POLL - Should the law allow restoration of old records to CD/DVD?

Mark.... (mfurj)..... if you're still out there, I need your snail mail address, ok?

I (naturally) forgot where I put your envelope (with the Pioneer review), but I am going to have the publisher of UHF (Ultra High Fidelity) magazine send you and Wilkes the latest issue.

There's a piece in there about the "death" of the DVD-A format in favour of SACD that makes for interesting reading. Was it Mark Twain who said, "Rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated." ? <gg>

Will send you a PM. (thankee)

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled conference.....

-- Mike --

 

Hellooooo Prisoner !!!

Off-topic is my specialty, Prisoner. (Or an unfortunate 'habit' of mine; take your pick).

Whatever works, eh?

Actually, I did. And sent email(s) too. Like I say, whatever works to get his/their attention, eh? (Still waiting for a response from Mark; Wilkes has responded).

This is the magazine/issue in question, Prisoner:



Do you think I can find a copy of this thing *anywhere* locally? (Oh, nooooo....) Every place I've gone to is sold out. Like Sherlock Holmes once remarked, "Hmmmm, my dear Watson, something is afoot."

There is what I consider to be a very controversial piece in this issue which starts out...

[bold]How SACD Won The War (or) to put it another way, How DVD-Audio Blew It Big Time.[/bold]

Note the past tense wording used in these ipso-defacto statements. I don't know how it is that an audio format can be won or lost simply by a magazine's say-so, but since I have been reading this publication for over twenty years, I have come to regard the opinions/outlooks of the publisher, Mr. Gerard Rejskind, very highly. It is quite out-of-character for him to make such definitive statements out of the blue like this, and so I am [bold]most eager[/bold] to read the full piece. (As soon as I can get my mitts on a copy of the mag!)

Earlier, he had written...

"[bold]The War Winds Down. -- [/bold] No, I'm not referring to that little skirmish in Iraq. I'm talking serious hostilities: DVD-Audio versus SACD. A year ago it looked like the Mother of All Battles. Today? The troops of Sony and Philips are occupying the terrain. It's all over but the reconstruction.

"What happened? Didn't DVD-Audio have a natural advantage, with some 160 companies behind it, versus only two for SACD? What about the claim that, within a year, all DVD video players would also read DVD-Audio? But it never happened. It seems that if you have 160 parents, none of them would take responsibility for feeding you.

"Until now, we had been cautioning readers against investing money in what could turn out to be the sonic equivalent of Betamax. The question is now clear: DVD-A is Betamax, and SACD is VHS. The war is over."

I don't necessarily agree. Do you? I like both formats, but I am no closer today in believing either format has definatively "won" any more than I was a year ago. I don't like technologies I can't understand, and quite frankly, SACD's "DSD" encoding confuses me. On the other hand, DVD-A's Linear PCM seems very straightforward to me.

You can download a small, rather-handicapped sampling of the magazine-in-question in .pdf format, Prisoner, from here:

http://www.uhfmag.com/Issue70/Issue70.html

Wilkes (Neil) has already responded (he even said that he would impart his thoughts to the publiaher, and Neil is in a very good position to do so), but I have yet to hear from Mark.

(Don't know where he's hiding, but I *do* know that he, like me, hangs out in very obscure 'Net Places', so I'll track him down sooner or later).

 

Well, until Wilkes responds (hopefully after reading the issue), I'll hold off doing the cut & paste thing. (Or just start a new thread). We're really rehashing a year-old conversation here.

Prisoner, in my own, very limited listening, I have found DVD-A to sound better than SACD *in general*. Even though I love music, I'm not, perhaps, the most discering of listeners nor do I have the best equipment to listen on, BUT, I think a LOT of my perceived quality judgements *may* have more to do with the studio mastering of these albums (of either format), than the actual technology used.

Doesn't matter technically how good a format/technology is if the sound engineer or label couldn't give a damn about properly mastering it. I've read many online reviews of just-released sacds which were all but condemned for their miserable sound quality. (Fantasy Record's Creedence Clearwater Revival's catalogue comes to mind.)

