How we gonna play our discs in the next future?!

[zdjh22]

I’m a bit surprised at the specific ire towards SACD, given that every format we’ve used for music and video since video tape (Macrovision) has included copy protection. SACD’s was particularly robust, but unlike DVD-A with the Verance watermark in the audio that prevented even a low quality analog copy from playing in certified hardware, at least you could use the analog hole for SACD. I’ve never minded DMCA efforts to protect against perfect copies, but a scheme that sought to prevent lower-quality audio copies seemed excessive.

I’m very happy to have all of the multichannel formats still available, either new (BluRay/SACD/DVD-V) or the secondary market (DVD-A). I have a greater number of disc players that can read SACD (PS3, a Sony BDP that can also rip, an Oppo) than can read DVD-A (only the Oppo). Of course data drives on a computer can read it all except SACD, with the various difficulties getting software that works and doesn’t get pulled (RedFox and its predecessor).

As much as I love the Rhino Quadios, on my hardware the DTS-MA encoding creates more minor hoops to jump through to get just 4 channels playing on the specific speakers that I want than the Sony Japan and DV SACDs.

 

[par4ken]

I can burn Blu-rays at my desk. Yes, the media is costly, but I have no way to burn an SACD.

But you can burn SACD isos and thus burn SACD-R's from the iso.! I don't myself but people here do and play them on jail broke Oppo's! Mandix has promoted it for a long time! SACD-R

If I were trying to be a home-based disc producer, I would never consider SACD.

Are you (a home-based disc producer)?

 

[jimfisheye]

I guess I'm surprised the stand alone disc player method has survived the transition to HTPC with this much demand. That's one of the big reveals from this forum. I thought the idea at the end of the 20th century was to go HTPC and never look back? Keep and manage a digital archive yada yada. Maybe this was more a Jobs era Mac thing? Surprised at all the Windows use around here as well for an audio focused forum. (Post-Jobs products aside. Don't recommend today!)

From the view of HTPC, this is all pcm audio and all the same format. Just a few different channel counts. And then a few rogue encoded formats of pcm audio. SACD with its DSD is the one outlier. (But it's possible to "liberate" with PC tools.) Atmos is an intentional restricted access to the decoder but it's just more pcm audio. Dolby apparently prefers getting pirated to selling their media player at present.

I thought digital audio on disc was a little fragile and fleeting initially. Damage a vinyl album in a spot and that sucks but it's only that one little spot. Damage a disc in the right spot and suddenly the entire thing is a coaster. The computer with backup strategies and checksums for file handling was instantly liberating when that happened. At this point you could grab a computer and only use it for a digital tape deck and call it your new "AVR" if you wanted to be simple like that and probably have more flexibility than the stand alone components.

This era of software spoofing and subscription scams is hitting pretty hard. So that's a new twist. The Atmos decoder is part of that. It's a pointed attack on HTPC users. I don't think this is going to succeed and I think HTPC is still the way to go. Strong defense of the stand alones around here though, wow!

20 somethings are listening to stereo streaming with earbuds with their phones. They have no personal music collection at all themselves. "Playlists" for online streaming now. Just blown by the wind! Show them stuff like different mastered versions of an album they like and they're just floored! "Wait, this is a bootleg on Spotify?!" This is how some of the streaming and rattier novelty mastered editions can fly nowadays.

 

[barfle]

Are you (a home-based disc producer)?

I have converted a bunch of VHS tapes to DVD, as well as a few LaserDiscs. I'm also the only one here who seems to make "Music DVDs," which can pack over 40 hours of AC3 on a two-layer DVD. I also save my HD Indy 500 broadcasts to Blu-ray. Nothing professional, but it's part of my AV hobby.

 

[zdjh22]

I guess I'm surprised the stand alone disc player method has survived the transition to HTPC with this much demand. That's one of the big reveals from this forum. I thought the idea at the end of the 20th century was to go HTPC and never look back? Keep and manage a digital archive yada yada. Maybe this was more a Jobs era Mac thing? Surprised at all the Windows use around here as well for an audio focused forum. (Post-Jobs products aside. Don't recommend today!)

