I asked sony why the did not release their movie's soundtrack in SACD
(but released in CD only). Sony did not answer the question but said
they would "will escalate this case to our marketing department"
whatever it means.

I also asked the lack of Sony SACD players and to which I was told that
that their DAV series are all SACD enabled but strangely their web
sites specs didn't mentioned that.

However, Sony avoided answering the most important question, i.e. give
us the assurance that SACD is going to survive at today's CD's price
and why Blu-Ray is not supporting SACD at the moment.

You people draw your own conclusion. The reply I got is not convincing
enough for me.

wrote in message
...
I asked sony why the did not release their movie's soundtrack in SACD
(but released in CD only). Sony did not answer the question but said
they would "will escalate this case to our marketing department"
whatever it means.

I also asked the lack of Sony SACD players and to which I was told that
that their DAV series are all SACD enabled but strangely their web
sites specs didn't mentioned that.

However, Sony avoided answering the most important question, i.e. give
us the assurance that SACD is going to survive at today's CD's price
and why Blu-Ray is not supporting SACD at the moment.

I recently purchased a Sony 5 disc DVD changer, DVP-NC875V (at times I like
loading up 5 DVDs at a time). Sony threw in SACD capability, who needs or
wants it, not ?

wrote in message
...
I asked sony why the did not release their movie's soundtrack in SACD
(but released in CD only). Sony did not answer the question but said
they would "will escalate this case to our marketing department"
whatever it means.

I also asked the lack of Sony SACD players and to which I was told that
that their DAV series are all SACD enabled but strangely their web
sites specs didn't mentioned that.

However, Sony avoided answering the most important question, i.e. give
us the assurance that SACD is going to survive at today's CD's price
and why Blu-Ray is not supporting SACD at the moment.

You people draw your own conclusion. The reply I got is not convincing
enough for me.

Most likely SACD is not going to become the hot new product since there
appears to be no sonic improvements because of the format. There have been
remastered discs that some find an improvement, but AFAIK the format itself
is indistinguishable from plain ol' CD.

In my feeling after initially purchasing a lot of the Sony SACD's I found
that it seems that SONY took the multi-generational masters and made SACD's
from them. They did not go back to the original masters and start carefully
with SACD from scratch. Sony also did a lot of cheesy surround effects that
were poor. I quit buying any SONY SACD's. Now there are other companies,
Mobile Fidelity, Chesky, and others that are doing SACD correct and it
sounds good.

Also, if you are using you $200 Sony DVD/SACD players the quality of the
electronics in the box kill all the sonic advantages of SACD. Cheap low
cost parts and noisy power supplies. With a quality player a difference can
be heard.

So; If you have an audiophile system the difference is there if the
recording was done correctly. If you are using the average consumer
equipment then SACD differences may not be heard. You will still hear how a
good company like Mobile Fidelity, etc start with better original master
tapes and take more care in mastering as even their stereo CD's are better
than anything Sony puts out.

Kurtis

"Michael McKelvy" wrote in message
...
wrote in message
...
I asked sony why the did not release their movie's soundtrack in SACD
(but released in CD only). Sony did not answer the question but said
they would "will escalate this case to our marketing department"
whatever it means.

I also asked the lack of Sony SACD players and to which I was told that
that their DAV series are all SACD enabled but strangely their web
sites specs didn't mentioned that.

However, Sony avoided answering the most important question, i.e. give
us the assurance that SACD is going to survive at today's CD's price
and why Blu-Ray is not supporting SACD at the moment.

You people draw your own conclusion. The reply I got is not convincing
enough for me.

Most likely SACD is not going to become the hot new product since there
appears to be no sonic improvements because of the format. There have
been
remastered discs that some find an improvement, but AFAIK the format
itself
is indistinguishable from plain ol' CD.

wrote:
I asked sony why the did not release their movie's soundtrack in SACD
(but released in CD only). Sony did not answer the question but said
they would "will escalate this case to our marketing department"
whatever it means.

One of the opinions columns in Hi-Fi World, February 2005 issue is
about SACD. The writer says that he has been told that Sony (the
record label) would like to forget about SACD, but they can't
because Sony (the hardware manufacturer) is still pushing it. But
it seems that Sony stopped subsiding other labels to make SACD
releases.

