....And what are we supposed to do if we don't want to download low-quality audio from the internet?
I was thinking and belaboring that point as I listened or more accurately was immersed in a new Dark Side of the Moon SACD I purchased from Amazon. I was listening to it on my Oppo BDP-83. (Blu-ray, SACD and DVD-audio for those who may not know) This is the third version of this album I have purchased over the years (from Cassette to CD to SACD) and the sound is by far the best. The big question was: Why is the industry hi-jacked by IPod users and their needs and what do the rest of us have to do to get better quality music?
I suppose I know the answer to my initial question. SACD was crippled by Sony to sell it's hardware and protect it's music empire. The concept of buying yet another expensive device and clutter our shelves did not sit well with many people including myself. The media itself is no better than having a CD with its inherit problems. The manufacturing, distribution and sales of yet another format was doomed even as the sales of regular CD's are going down the drain.
Then we have to ask: Why don't the studios deliver high resolution music in a down-loadable format that gives us the capability to burn it into a media of choice or play it through a device we want? The Oppo is a great example of how multiple devices can be wonderfully engineered into one so that costs are lower and the quality is very high without taking up extra shelf space and dishing out money for extra media players.
I know there are sites where you can download lossless or HD type recordings of various artists, but most of the ones I have found tend to be music outside what you might call mainstream artists, and classical. They are not bad in any way, but what about getting the music that I already listen to?
I'd like to hear what everyone thinks on this topic
Convenience is what makes or breaks everything. SACD (and I believe all other hi-res formats) can't be ripped to a computer. It can't be copied and put on a portable device. It can't be played in cars. The only way to hear it is at home on an SACD player. I guess that's pretty boring.
I spoke with James Tanner from Bryston about if hi-res will every hit the mainstream in one way or another. Being a guy who sells a lot of gear to recording studios, he said that the mainstream studios/labels seriously doubt that anything above redbook will go mainstream. Maybe the 24/192 (or whatever it is), but highly unlikely.
Hi-res downloads are hampered by storage space and download times. A hi-res album will reportedly take hours to day or so to download. If hi-res is going to go mainstream, the best way will be optical disc or pre-loaded drives like thumb drives. The thumb drives are a great idea IMO, but I don't think they'd be very cost effective for a single album. I have seen a few here and there, and they were about $30 or so IIRC. I don't think they were hi-res either. There was also no packaging like liner notes. Maybe they were loaded onto the drive?
I'd love to see hi-res go mainstream. I think Blu-Ray may be the way to go, like Neil Young's release. I'd pay more for an album on Blu-Ray that had some behind the scenes stuff, liner notes, etc. with a hi-res music layer built in. I'd have to be able to rip that part to a music server, or at least get a full digital output to run it to an external DAC. Blu-Ray players don't output music in hi-res from their coax or optical outs, only the HDMI. No DACs that I know of have an HDMI input.
I'd love to see someone like Metallica re-release all their old stuff on Blu-Ray in a hi-res, uncompressed way. Throw some old concert footage and/or behind the scenes stuff. I'd pay a good chunk of change for that. I highly doubt the day will ever come.
At the end of the day, the masses don't care enough about sound quality to force the mainstream labels into better sound. As long as they can take it anywhere, that's good enough. I agree that it should be allowed to be taken anywhere and copied to whatever device people want (in a legal way). The two can exist, but people care more for portability than quality.
Just my take.
The thread which I asked James Tanner... http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=75084.0
Format wars generally spell bad news for any new media, particularly when the war is within your own development company. By the time Sony/Philips had SACD ahead of DVD-A they were also ready to dump DVD and move on to Blu-ray. This left SACD without support from the major companies within hardware and software manufacturers and also crippled Blu-ray with the decision to not make music only discs available in that format. It left music and hardware retailers with another group of dead products to push to make way for the next new, big thing.
And these guys get the big bucks?!
Genius! Pure genius!
I suppose you could argue SACD suffered from the public turning away from hard disc storage media which would to a large extent be true. The very small % of listeners interested in (SACD's) superior quality are never enough to keep a format like SACD alive. Sony's insistence that SACD files could not be sent from a player as anything other than an analog signal didn't help it's acceptance with the iPod generation and the iPod generation is typically unaware of just how bad most of their files actually sound. So, yes, convenience drove a stake in SACD's heart but selling convenience over quality is what keeps the mass market audio companies alive. It's been that way for decades, ever since the move away from pentodes and alnico magnets. Which leads us to the inevitable reason for why every business decision seems to be made - money.
