Anyone miss DVD-Audio & SACD

[bluesjam]

Who killed DVD-Audio and SACD?
Well there isn't just one answer to that. Napster, internet piracy, greedy record excutives, electronic cartels all have contributed to the demise of it.

Well when they were first available in the market many artists re-released their records in that format. Rolling Stones, Pink floyd, The Doors, Miles Davis were one of the first. I bought them and well I had to buy different systems for each format for which I was happy to spend money since the sound quality and experience were orgasmic to me (being a hardcore music lover & an audiophile).
Overtime more artists came on board and then it just fizzled away. Why?
Last year 'The Doors' released their entire catalogue in Dvd-Audio box set and I bought that too.
Most of the time I find myself listening to these formats rather than a CD even though I have only 43 different albums in them though I have over 600 CDs in my collection.
Nowadays there isn't a single new album released on them even older catalogue and some of them which are are mostly in limited edition.

To me it just sucks, I am angry most of the time due to this and just can't seem to get over it. And worse still, computers can't recognise these formats so I can't even archive it and make copies of it for my regular listening. Some of discs purchased back in 2003 seems almost worn out and have developed scratches on them so it won't last very long.

Right now they are signalling the demise of CDs too.
What's the future then? Low quality digital files.

 

[CaptainWOW]

What's the future then? Low quality digital files.

Sadly, yes.

And, I do remember DVD-A and SACD. Never bought into it, but my Uncle's Acura has a DVD-A supported stereo.

And my PS3 supports SACD.....

 

[hexonxonx]

Yes. People prefer to get it now. I do. I hate CDs because for the most part, I don't like having to put away CDs when I am done playing them, yeah I'm lazy. Having them all on my iPod means no CDs to care for and having them get scratched. Why go to a CD store when I can download the CD in five minutes. This is why music stores are closing, Tower records went away due to digital downloads and more stores will surely follow.

Most people who download, can't tell the difference between what they download and a CD copy. I can't. I purchased the complete Led Zeppelin in iTunes. I then ripped the Complete Led Zeppelin Studio Recordings released in the 90s and compared the two. No difference that I could tell.

 

[robanga]

Its hard to imagine CD's completely going away (at least from an archival standpoint) any time soon, but i understand your point. You had a high-tech solution that was perfectly viable and it went away.

Still, I must also confess to noticing little or no difference between a CD and and a downloaded file to the iPod or iPhone. I do not even have a high-end stereo that I could do a listen test on, so have no idea whether audiophile quality equipment would change my mind on it.

 

[mahashel]

...Most people who download, can't tell the difference between what they download and a CD copy. I can't...

And there you have it, folks.
I've heard this from multitudes of people, so I'm not just picking on hexonxonx.
I believe the iPod (well, all portable mp3 players) actually had something to do with this. We were granted portability of our personal music libraries at the cost of sound quality. This changed the role of music in our culture. Instead of it being an art form that people made time to experience, now music has become a soundtrack (or background noise, if you will) to fill the silence while we actually focus on doing something else entirely.
ie: Instead of Joe Sixpack listening to his Boston collection on his "hi-fi", you have him cramming 60GB of lossy audio files onto his iPod to be listened to on a bus (where you can't hear anything anyway), while he's reading the paper and playing Tetris on his phone.
The issue is that a whole new generation is hitting the scene that has always consumed their music in the form of lossy digital files. They don't actually hear what they're missing since they never knew they were missing it.
I've come to realize that people like me who sit in a specific place in a specific room to actively *listen* to music are a dying breed. We're dinosaurs with phenomenal hearing. lol

 

[bluesjam]

Most people who download, can't tell the difference between what they download and a CD copy. I can't. I purchased the complete Led Zeppelin in iTunes. I then ripped the Complete Led Zeppelin Studio Recordings released in the 90s and compared the two. No difference that I could tell.

crap. absolute crap.
Just because most people don't have what you call the musician ear doesn't mean everybody is fine listening to lossy digital files. On lossy files you just can't understand sometimes what notes are being played, the tones of instruments are completely different most of the time.

Do one thing, you know a song called Good times bad times from the first album. Try listening the lossy digital and then the cd. See if you understand the bass lines properly. Also try another song called 'The lemon song, from the second album. Or alternately you just don't care. Doesn't matter as most people probably don't. But some people do. And we sure are a dying breed.
Music has just been reduced to a commodity. As Mahasel just said music has just become a soundtrack for people rather than a higher form of art.

 

[cornopaez]

Oddly enough, I do have some stuff that is in SACD: The Mahler cycle recordings of San Francisco Symphony and MTT. Even though I don't have an SACD player or a decoder for that matter (cause they are just too damn expensive), CD quality and lossy compression ARE very different; I can't imagine how different it would sound with the SACD sound. For classical music it's a huuuuge difference. Things like missing melodic lines, missing textures, unbalance recordings it's all too obvious when played in a lossy format. If SACD was something like DTS 5.1 back in the day when that was the ultimate thing, the I do miss SACD.

