John Smyth:

>. . . SACDs give one almost the whole soundwave in numbers, rather than
>1 out of every 4 numbers, or bits, as the CD does.  I finally understand
>what vinyl enthusiasts have been lamenting about for the last 20 years.
>But I don't intend to sell my entire CD collection.  No one has to.  If
>you like large-scale orchestral music, and have a stereo system @$1000+,
>set up correctly in for stereo or surround, and you listen to music as
>an event, (you sit in a chair triangulated with your speakers), you'll
>hear a difference.

Really?  My ears must not be as sensitive as yours or perhaps I don't
care about the difference.  I *have* heard SACDs, but it never seemed
worth plunging in, although I certainly don't begrudge audiophiles.  For
me, *all* electronically-reproduced sound is a representation of, rather
than an identity with, reality.  Perhaps I've just become accustomed to
a particular approximation.

>It is the obsolescence of CDs that has caused me to actually *buy*
>music again.  Was there really much left to buy in the old format?

Need you ask?  Of course there was, and not just in obscure Modern and
Avant-garde music, either.

>We have competing recordings of 2nd, 3rd, and even 4th-rate composers
>and the posthumous torsos of Cui, completed by....  You get the idea.

Well, I'm sorry, this is specious.  There's a lot of first-rate music
that hasn't been released, although we'd probably disagree on whether
it's first-rate or not.  However, there are also some grand performances
of first-rate composers that have never seen commercial CD.

>. . .  don't call the introduction of *one* technological advancement
>in 20+ years nothing more than a devious way to squeeze money out of
>people.  This is silly.

It's certainly more than that, but it's also a way to squeeze money.  On
the other hand, as I've said, is this really a significant technological
advancement?  After all, more bits = more information hardly counts as
news (remember beta?), and, as I've suggested, the improvement may not
be worth the *present* cost.

Steve Schwartz