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/