SACD - Dying already?

It doesn't matter whether or not your friends have heard of hi-rez. Let's play a game to show how silly this is. "My friends have never heard of Cardas Cable." "My friends have never heard of Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs." My friends have never heard of Telarc." If these companies are doomed, they and I don't know about it. Silly.

Many of you still need to get out of your 1980's pre-internet thinking, which goes thusly: SACD = niche market = death. Mass market = life. I read in The Economist that we are no longer mass-market consumers--the internet has transformed consumers--esp. with regards to entertainment--into a massive community of niche market enthusiasts. Because we suddenly have a global inventory at our fingertips, and all the information we want regarding that inventory, we've been able to sharpen our tastes and desires and make direct connections with those companies ready to fulfill our wants. It's no longer the case that the local buyers for Sears shape our tastes and limit what's available to us. Are you following? If SACD becomes a niche market, so be it. According to The Economist, it's the Age of the Niche Market. You gotta know this stuff before making such near-sighted assertions.

Well, jdaniel - your theory sounds quite clever, but there's one small problem with it:

The companies that are the driving force behind SACD and DVD-A (Sony/Philips/Warner/EMI/Universal/BMG etc.) are all still firmly entrenched in what you call "1980's pre-internet thinking."

It shows in their distribution model, it shows in their profit/loss model, and it clearly shows in their total inability to understand how the Internet has changed music and music distribution.

So here you are accusing the consumers of antiquated thinking, but it's the companies making hi-rez possible that are engaged in the antiquated thinking; they still think that mass market = life, not the consumers.

Contrary to some others here who are waiting for a "clear winner" in the hi-rez format war, I don't think either will "win." It's entirely likely that both will be abandoned by the majors. EMI has already said that it sees little movement in SACDs and none in DVD-As.

Ultimately, the Niche Market as you describe it will prevail - there is a demand for hi-rez digital, and it will be filled by someone. It may not be the companies everyone here wants it to be though.

Rex: EMI doesn't manufacture SACDs...yet. They are looking into it. Again, what the Majors do doesn't matter. SACD is a recording technology that is *portable,* If you want to record something in DSD, the service is now offered by many recording companies not affiliated with Sony or any of the other Majors--dCs for one, makers of the $35K CD player. Philips is also introducing DSD plug-ins so that *any* recording engineer may record in the format. (Yes, editing must be done in PCM but it's still better.)Sony and Philips will get a cut, but the cat's out or the bag.

Robert said very well: "the general public just doesn't care that much about audio quality and will settle for less." They're not aware about hi-rez formats not because of wrong marketing, but because they don't need it, at all. iTune is much more appropriate and promising feature for them. Unlike cassette tapes, CD is good enough, so I don't see how hi-rez may become really widespread in the nearest feature.

Rex, the companies you listed are mostly relate to a mass market, and not always provide the quality we're talking about, regardless of the format. If we're talking about niche market, I'd rather wait for smaller better-quality labels.

There is no allure to recording in DSD. There is a multitude of small recording contractors using many different technologies. The fact that SACD is represented as one of the niche recording technologies is meaningless to this this discussion. It doesn't relate to DSD as a distribution media. Those DSD recordings are being distributed as redbook CDs.