Don Satz responds to L. Vachnadze:

>>As I don't plan to buy an SACD player any time soon, should I keep on
>>sleeping?
>
>Sleep away, at least for a few months.

SACD has been around commercially for well over five years now, so a few
months longer won't hurt, it's true.

>I've noticed in the Gramophone new release sections that SACD releases
>are much less than 10% of total standard CD releases.

I'd say much, much less than 10%.  More like 1% or less.  In any case,
the SACD format won't be taking off until new releases in rock/pop/country
are coming out regularly on SACD, and that doesn't look to happen any
time soon.  Until then, and perhaps now for many years to come, SACD
(and its cousin DVD-Audio) will likely remain a niche product.

I've said before that as far as the market is concerned high bit rate
audio formats are probably a solution to a problem that doesn't exist
for 99%+ of CD buyers.  I completely agree with John Smyth that SACD is
a far superior audio experience, even in stereo.  However, most people
don't seem to care about the increased recording quality.  This couldn't
be made more plain than in the ridiculous rush to low bit rate music
downloads and the explosion of iPods, etc.  The low bit rate formats
make a lot of sense for portable music, noisy car environments, etc.,
but they make no sense as a primary audio source.  I find MP3 or Windows
Media encoded music - particularly classical - to be just about unlistenable
on my home system.

>In my heart, I'd like to see SACD retire quickly.

Other than simple contrariness, something I admit I'm prone to myself
sometimes, I can't say I see much sense in this.  Even if you never buy
a SACD or DVD-A player, you will very likely be (if you aren't already)
the beneficiary of high bit rate mastering technologies.  Classical
labels like DG, Chandos, Telarc, EMI, Philips, Decca, RCA, even Naxos,
are using high bit rate recording and mastering for some of their plain
ol' CD releases and re-releases.  Granted that these 20-, 21-, 22, and
24-bit (or DSD) masters have to be downsampled to the 16-bit standard
of CD, but there seems to be a significant improvement in recordings
made this way.  For instance, every single CD re-issue of older material
I've heard on labels like DG, Decca, RCA, etc.  that are mastered at
24/96 are superior to the previous incarnations.

>Lousy music is still lousy, and performances I don't like remain
>unlikeable.

This is a very good point.  All the equipment and technology available
won't make a bad recording good, or a poor performance better.  In fact,
better sound just makes deficiencies even easier to hear.  What these
technologies do provide however is a reduced risk that the sound of a
good recording of a good performance will get corrupted on its way to
the end listener.

>...  I have been surprised at the relatively low prices for SACD's,
>except that the Tilson Thomas Mahler 4th has a price of about $25 at
>the local Borders.

And that's pretty high, really.  At online stores SACDs are often no
more than $1 to $2 more expensive that the CD version, and sometimes
they are the same price.  The SFSO/Thomas SACDs are private label, put
out by the SFSO, so they are a little more expensive than releases from
major labels.  When the SACD is a hybrid - meaning it can be played on
most regular CD players too - it really makes little sense not to buy
the SACD version in many cases.  There has been a big push these last
couple of years to get SACD and DVD-A prices down to be comparable with
regular CDs.  The marketers have discovered that's the only way most
people will get interested in the technology.

>I suppose that what bugs me about SACD is that it requires new equipment
>and is therfore being pushed strongly by those sources that will benefit
>from the changeover.

With prices of superb SACD players in the $150 range, as John pointed
out, this is pretty much a non-issue.  (And, yes, there are high-end
DVD-A players) Nobody is going to get filthy rich off of SACD equipment
sales at $10-30 of profit per unit.  What the labels did hope to do was
to benefit hugely by sparking a buying cycle similar to the switchover
from LP to CD.  If they could get us all to replace our CD collections
with SACD or DVD-A versions, there were hundreds of billions to be made
they reasoned.  That doesn't look to happen now, but I think it does
make sense for those of us who enjoy (or demand) the convenience of
digital technology, and really care about sound quality, support these
formats to some degree so that the high bit rate options remain commercially
viable for future releases.

Back to the subject of this thread...  At this point I've bought just
about all the Living Presense CDs I'm interested in, so now I'll have
to decide if I want to replace them with the SACD version.  At $11.99
a piece, some will be hard to resist.

Dave
http://www.classical.net/