From the view of HTPC, this is all pcm audio and all the same format. Just a few different channel counts. And then a few rogue encoded formats of pcm audio. SACD with its DSD is the one outlier. (But it's possible to "liberate" with PC tools.) Atmos is an intentional restricted access to the decoder but it's just more pcm audio. Dolby apparently prefers getting pirated to selling their media player at present.

I thought digital audio on disc was a little fragile and fleeting initially. Damage a vinyl album in a spot and that sucks but it's only that one little spot. Damage a disc in the right spot and suddenly the entire thing is a coaster. The computer with backup strategies and checksums for file handling was instantly liberating when that happened. At this point you could grab a computer and only use it for a digital tape deck and call it your new "AVR" if you wanted to be simple like that and probably have more flexibility than the stand alone components.

This era of software spoofing and subscription scams is hitting pretty hard. So that's a new twist. The Atmos decoder is part of that. It's a pointed attack on HTPC users. I don't think this is going to succeed and I think HTPC is still the way to go. Strong defense of the stand alones around here though, wow!

20 somethings are listening to stereo streaming with earbuds with their phones. They have no personal music collection at all themselves. "Playlists" for online streaming now. Just blown by the wind! Show them stuff like different mastered versions of an album they like and they're just floored! "Wait, this is a bootleg on Spotify?!" This is how some of the streaming and rattier novelty mastered editions can fly nowadays.

Unfortunately any of the formats that render onto overhead speakers (Atmos, DTS:x, Auro-3D) as a practical matter need a proprietary hardware decoder. Fortunately AVRs with such decoders are quite an amazing bargain. Whether you choose to feed the AVR (or AVP) from an HTPC or a universal disk player is a matter of personal preference. A competent computer and storage system is far preferable to me than handling individual optical discs. I definitely understand the appeal of software like JRiver or Plex - I use Plex for my video and stereo CD collection - but my personal preference for accessing ripped audio discs is my jailbroken Oppo via NFS mounts. I’m still old fashioned in that LPs back in the day were meant to be experienced a full side at a time, and that’s how I still generally consume a work of music.

 

[jimfisheye]

Unfortunately any of the formats that render onto overhead speakers (Atmos, DTS:x, Auro-3D) as a practical matter need a proprietary hardware decoder.

An opinion I strongly disagree with as a HTPC listener!

This is the gap that's hard to bridge when you are already setup with a modular surround system with a computer, interfaces, amps, and speakers. It turns into a penalty and you are told to replace your entire system instead of adding 4 or 6 new channels. And this does not fly in any universe!

Anyway, I hope these discussions help someone to navigate the equipment choices! You can choose to stay with 21st century style HTPC and the Dolby reference player exists. I would be nice if they started selling it instead of encouraging piracy like this but that's not my circus or monkeys!

 

[par4ken]

Unfortunately any of the formats that render onto overhead speakers (Atmos, DTS:x, Auro-3D) as a practical matter need a proprietary hardware decoder.

That is a sad reality and also it's where I totally agree with jimfisheye. Ideally we should be able to render Atmos via computer software. Hardware decoding should be unnecessary. Jim has been working in this regard to liberate Atmos from it's forced confinement.

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

20 somethings are listening to stereo streaming with earbuds with their phones. They have no personal music collection at all themselves. "Playlists" for online streaming now. Just blown by the wind! Show them stuff like different mastered versions of an album they like and they're just floored! "Wait, this is a bootleg on Spotify?!" This is how some of the streaming and rattier novelty mastered editions can fly nowadays.

Listening in stereo...if they care! In my experience we've gone back to the 60s where people are having trouble caring about and differentiating stereo!

The youth just doesn't care. They have everything at their fingertips; and if they don't like something they can just switch to something else!

The future is going to be determined by what the younger audience wants...and hoooooooooooo boy it's looking sketchy.

Maybe its the crowd around me but I genuinely cannot remember the last time I saw a dedicated speaker system of any caliber in someone's residence...

