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Is Pentatone Bailing on SACD?

As most Audiophiles know, SACD was released with great acclaim a few decades ago, and failed to find traction in the market place, even before the advent of streaming.  The one exception has been Classical Music, where several thousand titles remain available.
  Classical listeners are very familiar with the Pentatone label, founded roughly 15 years ago by former Phillips employees.  They resurrected old Quad recordings from Phillips, DG, and other labels.  They simultaneously promoted new Artists, such as Julia Fischer, Arabella Steinbacher, Daniel Muller-Schott, and many others.  They began releasing High Resolution downloads and streaming  in addition to SACDs, a sensible move in view of industry trends.
  I just bought a superb Pentatone disc, Carlos Kalmar and the Oregon SO playing works by Walter Piston, Howard Hanson, and Morton Gould.  I can’t recommend the disc enough for its musical content, and it sounds superb, especially in my 2 channel system .  It was when I first popped in one of my HT systems that I realized that it wasn’t an SACD.  I scoured the jewel case for the SACD logo, and my eyesight is getting progtrssively worse, but didn’t detect it anywhere.  I have been buying Pentatone discs for years and must have over  100 collected; to my knowledge this is the first non SACD from them.
  I googled this and found nothing.  And I repeat, this is a magnificent sounding disc, and I guess that is what is most important.  However, if a diehard supporter like Pentatone is abandoning SACD, then I fear that it truly will disappear 
mahler123
pmotz
412 posts
 
I too enjoy the music on PentaTone and was surprised to read your post on SACD.  I checked the PentaTone website and found the following, which indicates not all releases will be SACD, but they have not abandoned it.

PENTATONE was founded with the vision that the 5-channel surround sound will gradually replace today's stereo sound. In the last two decades, the label has built out one of the world's largest collections of high resolution audio, releasing albums on Hybrid Super Audio CDs and in hi-res digital formats.

PENTATONE launches approximately 30-40 albums per year and aims to make recordings available in the highest possible audio resolutions. After having physically released on SACD exclusively in the past, the label now diversifies between standard CD and hybrid SACD formats for physical releases. Digitally, PENTATONE continues to explore new developments in hi-res audio, now offering releases in resolutions higher than DSD 64 when possible, thereby surpassing the maximum sound quality realisable on Hybrid SACDs.

fuzztone's avatar
fuzztone
5,629 posts
 
It’s on Qobuz at 96. If they did not upsample it, the 1 bit files are probably around somewhere.
Sounds nice thanks for the rec.
Kalmar batonned A Jazz Symphony at the Pritzker a few years (2?) ago.
My favorite sounding outdoor venue.
They also broadcast on WFMT.
https://www.wfmt.com/programs/grant-park-music-festival/
soundboy
20 posts
 
The latest Pentatone SACD was released 2 weeks ago....Puccini: Il Tabarro.  Two other SACD titles are scheduled for release in January 2021.

In 2020, Sweden's BIS seems to have been the most active classical music label, with over 50 new SACD releases.  However, the most active label for SACD was Hong Kong Universal Music....with over 90 new SACD releases (approximately 17% of all SACD titles released worldwide).  As of December 1, 2020, at least 540 new SACD titles have been released worldwide this year.  At its current pace, new SACD titles have a good chance of surpassing the 600 new titles mark for 2020. That's not too bad considering what has happened in 2020.

In contrast, 693 new SACD titles were released worldwide in 2019, a year in which SACD celebrated its 20th anniversary.  That represented a 11% drop in new SACD title releases when compared to 2018, when 772 new SACD titles were released worldwide.  Nonetheless, SACD should reach its 15,000th title in late 2021 if new releases continues at current rate.
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