Is SONY pulling the Plug on SACD??

LeeS,

please note that this figure is not accurate. High Fidelity Review will only list labels that have a web site. sa-cd.net is more accurate.

 

I agree! I agree! I agree!

WB has dropped the ball bigtime. I never said DVD-A was done right! There are some great high profile titles, but it's been "drips and drabs" for over a year now. If it were not for Universal, DVD-A would be an afterthought.

My whole point has been "in the last year" things have stalled. You mention "So too The Police, Peter Gabriel and Creedence." These all came out BEFORE the Rolling Stone sampler. After the RS Sampler, there have been a lot of SACDs released, I grant you that, but as I said before many of them are targeted to a specific genre of music that is not "pop/rock" which is where the high profile is.

The Dylan box was/is great, but if they are no longer being produced, that can't be "good". I guess I am just expecting too much from BOTH formats. I don't want to see what happened to "quad" happen to them, but it sure looks that way.

I was just listening this weekend to the EXCELLENT SACD of "Sympathy for the Devil".

THIS IS WHAT SACD SHOULD BE!!!​

Why can't we get more RS in surround???? SACD, DVD-A, who cares? I want Hi-Rez, non-redbook (or quality mastered "Steve" quality redbook) surround product out there, that's all.

Is that too much to ask for???????

 

Actually not as much as you think. I talked with a producer and now that they have invested in the recording gear he claims it is not materially more to do SACDs and it is made up for by a higher selling price.

Agreed, they are missing some labels but that was a source I was familiar with and still is indicative of more labels joining up.

Maybe in terms of number of big series announced but certainly not in terms of titles. There are some approx. 80-90 titles released each month.

 

Any business is about money to tell you the truth.

 

After all this does not come as a big surprise. In the end it all about $$.

 

I wasn't refering to whether it was more expensive to master an sacd, I was refering to the fact that it used to be cheaper than a cd to master an sacd because sony flipped the bill - those mastering costs were free - why not make an sacd? It was cheaper than a plain old cd.

I know it doesn't cost much more to master a stereo sacd or dvd-a, it's just that now it costs when it used to be free.

 

Steve's point about artists and budgets is very important to understand.

I'll even go a step further and say that I think the whole idea of a surround REMIX is flawed. Surround PRODUCTION can be very compelling but a recording that was produced for stereo or even for vinyl is rarely going to be as compelling as it was in the medium that it was originally produced for. Recordings are a wonderful but fragile illusion. They are not "content" to be recycled through the technology of the month.

If anybody knows what the future of SACD is, the folks who told me what I repeated above would. I'm pretty sure that Sony has been calmly saying the same thing all along but people keep projecting conspiracy theories on the situation.

 

But what about just higher resolution encoding of the original 2-channel masters. No (or very little) remastering or artist involvement, right?

 

IF DONE RIGHT....surround can be MORE compelling than it's original recording...IMHO. The original will always be there to be enjoyed by purists...nothing to worry about. If it's not working financially, then I guess it will fail, but some of us do enjoy it. I'd like more.....IF it's done right.

 

But dave, the monster was sleeping.

 

Well, someone else woke him.....I gave him a hug!

 

For certain, the Sony SACD selection at retail is dwindling down to nothing. If Universal weren't still behind it, I'd say it was doomed for mass-market failure.

It was so much better when the monster was sleeping....

 

Bob,

Thanks for your participation. I was wondering, if Sony is still positioning SACD as the CD replacement, then why are they participating in DualDisc, another format that is also positioned as a CD replacement. It seems that it will only create confusion if two different formats are to be the 'next CD'. If DualDisc sells well, I just can't imagine that Sony would try to make SACD the 'next CD'. Do you or your friends have a theory on this?

 

Folks, SONY is NOT, in any way, shape, or form, postioning SACD to be the Cd's replacement!!!! Shheeezzz!!!

SACD is Sonys current "Higher Quality Audio" format. Thats is it's function.

What I'm hearing from my end is that SONY is going to push Dualdisk Hard.
Lots of marketing campaigns being created as we speak. My friend also mentioned a Springsteen DualDisk with live concert video. he didnt know any more about it tho.

 

I think multi channel audio sucks.

I can’t think a single reason for it. The music stage is in front of me and that’s where it belongs. Maybe its good for ambient echos or live audience applause but that’s about it.

 

Nice.......thanks.

 

I think that all the bands you like suck. I also think your car sucks.

 

I personally could take it or leave it when it comes to older recordings, but I don't think it sucks.

Good multichannel is pretty compelling - especially when used to reproduce those ambient echos. If you've ever heard some of Chesky's multichannel recordings reproduced the right way, you would never say multichannel sucks.


Too many people here think their view is the only view. If we ever do get a hi res format that becomes mainstream, I guarantee you it will contain multichannel tracks as well as stereo/mono.

 

OK Boys. We know the answer to the question posed in this thread topic, and that is

NO

That's about all we can say. We are now crumbling into a ramble, so....

CLOSED!

:-jon