Ever notice how many SACD's were made from analog masters? Ever wonder why? Ever think is was because so much of what became the SACD library from major recording studios such as Sony was taken from recordings that didn't risk as much cash as had Sony invested the SACD process with a newcomer. Boomers would buy up their third, forth or fifth copy of DSOTM or The White Album but even they got tired of having to sit down at home to listen to music they couldn't pop in their 1200 watt JBL system in the Lexus.
Your presence here on this forum would suggest you are part of that very small 1.5-2% of the buying public who consider themself to be "audiophiles" and your desire for excellent sound when you take the time to sit and listen has always been considerd an oddity within the music buying market.
Without portability and recordability, without new artists and without available ringtones the rest of the buying public just didn't give a sh!t about SACD. Ask around the office and I'm sure you'll find most people aren't even aware it was here let alone that it went away.
Mostly, SACD's rather slow death should be blamed on Sony who has never said they are interested in producing high quality merchandise, just merchandise that sells - and resells and resells the same titles and mostly junk equipment. As always the recording industry looks around and just can't figure out why they are loosing sales so they simply move on to the next dumb idea. For the most part, the recording industry's reactive mantra makes Homeland Security look fleet footed - check your underware, sir?
All is not terrible though in SACD land. DSD file handling is widely recognized as superior to Redbook by those producing music. Unfortunately, it is considered superior somewhat because it allows even more manipulation of the signal than Redbook tolerates. Many studios adapted DSD equipment into the production systems so there is a contingent of artists/producers/engineers who have the ability to process their work in the basic format that was SACD. Unfortunately once again since SONY would not allow digital output of a pure DSD file most of the processing that occurs in these machines is after the signal has been downsampled back to a strictly PCM quality which largely defeats the purpose of DSD processing. So, Sony's stupid to the point of killing the goose protectionism of DSD really must be considered the prime reason SACD has all but disappeared from the face of the planet. That and too many others chasing the next bright, shiny thing that might bring in a few bucks or entertain them for a weekend.
Anyone realtively new to the audiophile recording market must get used to the best recordings not being made by the artists you want to hear. This can be considered a double edged sword in that, if you want the quality, you might actually find some lesser known talent who lights your fires. Unfortunately again, that seldom happens. But audiophile recordings just do not get made by major artists. Not only because they don't want to limit their sales but the studios must make "XXX" $$$ on each release from major star. Obviously appealing to 1.5-2% of the buying public isn't how that's going to happen. Yep, you'd think if they made it sound better people would want to buy it - and that's why you're on this forum asking the question you did.
In this case at least you do not resent the mainstream of the music buying public. If you did, we'd still be hearing the superior sound quality of open reel tapes. How long ago did they disappear to make way for the more convenient LP?
It's a cycle, Stof, you just found out it sounds really good with a baseball card in its spokes and nobody else cares.
Probably not where the thread was headed or even should head...
Is it just me or is there a serious lack of new mainstream musical talent? I don't think there's been a new cutting edge band to come along since the early '90s. The Seattle grunge bands were the last ones to change things up IMO. Couple that with MTV no longer playing music (at least not that I've seen in a very long time), and that's what I think the recording industry's real problems stem from.
What was the last singer or group that changed everything? The 2000's are easily the worst, or at least most underwhelming decade for music that I can think of. Maybe Eminem or Korn right around 2000? I'm struggling here. No one made me want to run out and buy a CD, especially a new artist.
I think that we have become resistant to anything different than that which fills our libraries. My 19 year old step son pops his tunes in his vehicle, I just shake my head, but he enjoys it immensely. To that age group, there are all sorts of great bands out there. Another problem is the state of radio, where we originally got our exposure to all that which thrilled us. I find it very difficult to stomach commercial FM for very long, even Sirius gets to be a bit much if you listen to the same station for any period of time, or over a couple of days. Their playlists are too limited. Fortunately, there is an abundance of deviations. Note I didn't say quality deviations. Best bet of late are PBS stations. Get the stations to commit to a more diverse playlist, I think we'd be surprised by all the good new music out there. As a demographic, we (45+) rank at the top in music sales. Then look at our ranking on investment in "higher end" kits versus big box "systems". Perhaps its those that run the companies that market the music who have become stale, no longer possessing an imagination, much less inspiration.
