Another sign SACD is dying

It's an interesting post mortum.

My take is that we've all had 20 years to optimize our Redbook hardware and get it sounding pretty good. Then along comes SACD with the promise of better sound quality, so we go out and plop down $1000 on a new SACD player and expect it to compete with our $5000 Redbook rigs (substitute whatever numbers are appropriate).

For those of us with multi-format players, I can't imagine anyone not liking SACD better than CD on the same player.

In most cases we've either expected too much from the format or we haven't given it a fair chance.
With redbook I think the main issue is that recording/mixing/mastering techniques produce very inconsistant results. In this digital age, if one recording can sound excellent then it ought to be the 'rule' and not the exception. Listen to Patricia Barber - Modern Cool as an example of good redbook quality. If it was the norm for other CD's to playback with the same level of performance, I don't think there'd be a need for a 'higher-res' format.

The mistake seems to be that the industry has not addressed the root cause of the problem. If you put crap on a CD your system will playback crap. Likewise with SACD or any other format. It all starts in the studio, or wherever the artists are.

>>2 channel audio is dead<<

Uh oh. Best Buy strikes again.

For a dead format I continue to see more and more SACD Hybrid releases every day. It will however continue to be limited to the smaller labels producing high quality releases of specialized musical venues.

Cinner I thought about what you said which was why I responded with a glib comment.

I'm not sure our difference in regard to this matter is as great as in other matters. I am simply saying that Sony must have believed that SACD as a consumer format had a fighting chance. I agree that Sony was looking for the best possible means of archiving their vast library of music. But if it were you, wouldn't you also hope that the incompatable format would be a commercial success.

There continue to be new SACDs available for the music lover. I bought several of the new Living Stereo releases a few weeks ago. Tschaikowski's 6th Symphony, Sherazade, and a Gershwin release all sounded very good. At the $12 price point, they were well worth the cost.

Post mortum eh? If it's dead (I will concede life support) that's just because people who claim to be music lovers let a better sounding format die.

Where is the controversy?

Rooze you miss the main point,the vast vast majority of music (guessing 99%)is not available on SACD therefore it doesn't matter what happens in the studio.
Also a fair bit of SACD releases as you rightly point out were met with perhaps unreasonable expectation (and by that I mainly mean remasters)which is just the way of the world-super duper new format did not equal super duper differences for a lot of us.

To take a modern recording that is usually rated by audio fans-Sea Change by Beck how much better is that on SACD?
I'm serious I don't know but having a few weeks ago heard snippets of the Keane album on my neighbours new Linn Unidisk-I wasn't greatly impressed .

When music historians look back at the history of music how many releases are actually going to be artists found on specialised audiophile labels?
Certainly very little new music.