 

[mandrix]

I’m a bit surprised at the specific ire towards SACD, given that every format we’ve used for music and video since video tape (Macrovision) has included copy protection. SACD’s was particularly robust, but unlike DVD-A with the Verance watermark in the audio that prevented even a low quality analog copy from playing in certified hardware, at least you could use the analog hole for SACD. I’ve never minded DMCA efforts to protect against perfect copies, but a scheme that sought to prevent lower-quality audio copies seemed excessive.

I’m very happy to have all of the multichannel formats still available, either new (BluRay/SACD/DVD-V) or the secondary market (DVD-A). I have a greater number of disc players that can read SACD (PS3, a Sony BDP that can also rip, an Oppo) than can read DVD-A (only the Oppo). Of course data drives on a computer can read it all except SACD, with the various difficulties getting software that works and doesn’t get pulled (RedFox and its predecessor).

As much as I love the Rhino Quadios, on my hardware the DTS-MA encoding creates more minor hoops to jump through to get just 4 channels playing on the specific speakers that I want than the Sony Japan and DV SACDs.

We almost always overcome copy protection. Initially DVDA, DVD, then with SACD via the PS3.
Now Blu Ray.
I have authored hundreds of DVD-A for personal use, and some few dozen SACD-R (sic). There are options for copy protection when authoring, though SACD is indeed more robust. I have several disc spinners that ignore all that crap anyway.
I have no particular ire toward Sony and Phillips. I just don't hear any improvement with SACD over DVDA. They wanted to make money: they did and still do. Then DTS killed the DTS-MAS encoder (or tried) for early licensees.
If they did not charge outrageous pricing for authoring software, we could be very far ahead at this point. Let the big houses grab the cash, after paying a for them, modest fee. Hell discWelder for DVDA was like $1500 way back.... then they abandoned it. Phillips Super Author? give me a break. Now it's evidently Pyramix or nothing I'm told for SACD.

Yeah DTS-HD as implemented by the AVR makers (It's in the DTS-HD spec!) want to use more than the input channels for output if available. I was told this directly by Onkyo when I enquired. Their "engineers" were kind enough to provide a pic demonstrating how their AVR's handle DTS-HD. Since I play mostly from the pc I can overcome most of it with my AVR,. The puzzling insistence of including a .1 channel for quad. But I can defeat that as well.

 

[mandrix]

Unfortunately any of the formats that render onto overhead speakers (Atmos, DTS:x, Auro-3D) as a practical matter need a proprietary hardware decoder. Fortunately AVRs with such decoders are quite an amazing bargain. Whether you choose to feed the AVR (or AVP) from an HTPC or a universal disk player is a matter of personal preference. A competent computer and storage system is far preferable to me than handling individual optical discs. I definitely understand the appeal of software like JRiver or Plex - I use Plex for my video and stereo CD collection - but my personal preference for accessing ripped audio discs is my jailbroken Oppo via NFS mounts. I’m still old fashioned in that LPs back in the day were meant to be experienced a full side at a time, and that’s how I still generally consume a work of music.

I also use NFS to mount discs over my network with my jailbroke Oppo.
I'm also a computer guy, and much prefer it over disc spinners.
I find JRiver underwhelming when it comes to 4k discs via pc...could be my particular setup, IDK since my RTX 3060 only passes 4K over DP to the display when I'm trying to get audio over HDMI....

I also don't rip to flac or individual files, as I grew up listening to LP's , then flipping them over to hear side (x). (well exluding Q8's of course) Old habits die hard. lol. I have no music file play lists: don't need any. When I look through the thousands of .iso rips on my pc, sometimes I rediscover a gem and listen to it all.
Well over 34TB of surround now. FLAC & MKV included in that only when that's commercially available, otherwise all discs except DTS-CD ripped as .iso files. Been doing this a while....

