Byrds: Fifth Dimension - Announced, Not Released on Surround SACD

[Q-Eight]

What's the Deal with Amazon RA360?

My perceptions:

1. Headphones only, no discrete Atmos, Quad. or 5.1 without rumored $8K McIntosh A/V Processor
2. Amazon and Sony want you to buy the proprietary Sony headphones for $350 https://www.amazon.com/Sony-WH-1000XM4-Wireless-Canceling-Headphones/dp/B08WZXP336/
3. Amazon RA360 streams don't even show available in the Amazon app on my iMac with 5.1 HDMI that I use for Apple Music
4. On my iPhone & iPad, the streams do not show available unless the device detects either wired or bluetooth headphones / earbuds

Thank you for explaining the whole deal. Blows my mind - here I am; an avid fan of multichannel music - but can't access it because *reasons* created by someone at a desk.
I can guarantee this experiment is destined to fail because by default; they've already ousted the core group of multichannel fans. So, who exactly is this for???

1. What's the point of surround sound in headphones? Even old school Quad headphones were a bit of a joke. I'm sure you can create spacial effects with phase and cancellation but.... you simply can't beat four independent channels in a soundstage with actual DISTANCE between the listen and the driver. That way, you just deliver 4 channels of sound without phase cancellation gobbledygook. Why are they making this more difficult than it needs to be? Simplify and add lightness, *********!!
2. Oh yeah, I'm gonna run out and drop a stupid amount of money on **** headphones that I'll never use. Bravo Sony. *insert slow clap here*
3. Streams. Great. Let me guess.... I'm paying REAL MONEY for something that doesn't actually exist and can be turned off at the flip of a switch? Sounds legit.
4. iPhone, iPad, iRobot. Name three things I have no use for in my life.

I don't even need to continue responding to the rest of your list, but I still thank you for providing it. This is such a joke.

So, if you're a large corporation; extortion is A-OK. But I'm a bad person and could face losing money/liberty/freedom because I make digital copies of a 50-year-old 8-track tape. Plus, I just watched a video that tried to explain that you can now place any sound object in a 360° Spherical Sound Space around you. Uh.... and people used to complain that QUAD sounds strange and unnatural? I've never heard a banjo play below my feet. Y'know.... this is JUST my luck. Here Sony is finally releasing "surround-sound" albums by groups I'd really like only to deliver it in a format that is expensive, cumbersome, pointless and incompatible with the other 29 formats I can play.

Sorry for venting, and this is probably not the forum to do so but.... I'm just so.... maybe not even angry - but disillusioned that "they" are even trying to **** up my Quad fix.

 

[quicksrt]

Are we supposed to not vocalize our disappointment with Sony on this backwards thinking development? Ya know, tip-toe around the subject?

Could they not have tried this out with some new artists who's fans just adore headphones, and listen to them almost exclusively, rather than the hot rock and pop titles from the 70s that they have inflicted with this format? Interesting that a bunch of cool and semi-cool quad titles arrived at Apple Music, and then several even hotter titles were cherry picked for RA360 only.

Do you think that they will release those albums (Aerosmith, S&G, Paul Simon, Dave Mason) to Apple Music eventually?

 

[quicksrt]

Thank you for explaining the whole deal. Blows my mind - here I am; an avid fan of multichannel music - but can't access it because *reasons* created by someone at a desk.
I can guarantee this experiment is destined to fail because by default; they've already ousted the core group of multichannel fans. So, who exactly is this for???

1. What's the point of surround sound in headphones? Even old school Quad headphones were a bit of a joke. I'm sure you can create spacial effects with phase and cancellation but.... you simply can't beat four independent channels in a soundstage with actual DISTANCE between the listen and the driver. That way, you just deliver 4 channels of sound without phase cancellation gobbledygook. Why are they making this more difficult than it needs to be? Simplify and add lightness, *********!!
2. Oh yeah, I'm gonna run out and drop a stupid amount of money on **** headphones that I'll never use. Bravo Sony. *insert slow clap here*
3. Streams. Great. Let me guess.... I'm paying REAL MONEY for something that doesn't actually exist and can be turned off at the flip of a switch? Sounds legit.
4. iPhone, iPad, iRobot. Name three things I have no use for in my life.