One thing that shows the little activity in SACD is that the top of
SACD sales (at least at amazon) changes quite slowly. For instance,
for most of the past 6 months (at least) Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the
Moon - 30th Anniversary Edition [SACD] has been number 1 (sometimes 2):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...wse/-/1071476/

Of course DVD-Audio is not doing (much ?, any ?) better. It seems
that the new dualdiscs (DVD-Audio+CD) have been more or less a
failure (patent problems in Europe, compatibility problems and the
CD side(?) is not standard redbook).

Some months ago I had some hopes. With universal players at less
than 200 euros and not much more expensive than similar brand
DVD-video players * it seemed that the hardware side was ready.

* me and a friend bought, respectively, a Pioneer DVD-575A-K and
a Yamaha DVD-S 550 at the same time. Price difference: 20 euros.

And with an artist like Bjork launching her latest record in CD,
DVD-Audio and SACD at similar prices, it seemed that the formats
could finally take off.

But then, Jean Michel Jarre launched "Aero" in DVD-video (DTS and
Dolby). And he is on the "Label: Warner Strategic Marketing" !
REM (also on Warner) launched their latest record only in CD despite
having a couple of old records in DVD-Audio.


--
http://www.mat.uc.pt/~rps/

..pt is Portugal| `Whom the gods love die young'-Menander (342-292 BC)
Europe | Villeneuve 50-82, Toivonen 56-86, Senna 60-94

Kurtis Bahr wrote:
In my feeling after initially purchasing a lot of the Sony SACD's I found
that it seems that SONY took the multi-generational masters and made SACD's
from them. They did not go back to the original masters and start carefully
with SACD from scratch.

And you know this for a fact in which instances?

Sony also did a lot of cheesy surround effects that
were poor. I quit buying any SONY SACD's. Now there are other companies,
Mobile Fidelity, Chesky, and others that are doing SACD correct and it
sounds good.

Also, if you are using you $200 Sony DVD/SACD players the quality of the
electronics in the box kill all the sonic advantages of SACD.

Any demonstrated examples of this?

Cheap low
cost parts and noisy power supplies. With a quality player a difference can
be heard.

Which players would demonstrate this in a blind, level matched, time-synched
comparison?

So; If you have an audiophile system the difference is there if the
recording was done correctly. If you are using the average consumer
equipment then SACD differences may not be heard. You will still hear how a
good company like Mobile Fidelity, etc start with better original master
tapes and take more care in mastering as even their stereo CD's are better
than anything Sony puts out.

As it happens Mofi did not always use the original masters, and they were
not averse to applying a dollop of eq to their releases , such that some of them
probably sound different from the sources.

Rui Pedro Mendes Salgueiro wrote:
wrote:
I asked sony why the did not release their movie's soundtrack in
SACD
(but released in CD only). Sony did not answer the question but
said
they would "will escalate this case to our marketing department"
whatever it means.

One of the opinions columns in Hi-Fi World, February 2005 issue is
about SACD. The writer says that he has been told that Sony (the
record label) would like to forget about SACD, but they can't
because Sony (the hardware manufacturer) is still pushing it. But
it seems that Sony stopped subsiding other labels to make SACD
releases.

It's beginning to look like recorded music for the foreseeable future
(which may not be that long) is going to fall into two categories:

1) 2-channel playable on an iPod

2) multichannel accompanying video

If true, this has obvious implications for high-end manufacturers and
marketers.

bob

Rui Pedro Mendes Salgueiro wrote:
wrote:
I asked sony why the did not release their movie's soundtrack in SACD
(but released in CD only). Sony did not answer the question but said
they would "will escalate this case to our marketing department"
whatever it means.

One of the opinions columns in Hi-Fi World, February 2005 issue is
about SACD. The writer says that he has been told that Sony (the
record label) would like to forget about SACD, but they can't
because Sony (the hardware manufacturer) is still pushing it. But
it seems that Sony stopped subsiding other labels to make SACD
releases.

One data point in support: mastering guru Steve Hoffman worked on some
SACDs for Audio Fidelity in the last year or two, and that was
subsitided by Sony. Then apparently Sony
withdrew their funding, and now Hoffman is touting....HDCD instead
of SACD.


One thing that shows the little activity in SACD is that the top of
SACD sales (at least at amazon) changes quite slowly. For instance,
for most of the past 6 months (at least) Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the
Moon - 30th Anniversary Edition [SACD] has been number 1 (sometimes 2):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...wse/-/1071476/

Of course DVD-Audio is not doing (much ?, any ?) better. It seems
that the new dualdiscs (DVD-Audio+CD) have been more or less a
failure (patent problems in Europe, compatibility problems and the
CD side(?) is not standard redbook).