 

[mandrix]

I guess I'm surprised the stand alone disc player method has survived the transition to HTPC with this much demand. That's one of the big reveals from this forum. I thought the idea at the end of the 20th century was to go HTPC and never look back? Keep and manage a digital archive yada yada. Maybe this was more a Jobs era Mac thing? Surprised at all the Windows use around here as well for an audio focused forum. (Post-Jobs products aside. Don't recommend today!)

From the view of HTPC, this is all pcm audio and all the same format. Just a few different channel counts. And then a few rogue encoded formats of pcm audio. SACD with its DSD is the one outlier. (But it's possible to "liberate" with PC tools.) Atmos is an intentional restricted access to the decoder but it's just more pcm audio. Dolby apparently prefers getting pirated to selling their media player at present.

I thought digital audio on disc was a little fragile and fleeting initially. Damage a vinyl album in a spot and that sucks but it's only that one little spot. Damage a disc in the right spot and suddenly the entire thing is a coaster. The computer with backup strategies and checksums for file handling was instantly liberating when that happened. At this point you could grab a computer and only use it for a digital tape deck and call it your new "AVR" if you wanted to be simple like that and probably have more flexibility than the stand alone components.

This era of software spoofing and subscription scams is hitting pretty hard. So that's a new twist. The Atmos decoder is part of that. It's a pointed attack on HTPC users. I don't think this is going to succeed and I think HTPC is still the way to go. Strong defense of the stand alones around here though, wow!

20 somethings are listening to stereo streaming with earbuds with their phones. They have no personal music collection at all themselves. "Playlists" for online streaming now. Just blown by the wind! Show them stuff like different mastered versions of an album they like and they're just floored! "Wait, this is a bootleg on Spotify?!" This is how some of the streaming and rattier novelty mastered editions can fly nowadays.

I had an "HTPC" years ago as an early adopter with an mini itx mobo & 2 core I3 and a tiny AMD video card with HDMI. Able to stream to the AVR via VLC or play via Foobar. Play movies on the TV via HDMI.
I went through the whole XBMC crap, lava filters, etc, to try and play mch audio.
Win 7 with it's disfunctional crap for recording TV, bought a Hauppauage 1212 device for live tv recording. Paid apps: abandoned. Free apps: sometimes good, often crap.
The software was shit back then. One managed.

People move on. I've been at this game a very long time. Never gets easier, but we adapt. Don't know everything but know enough to keep going. Of course old enough that C.R.S. often creeps in....

 

[kfbkfb]

https://radiodiscussions.com/thread...noise-1920-to-2024.773128/page-5#post-6755860
^^^
Stereo sound and the general public (research done ~45 years ago)

Maybe this is the answer:
https://pitchfork.com/features/oped/9492-back-to-mono/


Kirk Bayne

 

[mandrix]

https://radiodiscussions.com/thread...noise-1920-to-2024.773128/page-5#post-6755860
^^^
Kirk Bayne

Well yeah, less chatter and more music. But better sound, and in stereo, no? Deep album cuts on good stations.
Was almost nirvana after a decades of AM crap. Of course AM was all I had at an early age, and I'm grateful for the few high watt AM stations that gave me rock from long distance when there were none in Florida.

 

[mandrix]

I used to record via cassette, all of David Sanborn's weekly shows, off FM radio on Sunday mornings. Would be sure to be awake and have the cassette deck cued up with a fresh tape.
I learned more about various Jazz artists than I ever would have compiled on my own.
He had artists recordings of some you'll likely never heard of. Some were one great album and done.
The man had one of the best FM broadcast shows I ever heard. Sadly, I no longer have those recorded broadcasts.

Doug Cameron was a featured artist, as an innovative jazz violin player, that had an album that resonated with me, and I eventually found the CD. Sadly it's lost in the sands of time or buried with the rest of the CD's, boxed up and sitting silently. Even sadder it was pretty much brickwalled shit. But what a talent, the man.

 

[Sal1950]

I agree fully with those reasons but most of us want the best possible sound in addition. That "best" is very often found on the original vinyl, especially in cases where the digital release is mutilated by brickwall mastering. Other times, as with the Hi-rez Blu-ray (Quadios)
or the SACDs (Dutton Vocalion) are miles above the rest! I don't mind paying more and paying again (and again) if it is for better sound.

