The triumph of mid-fi

You also have to remember that the name of the game is to sell audio or electronic equipment, don't forget that.
The manufacturers need to sell gear to stay open, and that means that they need to balance the R&D decisions and Advertising money as well as other product launch/revision money.

When any company large or small undergoes the idea of making a new product or model, they are going to look at the demand for that product. If the demand is small than they will not spend a lot of R&D money on a product even if they know they can improve it because if they cannot sell to a large segment of consumers than they are inherently wasting money that could have been spent on product they are selling well.

Unfortunately in the end the number of boxes moved HAS to be an important part of the equation no matter how good of a product you can build.

The large companies are going to spend money in areas have growth potential, a large target market, or in an area where they feel they can be the dominate player. Examples of these categories are Plasma, camcorder, DVD, memory card product/Hard disk product.

I think the high-end audio companies are taking back the high-ground vis-a-vis SACD 'as we speak'. There is the Lindemann, which is already here and from what I have read bests the SACD efforts by Sony and Marantz. Audio Aero has announced their new SACD player (in Europe). I expect quite a few SACD players to be announced on this side of the water at CES next week. I expect them all to be better than the current slate of players.

That said, it has indeed taken awhile for these players to come out, IMHO because of licensing issues, the newness of the formats, and the engineering challenge of having to support BOTH CD and DVD at state-of-the-art levels (and perhaps adding DVD on top of that as well) in one player.

-Mike

For major manufacturers such as Sony these days, the major markets seem to be for DVD video (replacing VCRs), home theater sub-sat systems, and laptop PCs. Walk into a Circuit City or Best Buy store some time and watch what audio equipment the customers carry out the door; for the most part, it's not two-channel stereo. Walk into a CompUSA computer store and you'll see Sony products, and multimedia sat-sub speakers, but no high-quality audio equipment. It's a comment on Sony's market share that they've had sufficient depth of resources to be able to afford developing SACD for what is, at most, a niche market for them. The equipment at the top end of Sony's line is quite good. Could high-end audio manufacturers find ways to improve upon Sony's best? Probably so. Has a large enough catalog of SACD recordings developed to support a consumer market for SACD players sufficient to attract a number of equipment manufacturers, including high-end firms, to develop and market new models to compete with major multinational firms such as Sony? Thus far, the answer seems to be that a market for such products exists, but it's a relatively small one. If you can find a higher quality SACD player than Sony, and have the money to afford buying it, by all means do so. When you're enjoying it, though, just remember that you would probably never have seen this format if Sony hadn't decided to commit their financial resources to developing both the equipment and a market for it. I don't work for Sony, or own any Sony stock. I'm just pointing out that audio equipment companies are part of a multinational industry which primarily rewards economies of scale in manufacturing large quantities of the things that the majority of consumers like to spend their money on, rather than small quantities of higher-quality goods for specialized luxury markets. Whether for good or ill, that's just the way the world is. Wishing things otherwise won't make them so.

Hi-end hardware is one thing...but we all know that newer hi-rez formats will be decided by the general public...not the hi-end audio crowd...and so far they have spoken...SACD and DVD-a are both busts....and not surprisingly....you need a very good system to hear the improved benefits....and for the majority....sacd or dvd-a is just not the quantum leap cd was 20 yrs ago....

In reviewing the discussion on this thread (which I initiated) to date, it seems like most audiophiles concede that the general public determines what will be available in the audio world and unless high end formats like SACD are adopted by this general public, they will not be viable.

I find this viewpoint to be curious in light of the fact that manufacturers of high-end, esoteric gear with absolutely no appeal to the masses, have flourished for years. This proves that there is a viable "high end" market and not everything needs to be reduced to mass market quality to be economically viable.

I think the issue at this point is that Sony wants to recapture the dominance it had with the CD patent (which is expiring) through the SACD standard, and companies are reluctant to relinquish a new standard to them for the price they are demanding. On the one hand, I don't blame them, but audio quality will suffer if we don't make some higher resolution format economically viable.

I, for one, am willing to pay more than standard CD prices for a format that produces sound more like analog but I'm also dangerously close to throwing in the towel and just going back to vinyl if we don't start seeing some high end audio companies begin to produce SACD compatible players