Would you pay extra for an Audio Fidelity Surround SACD?

[bmoura]

I voted No. AF should switch to bda to increase their customer base. With that the cost decreases and so the price. Or they could increase their margin a bit and put that towards more releases.

Since 85% of the current reissue customers are looking for Stereo CD and Stereo SACD, switching to BDA doesn't work.

 

[4-earredwonder]

If AF went much higher for cost I think it could be pretty tricky to get one imported over without exceeding the VAT threshold, or through a seller that would take care of it. Once you get to £20 and beyond I'm expecting/wanting extra discs of material for the money.

Rationally, I don't think AF COULD go much higher especially since their target audience is the stereo sect who are used to paying no more than $30~35 for SACD reissues from competitors AP and MoFi....double discs, of course, exempted.

 

[ArmyOfQuad]

I don't understand why such a large percentage of the audiophile community would want Stereo CD, or be tied to SACD for hi-res. Bluray is far more relevant and easier to buy a player for these days than SACD, and CD is outdated digital technology....why are those that want the best in fidelity holding onto these outdated and obscure formats? Bluray is far more current and relevant.

 

[~dave~~wave~]

SACDs
AND
DVD-As
need dedicated players

Not in my experience.

The only thing that got me into this messed up hobby is:

1. Billy Cobham "Spectrum" came out on quad SACD
2. After ignoring this expensive, weirdo audiophile niche market for years, I found out I could buy a Sony consumer Blu-ray player that would play MC SACDs
3. I spent $110 on a player, and have happily spent many times that in the last four months on music in every surround format
4. It supposedly won't play DVD-A, but I haven't had a disc yet it won't play, possibly because discs labeled dvd-a are actually dvd-v?

PS: Have to open a third beer now, Nebraska just beat Oregon in a nail-biter

 

[4-earredwonder]

Not in my experience.

The only thing that got me into this messed up hobby is:

1. Billy Cobham "Spectrum" came out on quad SACD
2. After ignoring this expensive, weirdo audiophile niche market for years, I found out I could buy a Sony consumer Blu-ray player that would play MC SACDs
3. I spent $110 on a player, and have happily spent many times that in the last four months on music in every surround format
4. It supposedly won't play DVD-A, but I haven't had a disc yet it won't play, possibly because discs labeled dvd-a are actually dvd-v?

PS: Have to open a third beer now, Nebraska just beat Oregon in a nail-biter

Those SONY BD players are little powerhouses but regarding your fourth point: ALL BD/DVD players access the LOSSY Dolby Digital and/or DTS 5.1 codecs of a DVD~Audio but don't be fooled: Playing the DTS/DD 5.1 portion of a true MLP DVD~A is like playing (sonically) the RBCD portion of an SACD.....RBCD is 16/44.1 and DVD DTS/DD is 16/48 which is slightly better than a standard RBCD. Conversely, LOSSLESS MLP DVD~A can support 96/24 and beyond which is TRUE high definition....sonically on par with your SACD stereo and multichannel layers.

But the all important point is you're happy and that's all that matters. I recently purchased an inexpensive [$80} SONY BD player for my business and I'm amazed at what it can do.

 

[EMB]

A *maybe* option might have made sense but that woulda been wishy-washy, heh....

But for now I lean toward NO...only because the average $20-30 price range one finds online should already be enough for AF to make a little change on most of their titles. I always thought the Gold Disc thing an affectation, since the tape source and the master engineer mean a hell of a lot more to the sound than whether the disc is gold or aluminum or whatever.

Regardless, AF is a boutique label. Maybe if they charged $5 for added surround I'd spring...but as it stands, stereo only? I've heard most of what they offer a lot more than many times, and owned most on vinyl or CD, so they'd have to really do something special--and the album would have to be special--to lay out more.

ED

 

[quicksrt]

Rationally, I don't think AF COULD go much higher especially since their target audience is the stereo sect who are used to paying no more than $30~35 for SACD reissues from competitors AP and MoFi....double discs, of course, exempted.

Sony Japan are rolling out their $50 discs like 20s are the new $10s!!! Of course they threw in some cheap color reproductions to make it look fancy, but the main thing is they seem to know that a quadraphonic mix is of utmost importance here. When they threaded up that "Wired" quad mix, they knew that they have a holy grail on their hands, and they know which side of their bread is buttered. They had to price it higher than normal which I am ok with. $50 "Caravanseria" and $50 "Welcome" in quadraphonic next after that final last Beck quad master tape is issued.

Just remember 20s are the new 10s, and the sting is not so bad.

 

[quicksrt]

I don't understand why such a large percentage of the audiophile community would want Stereo CD, or be tied to SACD for hi-res. Bluray is far more relevant and easier to buy a player for these days than SACD, and CD is outdated digital technology....why are those that want the best in fidelity holding onto these outdated and obscure formats? Bluray is far more current and relevant.

I agree 100%. I don't get the sound out of SACD that I do DVD-As. But it's what the market went with and what came out and what I had to buy to get the titles I wanted most. Next year may be a different time and a different place. The SACD market could crash at any minute, and AF realizing that the quad layered SACDs were not the issue, but the entire SACD market just happened to shrink at the moment a few of their (quad) titles did less than expected.

 

[quicksrt]

A *maybe* option might have made sense but that woulda been wishy-washy, heh....

But for now I lean toward NO...only because the average $20-30 price range one finds online should already be enough for AF to make a little change on most of their titles. I always thought the Gold Disc thing an affectation, since the tape source and the master engineer mean a hell of a lot more to the sound than whether the disc is gold or aluminum or whatever.

