Rja, its not the listening that leads to angst, its parting with the greenbacks that is a problem for some of us. |
Amen!
I would be happy to buy a few DSD downloads, and there is plenty in the Sony catalogue that appeals to me. All I need is for them to make available something I actually want of recent vintage.
Also, something under $20 / album would be nice. If they want the format to fly, the price is going to need to be more reasonable. Many, many titles are available in CD for less than $15 shipped.
At the least, Sony should release a timeline for further releases. Sony historically has made some good strategic decisions that they kill with horrible tactical moves. This is starting to look like deja vu all over again.
Sony, I'm retired now. Maybe you would like to bring me on part time to run your show. I could do better with 4 hours a day, a dart board, and my magic 8 ball. |
Bmoura, thanks for the tip. I was not aware of the Pentatone DSD offerings. I will monitor this site in the future. I do like much of the Pentatone catalogue. As it turns out, have already purchased SACD versions of almost everything they had to offer that interests me. Titles that I have not yet purchased were for the most part not available as DSD files. A couple that perked my interest were available for 26.5 Euro. Ouch!
The labels have to understand they are competing against themselves. Because of access to their titles at a deep discount, I suspect the DSD download initiative is going to fail. I will certainly pay a premium for DSD over physical media, but I will not pay 3,4, or 5x the cost of a CD except under very rare circumstances.
I guess we have to hope that the music industry executives aren't all a bunch of dolts, and that ultimately they will price their offerings at what the market will bear. This buyer won't pay 26.5 e or even 25 USD. |
Charles, What I am hearing with a very limited sampling of DSD files on my HAPZ1 as compared to redbook through the HAPZ1 is a close parallel to the distinction between the hifi and WE 101Ds. You could be happy forever, until you hear the difference. But there is certainly a difference between DSD master files and redbook PCM recordings via flac or wav. Where the analogy fails is that there is no earthly reason that I can see for charging substantially more for a DSD download than a redbook download. Looks like the usual practice of attempting to place the entire burden of set up costs on the early adapters.
You are absolutely right, redbook done well can be very good, and the cost is quite reasonable and in some cases downright cheap. I bought a used CD today for $0.98. 26.5 euro? Really? |
Sabai, I have a ModWright Sony HAPZ1, which like the PS audio DS converts everything to DSD. I have roughly 850 albums loaded to the hard drive, including some that are old recordings, some that are early digital, and many that were originally recoded in DSD. They are all of course, transferred to the HAPZ1 hard drive as redbook PCM files, mostly in AIFF format.
Everything I have played back with conversion to DSD has been very high quality. With the HAPZ1, one can turn off the DSD conversion and listen to the native PCM. Where I have A/B'ed the DSD against the redbook PCM, the DSD has been better by a wide margin. So what you say has some merit.
The HAPZ1 comes shipped with a few DSD tracks. One of those tracks is from Yo Yo Ma's Appalachian Journey, and is a particularly beautiful recording of fairly recent vintage. I have ordered the CD so that I can compare a native DSD file to a redbook PCM file that goes through the real time PCM to DSD conversion process. If I cannot discern a difference between the two, then for me, purchase of native DSD master files does indeed become moot.
I expect there will be a difference, but I am uncertain what the magnitude of the difference will be. However, in any case, I agree completely that redbook is alive and well. I have no desire to replace 1500 cds with HiRez files, no matter what. I am very much open to purchase of new music as HiRez downloads, especially native DSD, for new music, but the value proposition has to be more favorable than it is currently. $25 a title isn't going to happen on a regular basis, and as more equipment like the sony and the PS audio becomes available, the window of opportunity for the record companies to make HiRez download more than a niche may close. |
Bigamp, I see your point. I have about 1600 CDs. At $25 each, a comparable library would be about 40K. I do spend some money on equipment. However, I'm really not a gotta have the latest and best kind of guy. I am a slow, deliberate, what is the best bang for the buck kind of guy.
I will buy a few DSD downloads at $25 each, but the reality is, it will likely be the exception not the rule. And I won't be buying DSD remasters of 40 year old performances at that price. Sony already has a large library of DSD masters. I'm not seeing that this requires a huge investment on their part to release the master files to Accoustic Sounds so that they can be purchased.