I expect both SACD and DVD-A to go tits-up in the next year or two,
with maybe some boutique labels carrying on, a la vinyl.

* me and a friend bought, respectively, a Pioneer DVD-575A-K and
a Yamaha DVD-S 550 at the same time. Price difference: 20 euros.

And with an artist like Bjork launching her latest record in CD,
DVD-Audio and SACD at similar prices, it seemed that the formats
could finally take off.

But interestingly, AFAICT 'Medulla' hasn;t been released in the USA in
hirez/surround formats. I had to get my DVD-A version from Europe.

(and my god, if any track ever made surround worth having, it's
"Where Is the Line?")



--

-S
If you're a nut and knock on enough doors, eventually someone will open one,
look at you and say, Messiah, we have waited for your arrival.

Also, if you are using you $200 Sony DVD/SACD players the quality of
the
electronics in the box kill all the sonic advantages of SACD.


Any demonstrated examples of this?
____________________________-

Maybe he is right. The cheaper players converts DSD to PCM. I thought
it was discussed in this forum before. Whether the cheaper player
sounds cheap or different is one's opinion.

wrote:
Also, if you are using you $200 Sony DVD/SACD players the quality of
the
electronics in the box kill all the sonic advantages of SACD.


Any demonstrated examples of this?
____________________________-

Maybe he is right. The cheaper players converts DSD to PCM.

Yes, and is there any demonstration that such a conversion is
necessarily audible?

I thought
it was discussed in this forum before. Whether the cheaper player
sounds cheap or different is one's opinion.

Indeed, if one does not go to the trouble of verifying the difference
properly, it is as likely to be utterly imaginary, as not.



--

-S
If you're a nut and knock on enough doors, eventually someone will open one,
look at you and say, Messiah, we have waited for your arrival.

wrote:
Rui Pedro Mendes Salgueiro wrote:
wrote:
I asked sony why the did not release their movie's soundtrack in
SACD
(but released in CD only). Sony did not answer the question but
said
they would "will escalate this case to our marketing department"
whatever it means.

One of the opinions columns in Hi-Fi World, February 2005 issue is
about SACD. The writer says that he has been told that Sony (the
record label) would like to forget about SACD, but they can't
because Sony (the hardware manufacturer) is still pushing it. But
it seems that Sony stopped subsiding other labels to make SACD
releases.

It's beginning to look like recorded music for the foreseeable future
(which may not be that long) is going to fall into two categories:

1) 2-channel playable on an iPod

One of the reasons why I do not buy more DVD-A or SACD's is that I
cannot transcode/rip the tracks so that I can play them on the iPod. I
believe many people feel the same way.

The other main reason, of course, is that the material available is so
little compared to standard CD.


2) multichannel accompanying video

A lot of the new receivers have wonderful features, like automatic EQ's
or superior digital bass management, that work only for DD or DTS
material. Arguably, those features can make the compressed multichannel
recordings *sound* better than DVD-A or SACD. And the video make those
much more attractive than audio-only high-rez recordings.


If true, this has obvious implications for high-end manufacturers and
marketers.

High-end 2-channel will be an even smaller niche.


bob

wrote:
Also, if you are using you $200 Sony DVD/SACD players the quality of
the
electronics in the box kill all the sonic advantages of SACD.


Any demonstrated examples of this?
____________________________-

Maybe he is right. The cheaper players converts DSD to PCM. I thought
it was discussed in this forum before. Whether the cheaper player
sounds cheap or different is one's opinion.

I thought the Sony players still use DSD al the way for SACD playback,
regardless of price. Only the other brands may convert DSD to PCM.
Here's a Sony player at $150 list:

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTE...DVD_DVDPlayers

Its SACD frequency specs look the same as the ES players, like this one:

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTE...sshowcase_sacd

Of course, I do not believe that you have to get an expensive player to
hear the difference between SACD and CD, since it appears that the
mastering is what gives those differences.

Steven Sullivan wrote:

Rui Pedro Mendes Salgueiro wrote:

wrote:

I asked sony why the did not release their movie's soundtrack in SACD
(but released in CD only). Sony did not answer the question but said
they would "will escalate this case to our marketing department"
whatever it means.


One of the opinions columns in Hi-Fi World, February 2005 issue is
about SACD. The writer says that he has been told that Sony (the
record label) would like to forget about SACD, but they can't
because Sony (the hardware manufacturer) is still pushing it. But
it seems that Sony stopped subsiding other labels to make SACD
releases.


