That Dylan double SACD had to cost them a fortune, and because of that and the resulting high list price, one can surmise that they lost some bucks on that one. It was a title that even Sony decided not to release, still I understand the draw of putting out a title that was unavailable anywhere else, but we all know that in general, any live surround album is not going to be a surround masterpiece. This title and the Collection disc probably did the most damage to the surround program. Up to this point, Marshall was still very positive. Once the Collection and the Dylan appeared, the enthusiasm level of his emails diminished considerably.
Jon, I still think it's too early {too few votes cast} to predict what should've or could've been regarding Audio Fidelity's 'Surround Program' but
even MORE puzzling was MoFi's VERY brief foray into multichannel: Heck, they released 8 obscure but IMO excellent VOX Turnabout Classical titles in mostly ambient surround sonics plus one [IMO] obscure Cowboy Junkies [ambient only] surround title and then pulled the plug when ironically almost ALL their Stereo SACDs have/have been classic Rock/Pop titles.
Perhaps the root of all problems relating to a possible [but highly improbable] renaissance in SURROUND has been the reluctance of ALL the major record companies to LICENSE A list titles coupled with a similar resistance from A list artists to 'tamper' with their 'babies!' And a $30 list price PER SINGLE TITLE also didn't aid matters [a LOT of potential buyers still like their FREE music in whatever lowly format they can acquire it].
And if this poll is somehow related to 'educate' Dutton Vocalion in their prodigious SURROUND program as to what to release or not release I would state upfront, Michael Dutton knows what HIS customers want and we should respect his decisions and be grateful for the few popular titles [hardly A list rock/pop/jazz] that he sees fit to release.
And I think we should ALL realize at this juncture that no one does it better, or CHEAPER than the Majors themselves as evidenced by RHINO/Warner's Chicago Quadio boxset which basically cleared out the vaults of all it's QUAD Chicago titles in one fell swoop for a FRACTION of what the reissue companies or their Japanese counterparts could ever possibly do it for [price~wise, especially and realistically....
.each title would have had a separate licensing fee].
And, IMO, when those FEW and far between A list Titles ARE released in pricey boxsets with 5.1/4.0 LOSSY CODECS...........I will scream to the top of the rafters.......BULLSHIT. Those titles will never be released again as we're RAPIDLY nearing the end of physical disc replication and why they cannot give us truly HIGH RES codecs to actually represent what is on the master tapes is criminal!
Throw the dogs a bone......releasing LOSSY 5.1 DVD~Vs and then including a truly HIGH RES 96/24 STEREO remaster still tells me and should tell ALL of you that they're still catering to the STEREO CROWD ........
.. As Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes once sang: WAKE UP EVERYBODY.........