If they are able to convince enough people to buy at those prices, more power to them. To me, it appears that they are about to screw it up again by failing to read the market. |
Sony's problem is not that they are greedy, it is that they are tactically stupid. The beauty of capitalism, done right, is that it is a win-win proposition. The company, its employees, its stockholders, and its customers all benefit. So much for the economic viewpoints of Brownsfan.
I received the CD corollary of the native DSD Appalachian Journey album, and uploaded wav, ALAC, AIFF, and MP3 files of the Cloverfoot Reel track (redbook) for comparison with the native DSD file supplied with the HAPZ1. As I expected, the native DSD file was better (across the board) than the redbook CD files uploaded in the 4 formats, then converted on the fly to 2x DSD by the Sony. But--- the difference was not profound. There was more sweetness in the violin, more edge in Ma's cello, better depth in the double bass, but it was not an overwhelming difference. I've heard far more difference from redbook cd to redbook cd. I paid $7 for the CD shipped, vs $25 for the DSD download.
Now, if I didn't have a machine that converted to DSD on the fly, what would the difference be, and would it warrant 3.5 x the cost of a CD? Tomorrow, I will compare the 4 transferred files with the DSD engine turned off, and see what that reveals.
Sony music is again not paying careful attention to what the Sony ES division is doing. Come on, guys, we are not idiots. Release your native DSD files, make a couple bucks over what you make on CDs, and we will all be happy. I'm pretty sure you will net more based on volume than what you are doing now. Forget trying to save your ancient treasures and focus on your current offerings, some of which are excellent.
Or, you can kill one more strategic initiative that deserves to succeed with a business plan that won't fly.
Just glad the ES guys have their act together. |
TBG, I agree with your take. I'm sold on native DSD being better than PCM, and I am confident there is a large latent market waiting for the software to be released at a reasonable price. I am just afraid that there is a narrow window for capitalizing on that latent market, and I fear, with good reason, Sony is once again poised to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I'm a Cleveland Browns fan, so I am an expert in reading the signs!
Equipment like the new PS Audio DSD DAC and Sony's own HAPZ1, not to mention other similar devices, may make the difference in downloaded native DSD and DSD converted on the fly too small to justify buying the native DSD at a premium. Based on my listening with my ModWright Sony HAPZ1, I just don't see the price differential being worth it.
If my assessment of the difference between the DSD master of Ma's Appalachian Journey is typical, the DSD master is like 1.03 compared to 1.0 for the AIFF redbook up sampled to 2 x DSD by the MW Sony. The DSD is $25, the redbook CD was $7.00 shipped. I have a large budget for new music, but it is a budget, and I can buy a lot more music, with a very small sonic compromise. They are going to have to offer more music at a better price and do so quickly, or people are going to move on. |
Mapman, you ask good questions and provide good counterarguments. DSD is not universally better than PCM in the sense that all DSD recordings are better than PCM recordings.
As for the technical reasons, I'm just a simple organic chemist, not an ee, computer scientist, or physicist. I'm smart enough to leave such discussions to those who know what they are talking about. I'd rather take an empirical approach here, allowing my ears and emotional response to music to trump technical considerations, although I don't want anyone selling me snake oil, either.
I have a limited sampling--one, which is somewhat short of being statistically significant. I'd like to have more samples, but I'm not going to blow my entire estate at $25 each to run the experiment.
My fascination with DSD is based on what I hear from people I trust, who are in a better position to make statistically significant judgments. Also, I have a general preference for the sound of cds that were produced from DSD masters. It's by no means a universal preference, but I don't have many bad recordings in my collection that were recorded in DSD, while I have more than a few bad recordings that came from PCM masters. In all fairness, I have a wall full of wonderful PCM master derived CDs. That observation is proof of nothing, but it is enough to keep me interested in native DSD files.
If Sony lets us down here (again), it is not the end of the world. As you have pointed out, PCM properly implemented can be extremely good. All I'm asking here is that Sony implement a marketing strategy that allows the musical cognoscenti an opportunity to determine the real value of hi rez in general, and DSD in particular. |