I agree with bluesjam, not everyone can tell the difference but it's there.

 

[QuarterSwede]

Oddly enough, I do have some stuff that is in SACD: The Mahler cycle recordings of San Francisco Symphony and MTT. Even though I don't have an SACD player or a decoder for that matter (cause they are just too damn expensive), CD quality and lossy compression ARE very different; I can't imagine how different it would sound with the SACD sound. For classical music it's a huuuuge difference. Things like missing melodic lines, missing textures, unbalance recordings it's all too obvious when played in a lossy format. If SACD was something like DTS 5.1 back in the day when that was the ultimate thing, the I do miss SACD.

I agree with bluesjam, not everyone can tell the difference but it's there.

I've heard both SACD's and DVD-A's of the same recording on the same high quality equipment and I prefer SACD's myself. I think it kills DTS.

There was a test done where an audience of listeners were in an auditorium. A concert was played but the curtain wasn't lifted the entire session. After it was over people wanted to see who was playing so they lifted the curtain and all there were were speakers. They had been listening to an SACD the entire time and had no clue. That's how good it sounds.

It's just so bloody clear that you couldn't imagine it being better than a CD if you hadn't heard it.

The only problem with surround formats is that if an engineer doesn't mix it right, it can be pretty bad.

 

[cornopaez]

I've heard both SACD's and DVD-A's of the same recording on the same high quality equipment and I prefer SACD's myself. I think it kills DTS.

There was a test done where an audience of listeners were in an auditorium. A concert was played but the curtain wasn't lifted the entire session. After it was over people wanted to see who was playing so they lifted the curtain and all there were were speakers. They had been listening to an SACD the entire time and had no clue. That's how good it sounds.

It's just so bloody clear that you couldn't imagine it being better than a CD if you hadn't heard it.

The only problem with surround formats is that if an engineer doesn't mix it right, it can be pretty bad.

I trust your word. I bet is even better than DTS

Now, I just want to go and buy the whole system to listen to my Mahler recordings

 

[godslabrat]

I'm bummed that neither HD audio format took off, I had high hopes. I do still look at them from time to time, would be nice to have the option of better sound on my stereo.

 

[NeillBuchanan]

Is SACD dead then? I didn't think it was dead but just still not that common and never fully taken off to the level that every new album comes with that option.

I do think it is a great shame that there aren't more.

I have a PC with SACD, Dolby Digital etc compatible Surround Sound system. The PC can play it fine and there is a very, very noticable difference to me.

The sound quality I believe even shows on some normal players, like in my car where I placed my original CD-Audio version of Album, listened, replaced with my SACD version of the same Album and listened... There was an improvement.

I have my MacBook with it's Intel HD Audio chipset and obviously the sound quality is great considering it's coming out of the built in speakers. If I connect up my sound system, it will be even better!

I put all my music into my iTunes Library, import it onto my iPod and iPhone, BUT the important thing here is that I set the IMPORT QUALITY to the very maximum custom settings available for mp3 or aac. It does mean I can only fit on a fraction of the albums the majority of people can, but I swear the difference can still be heard so I do it and just have to rotate my music on my Pod & Phone because they can't contain it all.

I am very sad if SACD is gone and will definately miss it. However, I don't think it can die as the technology is there and until it is surpassed it will always be able to pop up when the artists and company's that want their music available at the best quality want to use it. In regards to the digital market, I believe more developments like iTunes Plus will gradually come along where they can start charging £1.25 / $2.00 etc the tracks or £15 / $25-$30 for albums that are of a more superior sound quality, the files will be huge, but drives will have increased in storage by then even more and so will download speeds. It will get to a stage where it takes no longer than today's music does now and take up no bigger % than today's common mp3 192 etcs but the quality could be starting at 320kbps minimum.

I doubt all music will ever move over to the highest levels possible because there is music released that we all know are people just trying to make music to sell quickly, make them rich and stuff the re-play factor or artist's longevity in the music industry.

My hand is up for increase in SACD market and any future improved sound quality as I will always pick that higher quality to enjoy, even if my wife and family/friends don't all notice the difference.

 

[NeillBuchanan]

Just to follow up, I know it depends on muscial taste, but if you do a search on Amazon (for me Amazon.co.uk) for SACD there are over 3000 if, you select to see all, then sort it into release date, I then just go through the pages looking to see if any artists or music I like have been released recently.

I can see artists taking up the benefit of superior audio quality when they are after re-sale sales. After all, I've done it where I've bought a CD-Audio album as that the only version then 0-2+ years later finally bought exactly the same in SACD format when it has become available, with no extra tracks etc on it, just so I have that better version... They got more out of me for it, so guess that can make it worth while for them and they'd only have to bother if the album has been popular enough to warrant the extra studio/production time and costs.