SACD - Dying already?

Rex: EMI doesn't manufacture SACDs...yet. They are looking into it. Again, what the Majors do doesn't matter. SACD is a recording technology that is *portable,* If you want to record something in DSD, the service is now offered by many recording companies not affiliated with Sony or any of the other Majors--dCs for one, makers of the $35K CD player. Philips is also introducing DSD plug-ins so that *any* recording engineer may record in the format. (Yes, editing must be done in PCM but it's still better.)Sony and Philips will get a cut, but the cat's out or the bag.

Why should "local stores" expect to sell SACDS? One can get them more inexpensively on the 'net and if you buy from Amazon UK, you can get them months earlier than their US release. Next. Dying already? Some of you guys have short memories: Three years after the introduction of CDs I remember driving to San Francisco because I heard of their "vast" selections available--over 300 CD! (There are now 2144 SACDs available and an average of three new releases a year.) And what's with all the "Sony this and Sony that?" Let 'em collect they're proprietary fees and make machines; the musical products I've been purchasing from the Indie labels are *so* much better than what the majors have been putting out in the last few years. The only stuff worth listening repeatedly can be found in the niche markets anyway.

Just a correction to my above posting: That was "3 new SACD releases a *month,*" not 3 new SACD releases a year, LOL. Yes, one cannot judge a product anymore by how well it sells in "local" stores; not with the internet around. (Plus Tower is too expensive.) With regards to DVD-A, reality is my favorite indicator indicator of its health--there are only 1/4 the titles available and how long has the format been available? DVDs have been selling *extremely* well, but what that tells me is that people are satisfied with them as they are. Hard core music buffs have been complaining about the sound quality of CDs for years which created a hunger for SACD within this particular niche. Many SACDs I buy on line are on back order--reality check again: the inventories, however small, are being exhausted. There *are* mid-fi SACD players available--Denon has one for $3K that even does bass management in the analog domain. It's just that the name is Denon and not audiophile brand X.

(1)You suggest that SACD is dying because they don't sell in local record shops, without realizing that record stores are dying both because of competition from the net and mega-stores.(BTW, I socialize where all the action is, not in places where the has-beens go.) : ) 2) Some claim that multi-inventory products, (competing formats) can only spell disaster, without realizing that it's not 1980: multi, or redundant inventory only causes space problems and extra inventory expense for the local middle man, (see issue (1)), who, in the 2004's, is not an issue anymore. (3) Sony came up with SACD because there were more than a few people who had been complaining for years about PCM and digital harshness. EMI/Warner came out with DVD-A for people who...weren't complaining. (4) While there are classic turntables, classic amps, speakers, etc.; there are no classic redbook CD/PCM players. (Type "classic CD player" into ebay if you must.) (5) According to one of this month's Hi-Fi mags, Japanese companies are no longer mass-producing CD players, only Universals. (6) People buy DVDs because they want to collect movies, not because they love the format. (7)"Let's just buy all our music on DVD...." Do you know how many people are going to have their hands in the royalty cookie jar then? You ready to shell out even more money to pay Madonna'a hair-dresser? (8) Cheap Universals have only been out for a year. When I bought my Marantz SA-14 v.2 SACD/CD player, I had to wait because it was on back-order--the US inventory had sold out. Hmmm. No one is going to want SACDs after paying 3K for a player? Question: how many of you have a decent hi-rez player, have listened to it in your home with a broad range of recordings for at least 3 months, THEN came on here with an educated point of view. Uh huh, I thought so.

It doesn't matter whether or not your friends have heard of hi-rez. Let's play a game to show how silly this is. "My friends have never heard of Cardas Cable." "My friends have never heard of Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs." My friends have never heard of Telarc." If these companies are doomed, they and I don't know about it. Silly.

Many of you still need to get out of your 1980's pre-internet thinking, which goes thusly: SACD = niche market = death. Mass market = life. I read in The Economist that we are no longer mass-market consumers--the internet has transformed consumers--esp. with regards to entertainment--into a massive community of niche market enthusiasts. Because we suddenly have a global inventory at our fingertips, and all the information we want regarding that inventory, we've been able to sharpen our tastes and desires and make direct connections with those companies ready to fulfill our wants. It's no longer the case that the local buyers for Sears shape our tastes and limit what's available to us. Are you following? If SACD becomes a niche market, so be it. According to The Economist, it's the Age of the Niche Market. You gotta know this stuff before making such near-sighted assertions.

Tony writes:

DVD is the new mass media, witnessed by the unprecedented sales of DVD players since their introduction, not SACD. DVD-A is the next logical step, but Sony had to try to keep their market share and tried to get a leg up on the competition by introducing SACD before DVD-A was ready.

A company can do what it wants. Sorry. You're saying DVD movies sell well, much better than CDs, therefore music on DVD or DVD-A will sell just as well. You're confusing correlation with cause. (It's like saying expensive 10-speed bikes *cause* middle age, pattern balding, road rage, and obscene use of spandex in men, though there is a correlation, 10 speeds aren't a cause.) Just because people buy more movies in the DVD format doesn't mean they will buy more music in the DVD-A format, and a reminder--one must buy a DVD-A machine. Music DVDs have been around for years; surely they would have obviated CDs if people were *that* hungry for media with their music. Another thing. SACD is a *recording technology* not a product. Any company that wishes may use it, depending upon what their target consumer wants, regardless of what happens to Sony. How hard is this? Finally, it's interesting to me that the high-rez crowd doesn't feel it necessary to say "Redbook CD is dead" every time a new SACD comes out, which suggests to me a confidence in the format. What I see reading many of your posts between the lines is a lot of self-reassurance, that your CD player and collection still have relevance. If I had recently put a $10K CD player on a high-interest credit card, I'd be shouting "SACD is dead" every chance I got. Thou doth protest too much. Relax, if your Redbook sounds so good.

Well, my final word, (which will be a relief to many of you who don't want to believe there's a prettier woman on the block than the one you have in your Redbook CD player and collection), and this is what I've been saying all along. It doesn't matter what Sony, EMI, or Universal does. It doesn't matter what the lowest common denominator of the mass-market wants. At one time it did, but as I said in my first posting, it doesn't anymore. If it did, no one would be able to buy vinyl, would they. Just as the internet has kept vinyl alive for those who want it, the internet will keep SACD alive for those who want it. I understand your frustration with regards to the majors sitting on such vast catalogs of music, but surely with 2055 SACD titles available today and an average of 100 new releases a month, (not 3, I goofed again), there is *something* good enough for you? And players from $250 to $8000? (The Absolute Sound found that the $250 Sony Universal had astonishingly good sound that appoached vinyl in its ease of presentation; I know--that would make one eye dart sideways in my head too if I still believed in redbook. Oh well. What angers me is all the armchair prediction here may cause many to deny themselves a very special listening experience, (yeah yeah, I goof with regards to EMI; I listened to redbook for an hour as punishment).
I leave you with the harshest question of all: Years down the road, let's say SACD finds it niche, DVD-A finds it's niche, (doubtful), and of course vinyl already has it's niche...tell me with a straight face that sure, there'll be a niche called "Redbook-lover's Corner," where people pay more to have their favorite artists remastered down to 16bit...