out of the car and attached to a PC to download MP3s in addition to XM. While it is good news for the hi-rez formats, available software at CD-like prices, will, in my opinion play a bigger role in the success or failure of either format.

When players are available, I hope no one out there drives at the same time they are attempting to sit in the sweet spot of a multi-channel hi-rex mix.