"Probably not where the thread was headed or even should head...
Is it just me or is there a serious lack of new mainstream musical talent? I don't think there's been a new cutting edge band to come along since the early '90s. The Seattle grunge bands were the last ones to change things up IMO. Couple that with MTV no longer playing music (at least not that I've seen in a very long time), and that's what I think the recording industry's real problems stem from.
What was the last singer or group that changed everything? The 2000's are easily the worst, or at least most underwhelming decade for music that I can think of. Maybe Eminem or Korn right around 2000? I'm struggling here. No one made me want to run out and buy a CD, especially a new artist."
Don't get me started. You're right this isn't where this should be going. There is a whole bunch of cutting edge music and much of it is available to folks who are not looking to "bands" for new music.
Even if our musical sights are so narrow as to be looking to "bands" for earth shattering new music when was the last time anyone here listened to Wilco or Yo La Tengo...like I said, don't get me started. Lots of great music, we just need to loosen the grip that the music we listened to when we were teeny boppers has on us and open up our horizons.
Yeah, I have Pink Floyd, SRV and Nirvana albums...but that ain't all there is. Listened to it enough when I was a kid that I only need to look back for nostagia and contniue to look both forward, and far enough back, to know what it is that I am looking forward for.
Music is fun, experiment a little.
And do remember there is a TON of new cutting edge stuff out there...go forth and listen...lol!
I'd be surprised if anyone I worked with knew what they were Gavin. I even have a SACD player (my MC-301 plays them) but I don't own one SACD disc, mainly because of the dearth of titles I'd be interested in buying.
I really don't consider myself an audiophile. At the risk of offending the purists on this forum, I'm going to elucidate that what I enjoyed about the DSOTM SACD was the proper way that it enveloped the whole room and that had to do with the way it encoded 5.1. The same was true of Brothers in Arms. It wasn't in a 2 speaker or 2.1 environment. The difference between the two is what really got me.
Jan mentioned the remastering of the audio from analog. It does essentially say that on the DSOTM SACD that it was remastered by Pink Floyd's old producer. So I'm imagining a process by which the old recording, in 48 tracks or whatever it was, was reassembled and then fed into 5.1 digital with less loss in the sampling. I'm sure most would not want to drag the old ars's of the band members back into the studio to re-record their stuff because it would be expensive (unless the artists really wanted it) and it probably won't sound as good since they really can't sing the way they did back in the day.
If we follow this process, we can see that the recording off of the original analog is put onto a Hi-fi webstore and sold in a format akin to Blu-Ray or whatever else that can be downloaded, burned to whatever media (thumb drive, lexus JBL, Blu-ray, media center servers etc) and enjoyed in the way people would want. For even the 2% of the people out there (which could still translate to millions around the world with the access of the internet) would this process be so expensive as to make it prohibitive?
We have to remember that just as the technology has moved on from one format to another there is also a very cost saving method of delivery that did not exist even 12 years ago and that is the internet. Would not a business model of this nature excite a few of the old and new stars to want to issue or re-issue their music in this way?
On the other track I do think there is good music out there now. Since so much of what we listened to is emotionally connected to our brains, after a certain age that connection does not register as much so we don't think much of the new music. My kids listen to Rihanna and Black Eyed Peas etc. and I listen to them sometimes and think they are fun. Does it have the same effect of listening to Sting's Nothing Like the Sun album for the first time? No, but it's still decent to listen to.
There were no 48 track systems back in the days when DSOTM was recorded. Much like the Beatles material Floyd stretched the canvass of analog by continuously recording over tracks that had previously been laid down and then combined and combined again. All of that started with Les Paul and his early work with multi-track recording on what was during Paul's day a strictly mono recorder. Most studios of the Beatles and Floyd era worked with no more than six possible tracks (with one or two tracks left open for studio tracking use leaving four/five actual working tracks) and those were often confined to a four track bi-directional recorder that had been modified to record in one direction. But those were different days and one performer was not recorded on five tracks at once.