I do confess a certain "leaning" towards SACD, if only because it is an exclusively NON-Video format. In my Pioneer player, sacd's act *just* like red book cds - NO frikken menu is necessary, which means no *monitor* is necessary either. After the initial setup, the simple, front LED display is all one needs. Perhaps that is why, also, there is less confusion in your own area, when you ask sales clerks for SACD's vs. "DVD-Audio". There is an appalling lack of consumer knowledge/awareness re: DVD-A, and I think the lion's-share of blame for *that* has to be dumped squarely on the heads of the major labels who make and market DVD-A. To that extent, I DO agree with UHF magazine. ("DVD-A blew it big time.")

I love video too, and although video and audio are inextricably intertwined, I believe (and want) genuine HI-Resolution audio to be able to stand on it's own merit, *sans* the extra, unnecessary video footage. High end audio deserves a place of it's own.

(By the way, I just got my email from Mark.) I hope you get to read the full article too, Prisoner.

Best Regards, -- Mike.

 

After reading the article myself, Prisoner, I sortof get the same impression.

Marketing (and posturing and corporate politics and copyright fear and just about every other non-audio-quality-related issue you can think of) seems to be what the article dwells on.

Either format sounds better than red book, but your vhs/beta sentiment might very well be what will eventually rule the day here. Better is [bold]not[/bold] always necessarily the winner.

It's pitiful we are sill discussing this after all this time. (It's not *our* fault). Will Big Business ever get their act(s) together on this one?

-- See you next year, and we can pick up where we left off here! --

 

(Noo, noo, noooo, I'm not going anywhere).

It's just that a solid year ago, you or I or anyone else in here could mistake the posts of that period for any of the current posts - they are identical. Nothing has changed in a year.

And based on the snail-like pace the major music and hardware industries have been inching (forward?), I could return here a year hence and it would be like I had never left.

They say that technology forges ahead by leaps and bounds; that the rate of technology increases exponentially as time passes. Well, here's one case where I find technology stagnating and bogging itself down with it's own hype.

Assuming I had the money to buy truly "Universal" machines every time a potentially promising or exciting new format came out, it would be self-defeating in most cases. A universal machine cannot do everything well. It cannot specialize in it's chosen task. It cannot give me the [bold]best[/bold] sound. It is a compromize. It's a matter of compatibility versus quality. And although Mass Public are music lovers, the true Audiophile Community who genuinely [bold]care[/bold] very much indeed about the quality of their music, are left in the lurch. Trust me, Joe Public favors compatibility over quality any day.

Major Record Labels are paranoically fanatic about their back-catalogue copyrights, and this has led to the vast bulk of their holdings to be left moulding in storage vaults.

Since the music labels have vested interests in their own consumer electronics' divisions, it seems unlikely we will ever see an end to this particular format war, and it hurts everyone. I don't want to have to purchase a whole new machine just to play a re-released, perhaps out-of-print, treasured album I have wanted to own for a long long time, just because the album's label chooses to release it's albums in the 'other' format. That's what I mean by self- defeating, and these wars only serve to keep the labels from releasing their back catalogue. Nobody can tell me that the retail market is currently flooded with sacd and dvd-a titles, because it is not, and it's not hard to figure out why, either.

Universal machines are 'nice' for casual listening I suppose, but a single format, chosen because of it's flat-out, undeniable sonic superiority is what we truly need.

So like I say, Prisoner, I'll "See Ya Next Year!" to pick up where we left off here. By that time I'll have thrown in the towel (already have) waiting for my treasured back-albums to appear in *any* new hi-res format, and Blu-Ray will, hopefully by then, have begun to sonically [bold]bury[/bold] the present formats into the ground and put the matter to rest once and for all.

 

It might not solve the issue of which format will "reign", but I just bet it will show up DSD (SACD) for what it truly is - a sonic disgrace, massively phase-shifted by Sony to suit it's own proprietary leanings.

And blu-ray's sheer data density will keep DVD-A (or whatever market share is left to it by then) on it's toes.

You know..... it's only the perennial absense of treasured back-cataloge music by those musicians I absolutely [bold]adore[/bold] that keeps me harping on this accursed issue in the first place.

New, quality recordings, such as those made by Mr. Neil Wilkes of Opus Studios (you may have heard of him ), who *cares* about the quality of what he is creating, are going to be instrumental in keeping the 'faith' alive. They (these new pristine recordings) showcase just how good music *can* sound.

Sure, I am probably premature in my guesstimates, but I believe blu-ray and the very-highest level of audio fidelity, could easily go hand-in-hand if they don't botch things up like they have with current fiasco.

Offnote: Boys-oh-boys, was this originally a [bold]POLL[/bold] thread ??