Considering I have close to 5000 albums of music I love from the 1950 on forward, all on digital sources, not to mention the millions on streaming, I can't imagine not being able to do without the tiny few that were never released in a digital form. So much music, so little time. Also personally, if need be, I'd rather listen to a slightly compressed digital file than the snap, crackle, pop, surface noise, mono'd bass, etc plus the complete inconvenience of messing about vinyl. I sold off all my black hell back 25 some years ago and never looked back.

 

[mandrix]

Considering I have close to 5000 albums of music I love from the 1950 on forward, all on digital sources, not to mention the millions on streaming, I can't imagine not being able to do without the tiny few that were never released in a digital form. So much music, so little time. Also personally, if need be, I'd rather listen to a slightly compressed digital file than the snap, crackle, pop, surface noise, mono'd bass, etc plus the complete inconvenience of messing about vinyl. I sold off all my black hell back 25 some years ago and never looked back.

I've kept a very few LP's out of love. A few CD-4, SQ, and of course the original double LP of Quadrophenia.
....a few others, but not many. Gave most of them away a long time ago.
Time marches on, and I/We are old now Sal.
Life is good.

 

[par4ken]

Considering I have close to 5000 albums of music I love from the 1950 on forward, all on digital sources, not to mention the millions on streaming, I can't imagine not being able to do without the tiny few that were never released in a digital form. So much music, so little time. Also personally, if need be, I'd rather listen to a slightly compressed digital file than the snap, crackle, pop, surface noise, mono'd bass, etc plus the complete inconvenience of messing about vinyl. I sold off all my black hell back 25 some years ago and never looked back.

You are entitled to your option but a few snaps and pops are much less distracting than the fatiguing sound of compressed audio! And there is an awful lot of material that has not been released digitally and likely never will. Contrary to early advertising the CD does not provide perfect sound forever. If you were dissatisfied with vinyl then it was your equipement not the medium itself. Software can remove those clicks and pops perfectly anyway.

 

[mandrix]

You are entitled to your option but a few snaps and pops are much less distracting than the fatiguing sound of compressed audio! And there is an awful lot of material that has not been released digitally and likely never will. Contrary to early advertising the CD does not provide perfect sound forever. If you were dissatisfied with vinyl then it was your equipement not the medium itself. Software can remove those clicks and pops perfectly anyway.

Vinyl degrades. I know you know that. But I will never argue against your preferences.
A lot of music was released as pure shit: we all know that's true, regardless of format.

 

[par4ken]

Vinyl degrades.

It does? Not when well cared for! I've repeated many times that I like to make digital copies of my vinyl. I am able to declick them and repeated playings of the copy do not affect the original vinyl. The vinyl is properly stored away and as clean as when it was first purchased.

CD's when damaged by scratches can become totally unplayable! Digital discs are sometimes subject to rot. I have never seen anything like that ever happen to vinyl.

Back in the day I would make reel copies or cassette copies to help prevent wearing out my vinyl. Prior to that I wore out or damaged (the damage was mostly done by careless friends) records by scratches, most of those have long since been replaced.

 

[Bill B]

It does? Not when well cared for! I've repeated many times that I like to make digital copies of my vinyl. I am able to declick them and repeated playings of the copy do not affect the original vinyl. The vinyl is properly stored away and as clean as when it was first purchased.

CD's when damaged by scratches can become totally unplayable! Digital discs are sometimes subject to rot. I have never seen anything like that ever happen to vinyl.

Back in the day I would make reel copies or cassette copies to help prevent wearing out my vinyl. Prior to that I wore out or damaged (the damage was mostly done by careless friends) records by scratches, most of those have long since been replaced.

So you have found a way to zero out the friction created by the stylus running over the groove of the vinyl?
I thought the friction against the vinyl is what produced the sound.
If there is sound then there is degradation every time you play it, no matter how great your equipment is. We can argue over how slight that degradation is but, if there is friction then there is degradation.