I don't even need to continue responding to the rest of your list, but I still thank you for providing it. This is such a joke.

So, if you're a large corporation; extortion is A-OK. But I'm a bad person and could face losing money/liberty/freedom because I make digital copies of a 50-year-old 8-track tape. Plus, I just watched a video that tried to explain that you can now place any sound object in a 360° Spherical Sound Space around you. Uh.... and people used to complain that QUAD sounds strange and unnatural? I've never heard a banjo play below my feet. Y'know.... this is JUST my luck. Here Sony is finally releasing "surround-sound" albums by groups I'd really like only to deliver it in a format that is expensive, cumbersome, pointless and incompatible with the other 29 formats I can play.

Sorry for venting, and this is probably not the forum to do so but.... I'm just so.... maybe not even angry - but disillusioned that "they" are even trying to **** up my Quad fix.

I think we need a thread just for voicing our displeasure about RA360 and what some of us don't like about it.

Boy I am glad that Ten Years After's catalog reverted back, away from Columbia / Sony in the US. Can you imagine "A Space in Time" being a part of the RA360 hold-back? I can imagine that, like really easily. Can you imagine "Wish You Were Here" being a part of this?

I hope everyone on this forum voices their dislike. I mean unless there is an unwritten rule that you don't knock Sony no matter what.

 

[humprof]

I think we need a thread just for voicing our displeasure about RA360 and what some of us don't like about it.

Boy I am glad that Ten Years After's catalog reverted back, away from Columbia / Sony in the US. Can you imagine "A Space in Time" being a part of the RA360 hold-back? I can imagine that, like really easily. Can you imagine "Wish You Were Here" being a part of this?

I hope everyone on this forum voices their dislike. I mean unless there is an unwritten rule that you don't knock Sony no matter what.

Sony's 360 strategy is certainly a head-scratcher. But it would also help if AVR manufacturers would just add MPEG-H decoding capability to their receivers across the board. So far, for reasons I don't understand, it's only available in an $8000 McIntosh.
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...le-music-in-5-1-dolby-audio.31315/post-600974

 

[quicksrt]

Sony's 360 strategy is certainly a head-scratcher. But it would also help if AVR manufacturers would just add MPEG-H decoding capability to their receivers across the board. So far, for reasons I don't understand, it's only available in an $8000 McIntosh.
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...le-music-in-5-1-dolby-audio.31315/post-600974

Ummm, no, I would be almost fine with an outboard decoder. I don't need another amp or AVR right now.

 

[sjcorne]

Ummm, no, I would be almost fine with an outboard decoder. I don't need another amp or AVR right now.

That seems about as likely as getting an outboard Atmos decoder for consumer use...

 

[JediJoker]

Ummm, no, I would be almost fine with an outboard decoder. I don't need another amp or AVR right now.

With any luck, for those of us with more modern Internet-connected AVRs, MPEG-H decoding is something that could be added through a software update. Does anyone know if it requires special hardware to decode? And if it can be done in software, would an AVR's SoC be powerful enough to do it without a dedicated coprocessor?

 

[quicksrt]

Sony's 360 strategy is certainly a head-scratcher. But it would also help if AVR manufacturers would just add MPEG-H decoding capability to their receivers across the board. So far, for reasons I don't understand, it's only available in an $8000 McIntosh.
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...le-music-in-5-1-dolby-audio.31315/post-600974

Sony better be careful, if they put out too much desirable content with very little way to decode and hear it properly they risk more pirated material being circulated.

The reason streaming took off in the first place was the ease of playing the material and at a low cost. Someone will come along and solve that problem for them.

 

[johnbs]

With any luck, for those of us with more modern Internet-connected AVRs, MPEG-H decoding is something that could be added through a software update. Does anyone know if it requires special hardware to decode? And if it can be done in software, would an AVR's SoC be powerful enough to do it without a dedicated coprocessor?

This website seems to suggest that decoding is already licensed by Apple and Android and that it is only open encoding that is missing.

http://www.ecodis.de/audio.htm