Regardless, AF is a boutique label. Maybe if they charged $5 for added surround I'd spring...but as it stands, stereo only? I've heard most of what they offer a lot more than many times, and owned most on vinyl or CD, so they'd have to really do something special--and the album would have to be special--to lay out more.

ED

Yes, we are taking about surround for that extra charge.

 

[Ranasakawa]

No, absolutely not

The cost of importing these SACDs to here in Australia is already bloody expensive.

 

[bmoura]

I agree 100%. I don't get the sound out of SACD that I do DVD-As. But it's what the market went with and what came out and what I had to buy to get the titles I wanted most. Next year may be a different time and a different place. The SACD market could crash at any minute, and AF realizing that the quad layered SACDs were not the issue, but the entire SACD market just happened to shrink at the moment a few of their (quad) titles did less than expected.

At the end of the day, it's all about sales (what listeners are buying) and what listeners are requesting. And that is Stereo CD and Stereo SACD.
We all remember the "Dual Disc" where a CD disc was glued to a DVD-A disc to try and boost DVD-A disc sales. It was even an issue for that format.

As for sonics, it depends on your audio system. On my audio system, SACDs top DVD-As and BD Audio discs in general.
YMMV (your mileage may vary).....

 

[4-earredwonder]

At the end of the day, it's all about sales (what listeners are buying) and what listeners are requesting. And that is Stereo CD and Stereo SACD.
We all remember the "Dual Disc" where a CD disc was glued to a DVD-A disc tp try and boost DVD-A disc sales. It was even an issue for that format.

As for sonics, it depends on your audio system. On my audio system, SACDs top DVD-As and BD Audio discs in general.
YMMV (your mileage may vary).....

Brian, what exact Meitner SACD player and DACs are you utilizing in your system?

Quite honestly, since I switched my HDMI cable to a Shunyata Research type and utilize the Marigo HD Damper atop my discs and applied Ultra Bit Diamond + to my discs, even the sound of BD~A has experienced a 'revolutionary' facelift almost equalling the sound of my Meridian 800 DVD~A player. I'm using the OPPO BDP 105, at present.

My wish one day: that OPPO could build a Universal player equalling the SACD sound of your Meitner, the DVD~A sound of the Meridian and actually, BD~A is already quite good through my tweaked out OPPO and let's face it...neither your Meitner nor my 800 can play BD~A/V.

 

[Quadwreck]

My answer "yes" comes with an asterix, it depends what the title is. For buying an entire album on disc, I would be more favorable toward artists I like, and would prefer one-hit-wonders on a compilation disc.

 

[bktouchstone]

If the case was made that on average "x" amount of copies are sold based on quad and it costs "y" additionally to make that happen, I would pay y/x which is the additional cost per copy sold. Seems fair. I might even pay an exploitation bonus because anyone whose hobby is in a niche market is ripe for a little exploitation.

 

[JonUrban]

Good question Adam and I did answer yes - but.....

As I think back and look at the list of what AF has released so far, I wonder how many of those titles I would have purchased if they were > $30 instead of = $30.

There are clearly some must buys, but there are also some I would have skipped.

 

[ar surround]

For me it totally depends on the title and the sound quality. I bought a couple of SHM stereo SACDs for $50 a pop from CD Japan. I did not think that the "improvement" in sound quality was worth the premium over that of a well done red book CD. But those two titles done in surround with the same quality of sound would have been worth it as they were "must haves."

 

[PK]

Well the short answer is nope. I'd categorize my purchasing as:

$0.00-$25.00 = I'll experiment in this price range. If I think I might like it or even just one track I'll take the plunge.

$25.00-$35.00 = Gotta know that I like several tracks on the release.

$35.00 and up = This is my really want, gotta have, no-brainer price range.

 

[fizzywiggs41]

Well my 2 cents.



I would if it was an Iconic Rock artist . Now were talking albums by ;

The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, The Who, Van Morrison, Neil Young, CSN, CSN&Y, Led Zeppelin or any of the many albums by these and many other Supergroups....whom have been so very reluctant to release their studio albums in quad and or 5.1 .

In short "albums never released prior" would be the perfect candidate for my additional expense.

 

[privateuniverse]

Good question Adam and I did answer yes - but.....

As I think back and look at the list of what AF has released so far, I wonder how many of those titles I would have purchased if they were > $30 instead of = $30.

There are clearly some must buys, but there are also some I would have skipped.

I'm in the same boat. And there were several AF titles I didn't bother with until I saw a significant price drop. (I didn't buy Nightbirds until I was able to score it for $8.50!)

 

[~dave~~wave~]

...regarding your fourth point: ALL BD/DVD players access the LOSSY Dolby Digital and/or DTS 5.1 codecs of a DVD~Audio but don't be fooled: Playing the DTS/DD 5.1 portion of a true MLP DVD~A is like playing (sonically) the RBCD portion of an SACD.....RBCD is 16/44.1 and DVD DTS/DD is 16/48 which is slightly better than a standard RBCD.

:facepalm:

Now I get it.
Thanks for politely edifying a newbie.
(I only have a few dvd-a’s, explains why they display DD 48k.)

I stand corrected.
The industry makes inexpensive high-res surround SACD and BD playback devices available to the consumer market.
For which I'm grateful and has changed my life.

Not so DVD-A, another nail in the coffin of a "dead" format.

Birac made some insightful points about mass customer mentality.

For me it’s all about surround.
I do and will continue to pay a premium to get it.
I bought seven AF surround titles, all that appeal to me.
If they want to sell me anything else, they'll need to dig up more multichannel.
As a senior citizen, I can’t hear enough improvement to want stereo only SACDs.

To contemplate eliminating stereo from surround media, there will always be circumstances where headphone listening is called for.
SACDs are attractive that way, and 2.0 blu-ray tracks.