When is digital going to get the soul of music?

"Music buyers voted down high resolution audio with their failure to buy enough SACD or DVD-A discs to encourage the record companies to continue with the business model."

Tvad, I'm more optimistic than you on this I believe.

Yes, those were not good business models.

I believe electronic delivery of music over the internet is the business model that will work as it does for other forms of electronic media and will continue to expand into higher resolution formats as well. Its already happening, I believe.

Its inevitable that upcoming generations of products like Roku Soundbridge ($129 currently) for example will expand to higher resolution and continue to be relatively cost effective hardware products to produce. You will pay accordingly for the high res content to go along with them though.

It'll be similar to how companies practically give away cell phones today do that they can lock you into their much higher revenue services.

Digital technology is the enabler of all this, not a hindrance. Viable business models are a different concern.

Mapman, whether delivered as digital downloads or on silver discs, it's my opinion that the mass market of music buyers do not care about the added fidelity of high resolution audio. Second, these buyers care more about how many songs they can fit on their portable music players, and this means low resolution formats will be chosen over high resolution files. These are the buyers that drive the music business.

So, yes, we disagree on this topic. It's unlikely you will persuade me to your point of view, and it's unlikely I will persuaded you to mine.

When I see new, mainstream music available as high resolution downloads on iTunes, then I will be convinced that high resolution audio is recognized by music companies as a viable, profit generating product.

Tvad,

Hopefully its enough of a boutique/niche thing to take form and survive. As such , there will be a cost but hopefully enough willing to pay. It'll be a long time before it is ever mainstream for sure. I'm sure I will never be able to afford to replace my LP collection in my lifetime. I will look forward to it hopefully though for new stuff and better yet versions of the titles I truly cherish.

This is not a digital versus analog viewpoint on my part. It's about enjoying music. For instance, before I wouldn't listen to lp's made after 1982 in case digital was in the mix somewhere. Even drunk(not me!?), you could feel the relaxing nature of all analog versus analog with some digital. Finally I had to do something, as I had missed all music after 1982. I have a very fine digital setup(APL Denon 3910 and Oritek pre/dac{used at BAAS's recent events}-both with Lessloss pc's), and I hope to build my digital library. That being said, I wonder about the ability of the musician to translate his intent on digital. It seems that maybe analog makes it a song, and digital has sounds that don't seem to quite add up to a song-or you have to listen to it a lot before it becomes a song. Is this due to the lower resolution of redbook cd? Here is where I'm going to show my ignorance/laziness. Don't all these bits and extended frequency sampling still give you either a 1 or a 0?

It seems to me, there are cogent points made in this thread which are somehow missed by later contributors. The result is a pattern of one step forward, two steps back whereby the discussion reverts back on itself over and over again.

Mmakshak, I encourage you to read Alberporter's posts above as he addresses your question in a very clear, succinct manner.