OK then.
@Mr. Afternoon was bemoaning the dearth of SACD titles and making a plea/statement/observation to the Record companies?
I think the conversation deviated a long time ago, but here's my two cents.
Only because I hate to see formats fade away, and Mr. Dutton's fine work bringing us what Quad titles he can in that format do I care at all about SACD.
Hell, I've even
Authored SACD's. But of course I have one Oppo that will play SACD-R natively, and another that will play SACD-R .iso via Network or USB.
I think backing up music is a natural offshoot and/or inclusion of any topic concerning physical media we buy, although of course some are 100% against it, for whatever their reasons, stupid US laws, IDK. I've lost a few titles on optical disc to "disc rot" or other reasons and was glad I had digital backups.
You can't have a discussion about SACD without wondering about why Sony did everything they could to milk the format and make it hard to copy, only to pretty much abandon it. Add to that there's very few manufacturing entities left to even produce SACD. Sony doesn't care much about SACD but you can believe they will fight tooth and nail for every penny they can get from it.
I
do welcome the limited support for SACD only that it continues to be a source for music that we might not otherwise see in a lossless format. I won't argue the merits some see of SACD as that's been covered.
I understand how topic deviation can be irksome...and I even contribute to that, not intentionally meaning to derail threads. But there's a smart and curious bunch here on QQ, and I learn t
OK then.
@Mr. Afternoon was bemoaning the dearth of SACD titles and making a plea/statement/observation to the Record companies?
I think the conversation deviated a long time ago, but here's my two cents.
Only because I hate to see formats fade away, and Mr. Dutton's fine work bringing us what Quad titles he can in that format do I care at all about SACD.
Hell, I've even
Authored SACD's. But of course I have one Oppo that will play SACD-R natively, and another that will play SACD-R .iso via Network or USB.
I think backing up music is a natural offshoot and/or inclusion of any topic concerning physical media we buy, although of course some are 100% against it, for whatever their reasons, stupid US laws, IDK. I've lost a few titles on optical disc to "disc rot" or other reasons and was glad I had digital backups.
You can't have a discussion about SACD without wondering about why Sony did everything they could to milk the format and make it hard to copy, only to pretty much abandon it. Add to that there's very few manufacturing entities left to even produce SACD. Sony doesn't care much about SACD but you can believe they will fight tooth and nail for every penny they can get from it.
I
do welcome the limited support for SACD only that it continues to be a source for music that we might not otherwise see in a lossless format. I won't argue the merits some see of SACD as that's been covered.
I understand how topic deviation can be irksome...and I even contribute to that, not intentionally meaning to derail threads. But there's a smart and curious bunch here on QQ, and I learn things.
In addition to the fine work the folks at D-V are doing, SACD is still very much alive in Japan, and the discs being released there, although on the expensive side, are available for us to order on this side of the Pacific.
When the DVD-A/SACD "battle" began, I initially aligned with the DVD-A camp. Since home theater systems were gaining in popularity, and since most DVD-A's were compatible with any DVD player (the exception being those from a company called "Surrounded By"), music on DVD, in surround, could reach more people, gaining popularity. No special player was needed to hear it in surround. Initially, Columbia's SACD's weren't hybrid. That meant you couldn't play them on just any CD player. Hybrid discs changed that, although the CD layer would only be stereo. To hear them in surround still needed a special player. Sony supported SACD on many of their HTIB systems, and on some separate DVD/CD players, too. But what they didn't do was adequately support the format with software in a hybrid format. If they had, people could have enjoyed the discs on their systems to begin with, making surround playback an add-on feature. Other labels, who aligned with SACD, mostly went hybrid from the beginning. Universal, for one, did a great job of releasing titles people would actually want. The Elton John albums that they released in surround, come to mind. The first disc that convinced me to add SACD to my system was the Carpenters' "Singles 1969-1982" disc. A customer of mine told me he had just gotten the disc, and it was amazing. UMG was also starting to release many titles on DVD-A, and I thought I'd wait for that. When it didn't materialize, I bought the SACD, and a Pioneer DV-563A universal (back then) player. My SACD collection began to grow rapidly. As long as there are are discs available, I'll keep buying 'em. I'm eagerly awaiting the announcement of the next group of popular titles from D-V.
What really troubled me was the lack of promotion, by Sony, for a format they invented. I could have seen SACD becoming very popular in car systems, as well as home, but Sony only had a few models, which weren't widely distributed. Had they done so, and if the store I was working in were carrying them, the Honda Civic I was driving at the time would have had one. The autosound market would have been the perfect place to promote surround sound, but it never really happened. I had a surround system in a previous car, using a Fosgate Gavotte II, and it rocked! I had recorded quad records onto tape, and while the decoding wasn't perfect from SQ sources, it still created something of a quad effect. QS records that I taped really showed what the thing could do. I remember my mother's reaction when she heard it; she wanted it in her car! Now, this system was matrix-based; imagine what a discrete system (that sounded better than Q8) would sound! Alas, it wasn't to be.
Today, I can play all three disc-based lossless systems; DVD-A, SACD, and BD-A. My receiver doesn't support FLAC; it's 23 years old, and still sounding great. My Pioneer player, Surround Master, and CD-4 demodulator, all share the multichannel analog inputs on my Denon AVR-3300. Buying a new receiver is out of the question, if I can't connect my Surround Master to it. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!