Keep in mind one of the inherent limitations of analog is an inevitable addition of noise, +3dB, with each subsequent copy so it doesn't take long before signals are swallowed by tape noise as copies are made one after the other. Every time one track was mixed over the already existent track an addition of noise occurred and there were no real noise reduction systems available until Dobly introduced his "A" system a few years later. The early studio productions that came from the Boomer's rock stars are remarkable not only for their musical value but for the inventive use of the available technology of the day.
It's quite remarkable that modern digital formats can remove the steadystate tape noise from truly ancient recordings and the old analog masters can be cleaned up as they have been. For those of us who listen to performers who recorded in the 1920-30's this is the real advantage of digital that is finally being realized. The digital copies won't replace the 78's but they make available music we can no longer find or afford and keep us old dogs seated for more than 3'28".
As far as "envelopment" goes, this is largely the way your system should sound IMO and in the opinion of many others. Ambient presence should be all pervasive in an excellent recording when played back over even good but not great components. For example, the presence of the room has set recordings such as Kind of Blue or Belafonte at Carnegie Hall apart for just how well it captures the space surrounding the performers. But those were different days with very different recording techniques. This ambient presence of the venue was commonly captured on recordings up to the point where studio creations such as DSOTM led artists to other methods of recording and before you knew it 36 and then 64 and eventually 128 tracks and ten or more mics on the drum set became the accepted way to record. Groups soon recorded in isolation booths fed by headphones and seldom saw each other durring the process. Some might lay that too at the feet of the Beatles and their infamous battles at the end of their recording career - it kept everyone from going off and the job actually got done under less than ideal situations as each played in isolation from offending band members.
Sonically, even as studio productions DSOTM and Brothers in Arms should have an enveloping quality in lowly two channel playback. You should be within the cocoon of a soundscape created by the engineer and sounds should travel past you and around you and wrap behind and above you - a real showpiece of what studios and machinery can create when nothing existed in reality. However, of the many copies of DSOTM that I've been through the SACD version played in 2.0 presents an ambient space that is truly impressive and sets the benchmark for what SACD and two channel reproduction can achieve in many areas. The SACD in 5.1 is impressive but the 2.0 is IMO even more so.
I was frequently bothered by the false staging which marked the "Hey! look at what I can do now" nature of many multi-channel recordings with guitars popping up in the rear speakers and drums set across all five channels. The Old Dogs thread which some of the forum members visit was actually begun as a response to my remarks regarding the very poor quality of most two channel remasters into multi-channel. The SACD of DSOTM proved just how effective imaginative but not show-offy remastering can be. For years DSOTM was a demo piece that had worn out its welcome to my ears, I just couldn't listen to it at home any longer. The SACD version is now an item I do listen to and enjoy as a new recording.
If you have a SACD player in your system and you have a copy of Dark Side in the format, give it a listen in two channel and see what you think. Unlike most multitrack SACD's the two track layer was also remastered for the SACD release.
Stof, SACD is not dead, in fact they are still being produced by a number of recording companies serving a niche market and most of them cater to classical music and jazz fans. SACD will never become a mainstream medium nor can anyone guarantee any medium will.
Try telling these guys SACD's are dead and you will be very quickly rebuked:
Thanks for the link MR, but I'm noticing that a lot of the SACD's listed in their archives are not for sale any more in US. Instead there are opportunistic people selling them for about 10 times the price LOL. I will continue looking though.
I will give the 2 channel a try Jan. I know the technology exists to strip away a lot of unwanted noise from older recordings. It's just a matter of money to pay engineers and software folks to do it. I recently purchased an Ion Cassette to MP3 converter mostly to preserve some very old speeches I have on cassettes before they totally fade away. Even with the freeware software that is included you can clean out a lot of junk from those recordings. I can only imagine what real software is available to recording studio's with real engineers. Someone could do real good with a little pattern recognition code and reduce a lot of noise from older music.
As you mentioned noise is just one issue. I'm sure there are 5.1 re-mastered stuff which is badly done with pushing tracks to side or back speakers where they don't belong and make the recording worse. I have bought only a few SACD and one DVD-A based on the recommendations of many and they seem to do justice to the way they wanted the music to be heard. With the Brothers in Arms album I am able to strip every channel except the center channel and hear nothing but Mark Knopfler's voice. Kind of cool.