Is anyone else underwhelmed with that Colin Cigarran interview Dennis links to above?
First of all, its not clear to me exactly who he is/what he does (SACD catalog development exec?, mastering engineer?). He is "unable to answer [the] question" re SACD II because he is "not involved with the technical specifications of the format." If the SACD II tech spec has been codified (and we were hearing rumors of it as early as last fall), then it seems to me that it is now less of a tech issue and more of a marketing one--
i.e., the kind of thing you'd wanna talk up in an interview read by many of the format's core demographic/advocates.
I also find the interview short on addressing some of the now-perennial questions/issues many of us HTF Music Forum hi rezers have been asking/gnashing our teeth over for a long time (
i.e., why all the missed street dates?, why the slow release schedule?, why only hybrids originally?,
etc., etc.). He intimates that there are other entire catalog remasterings in the offing by mentioning "many other artists whose albums are in the works" right after mentioning the Stones and Bob Dylan . . . but then does not say/is not asked what artist(s) he's referring to.
I also have to say that I disagree with his vision of the format's future, namely that hi rez will one day displace CD, partly because downloading is "done strictly out of convenience and [is] something that one would most likely grow out of at some point." This strikes me as naively typical of the way labels have thought of digital delivery of music in recent years, to their peril. The "demand for quality and real value" that he intimates will win the day for SACD is not something that everyone--of even the majority--of the music-listening market values.
Commodus says, "
".
Sorry for such a long post not explicitly related to your starting a thread about the new SACD announcement, Danny. Perhaps, Dennis, one of us should start a new thread about the Colin Cigarran interview? Or does it even deserve it? LOL.
-p
