The future of high-resolution...

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Comments

  • F1nut
    F1nut Posts: 49,711
    edited September 2004
    Steve, with respect............it's your loss.
    Political Correctness'.........defined

    "A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."


    President of Club Polk

  • steveinaz
    steveinaz Posts: 19,521
    edited September 2004
    I agree with you whole-heartedly, it is my loss. I would love to venture into SACD sound as I'm sure it's fantastic. I'm just jaded because of a lack of good marketing/availability.
    Source: Bluesound Node 2i - Preamp/DAC: Benchmark DAC2 DX - Amp: Parasound Halo A21 - Speakers: MartinLogan Motion 60XTi - Shop Rig: Yamaha A-S501 Integrated - Shop Spkrs: Elac Debut 2.0 B5.2
  • F1nut
    F1nut Posts: 49,711
    edited September 2004
    You can buy all the SACD's ever made online, but you probably knew that already........just trying to help. :D
    Political Correctness'.........defined

    "A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."


    President of Club Polk

  • steveinaz
    steveinaz Posts: 19,521
    edited September 2004
    Almost 1/3 of you said both will fail. That is alot higher than I expected. Interesting....
    Source: Bluesound Node 2i - Preamp/DAC: Benchmark DAC2 DX - Amp: Parasound Halo A21 - Speakers: MartinLogan Motion 60XTi - Shop Rig: Yamaha A-S501 Integrated - Shop Spkrs: Elac Debut 2.0 B5.2
  • Sami
    Sami Posts: 4,634
    edited September 2004
    I voted that both will fail (I own DVD-A's) but I think there will be a HiRez format eventually that will replace CD. Maybe it will have something to do with the format that eventually wins the HiRez movie format that will replace DVD, who knows.
  • djreef
    djreef Posts: 71
    edited September 2004
    I'm thinking both are going to fail. This sux because I have a fairly extensive collection of both (universal player). The thing that troubles me is the lack of 'new' recordings being made for either media. All I'm seeing is the equivalent of 'remasters' marketed to 40 somethings as higher quality duplicates of the music 'you loved when you were growing up'. The problem here, as I see it, is that most SACD reissues don't sound that much better than the 16bit digital 'remasters' that began popping up 10 years ago. Granted there are some pretty crappy remasters, but overall I think they are a dramatic improvement over the original 16 bit releases - even the crappy ones. I have duplicates of a good many recordings that I've done side by side evaluations with, and I'm hearing very little difference btwn the remastered 16bit versions and the SACD versions. Pink Floyd's DSofTM is a good example. I own 3 versions of this record on digital format. The 30th Aniversary Edition (digitally remastered 16bit) sounds nearly identical to the SACD, to me. It's just not as overwhelming as one might think, or the marketers/reviewers lead me to believe. Certainly, not large enough of a perceptual difference to justify replacing an entire collection for, or buying new hardware for. I'm seeing a law of diminishing returns from this point forward, with any new format that comes along. Improvements are going to have to be decisively dramatic to get people to shell out the bux, however small those sums may be. I'm thinking I'm prob not alone in my feelings here. Since most folks don't have reference quality rigs at home, or the experience of thousands of hours of critical listening, I'm sure the perceptual differences are going to be even smaller to them. It seems that studios went into this with the wrong attitude/intention, and figured everyone was just going to run out and replace their collections again, like they did for CD. The problem is, that from a convenience standpoint SACD, & DVD-A offers nothing to the average consumer in the way of convenience, over CD. CD replaced the LP simply because they were smaller, and more durable - NOT because they sounded any better. They replaced tape formats because the sound quality didn't deteriorate after 25, or so, listens, and because there was a significant difference in dynamic representation of the original recording. The lack of music studio funding for upgrades in professional equipment - 24/96 or 24/192 multi-channel digital tape machines for instance- leads me to believe that qualitative issues are not a major concern for main stream studios. Of the 60+ SACD's I currently own, only one is recorded & mastered on a 24/96 machine. I think this is where the real differences will be realized. When you can jack up the dynamics of the masters (decrease compression, etc) with higher master tapes then, and only then, will the format's 2 channel potential be realized. I'm wondering how many of these type of start-to-finish 24/96 recordings actually exist? I'm sure a good number of newer classical recordings are, but most folks don't listen to classical, so this is going to do little to extend the format to the common folk. I picked up Incubus's "A Crow Left of Murder", & the new Everlast SACD's a few weeks ago. The sound is impressive on both, but I'm not sure how much better than redbook. It's difficult to tell with dual layer discs (my player won't switch back & forth between the high rez format and the redbook for comparison purposes). I'm only going to assume that both were either analog, or 16bit recordings transfered to digital. Nothing in the liner notes would indicate to me otherwise. I just wish more studios would back this format for new recordings, and that they would take complete advantage of the medium. I think it'll help the format's surviveabilty (if that's even a word) in the long run.

    DJ

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