One data point in support: mastering guru Steve Hoffman worked on some
SACDs for Audio Fidelity in the last year or two, and that was
subsitided by Sony. Then apparently Sony
withdrew their funding, and now Hoffman is touting....HDCD instead
of SACD.



One thing that shows the little activity in SACD is that the top of
SACD sales (at least at amazon) changes quite slowly. For instance,
for most of the past 6 months (at least) Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the
Moon - 30th Anniversary Edition [SACD] has been number 1 (sometimes 2):


http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...wse/-/1071476/


Of course DVD-Audio is not doing (much ?, any ?) better. It seems
that the new dualdiscs (DVD-Audio+CD) have been more or less a
failure (patent problems in Europe, compatibility problems and the
CD side(?) is not standard redbook).


I expect both SACD and DVD-A to go tits-up in the next year or two,
with maybe some boutique labels carrying on, a la vinyl.


* me and a friend bought, respectively, a Pioneer DVD-575A-K and
a Yamaha DVD-S 550 at the same time. Price difference: 20 euros.


And with an artist like Bjork launching her latest record in CD,
DVD-Audio and SACD at similar prices, it seemed that the formats
could finally take off.


But interestingly, AFAICT 'Medulla' hasn;t been released in the USA in
hirez/surround formats. I had to get my DVD-A version from Europe.

(and my god, if any track ever made surround worth having, it's
"Where Is the Line?")



Given that multi-channel audio-video on DVD is here to stay, DVD-A may
still have a chance and make a comeback since it's based on the same
technology. Whatever the case may be, it's probably going to take some
time. Regular audio CD is still more than satisfactory for something
like 95% of the population. Myslef included. CD just won't die, not that
it needs to. Formats like JVC's XRCD shows just how good a regular audio
CD can sound.

CD

Codifus wrote:
.......
Given that multi-channel audio-video on DVD is here to stay, DVD-A
may
still have a chance and make a comeback since it's based on the same
technology. Whatever the case may be, it's probably going to take
some
time. Regular audio CD is still more than satisfactory for something
like 95% of the population. Myslef included. CD just won't die, not
that
it needs to. Formats like JVC's XRCD shows just how good a regular
audio
CD can sound.

CD

As I was reading 2003 philips press release, I recall reading somewhere
on the web SACD is probably going to be part of home theater. And then
the development of single chip to incorporate DVD and SACD. Sony's
trend is incorporate SACD in all of their HT system but not in their
hifi sys. And their ultimate SACD player Qualia is only 2 channel. I
did post more than a year ago about Qualia and wondered why their
ultimate player was only in stereo.

Maybe Sony and SACD is upto something. Anyone with inside info?
Apparently Sony is still supporting SACD ( though now they call it
Super Audio CD).

On 26 Jan 2005 00:32:27 GMT, wrote:

Maybe Sony and SACD is upto something. Anyone with inside info?
Apparently Sony is still supporting SACD ( though now they call it
Super Audio CD).

Now? And what did they call it earlier?

Kal

You are just pulling my leg, right? i am sure you are aware of it.

Anyway...simply SACD, the short form for Super Audio compact Disc (just
the acronym). Now they want to emphasize the word CD. In another word
they are probably pushing SACD in stealth. By calling it CD, I mean
Super Audio CD. For layman, that means better sounding CD they don't
know anything about format.

Mebbe it's too just subtle for me since many, including some of the
SACD proponents at Sony, always referred to them as Super Audio CDs. I
really wonder if that's a real or an apparent change.

Kal

On 27 Jan 2005 00:30:23 GMT, wrote:

You are just pulling my leg, right? i am sure you are aware of it.

Anyway...simply SACD, the short form for Super Audio compact Disc (just
the acronym). Now they want to emphasize the word CD. In another word
they are probably pushing SACD in stealth. By calling it CD, I mean
Super Audio CD. For layman, that means better sounding CD they don't
know anything about format.

wrote:
You are just pulling my leg, right? i am sure you are aware of it.

Anyway...simply SACD, the short form for Super Audio compact Disc (just
the acronym). Now they want to emphasize the word CD. In another word
they are probably pushing SACD in stealth. By calling it CD, I mean
Super Audio CD. For layman, that means better sounding CD they don't
know anything about format.
Emphasize just the word CD for SACD? Holy cow would that be
magnificently confusing.

CD

On 28 Jan 2005 01:32:59 GMT, Codifus wrote:

Emphasize just the word CD for SACD? Holy cow would that be
magnificently confusing.

Not if restricted to hybrids.

Kal