The triumph of mid-fi

I agree with Vik.

Sony and Phillips are HUGE companies with mega R&D budgets. These companies want to dominate the mass market (where the money is), and even certain high end markets. Just because Sony does not necessarilly make a world class preamp or amp does NOT mean that they could not if they put their mind's/R&D departments to the task.

Heck, Sony is a seriously dominating force in the high end video industry. Do you think it is harder to produce high end video than it is to produce high end audio?

Small or even not so small hi end audio companies can crank out great amps, preamps, speakers, and even digital, and some even make DVD players. However, many of the parts in their CDPs and DVD players could (most likely) very well be made by Sony or Phillips (like the transport). Most companies do not make their own transports and are at the mercy of the huge audio companies (like Sony, Phillips, or Pioneer etc.) for their transports. I have even heard of an audio company who made CDPs shutting down because they were unable to get the transports for their CDPs anymore.

KF

High end companies are competing againt each other for your (our) money by building the best sounding equipment they can, whether within a budget or trying to build the best possible. They are motivated to give us better sound so that we will buy from them, and poeple that do buy demand better sound, so there is the market for real quality.
Sony, in particular, has a different market, as you well know, and has enough resources to actually create markets, and it should be obvious that they are, and have, created markets that they can dominate. While they obviously have the capital to create the finest possible, not trying to compete with another for state of the art is actually better for they're purposes because other companies are contributing to they're purposes. In addition, and perhaps a bigger reason, is that high end makers don't take enough of a market away from Sony.
It is also now in almost 2003 obvious that it is not a nessesity to create something that has better sound in order to create and/or dominate a market. It just has to be thought that it is better. If it had to be better, it would be. Cd's were at least good enough that the majority of people with the majority of record players and tape decks got improvments. Not enough were interested in updating they're equipment to actually find out if it was worthwhile and to most people convenience and accessability is more important, so long as the sound is sufficient. Where poeple tend to take sound quality for granted, Sony and others will take advantage where it benifits them.

One thing I hate is that these large corporations are essentially dictating to the consumer which formats their favorite artists will be recording on. So if you want to hear your favorite music on your system then obviously you have to buy the CD, or DVD-A, or SACD (according to the contract of the recording artist).

Heck, they're not even designing the best format they can design. It's all about marketing and the touted virtues of these respective formats is nothing more than hype and a clever marketing tool. I admire David Chesky for having the guts to use the best of what is available to provide a better high performance format and then supply recordings in that format. That's a very bold move for any small company and I wish it would catch on, because technically it's probably the best digital format available to the consumer. And I am in no way associated with Chesky nor am I set up to use his format at present. His selection of recordings is unfortunately too limited due to the fact that his is a small company. But if Sony, Phillips, and the big guns got behind Chesky's format, I'd buy into that in a minute. Either that or go back to high performance reel to reel tape, which beats our present digital formats soundly in many sonic parameters that I personally value. You've never heard high-frequency "air" unless you've experienced it on a great vintage reel to reel deck. Even my state-of-the-art vinyl playback cannot match good tape reproduction in that regard.

After all these years, it seems we haven't made much progress -- unless low noise and instant track access are among your highest priorities in audio playback. Too bad!

Rmueller raises a good point. If it takes big bucks to do SACD or DVD-A, what's stopping some high end manufacturers from forming a joint venture or a consortium? Lazy? Distrustful? Not motivated enough since they are selling plenty of high end redbook based stuff? I don't know. But the best right now is coming from the mid-fi's -- at least according to all the comments I've been reading here on the Gon about digital equipment.

Ozfly, the main problem is that even if most of the smaller and mid sized hi end manufacturers banded together, they really have little insintive in developing a new medium. Nothing compared to the insintive that Sony has... Sony controls all aspects of of music/album production from the creation of albums to sales of those albums to what Lo-fi and Mid-fi America uses for playback. This amazing control is borderline monopoly. Developing new standards that they patent allows them to earn amazing ammounts of money by 1-Allowing others to use the standard for the patent fee, 2-the ability to sell the new standard with their existing catelog of music that they own, 3-the ability to sell the recording equipment needed to record and decode the standard.

#2 (above paragraph) is HUGE, and most hi fi manufacturers know NOTHING of this business. It also allows them to have instant software for a standard that they come up with.

This would be the hurdle that would be insurmountable for hi fi manufacturers to overcome. I do not think it would be that hard to come up with a new digital starndard, the problem would be getting ANYONE to accept it. Why should companies like Sony and Phillips accept a standard that they make no money on?

It is the companies that record the music that will develop new standards, and not the companies that sell the products that play the music.

KF