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Why No New SACD Along With New Vinyl

Question- I don't understand why the companies that are issuing new vinyl releases don't also issue an SACD version at the same time. I assume they are remastering the vinyl and I understand that they sometimes use high resolution digital as the source, so wouldn't it only be marginally more expensive to simultaneously release an SCAD and capture both ends of the high end market?

I personally have a universal player and no turntable and listen to rock, not jazz. I subscribe online to the Acoustic Sounds new releases email. They are constantly reissuing vinyl of 60's - 90's rock, but not the equivalent SACD. I'd buy almost every one in SACD. There must be as many SACD players out there as turntables- why forgo half the high end market for what appears to be marginal added cost?

I'm not trying to start an analog vs. digital discussion. I simply don't understand why this doesn't happen
mitchell
markphd
667 posts
 
I can't comment on whether the cost is marginal or not on the production side. However, it would be difficult to get stores to allot shelf space and incur extra inventory costs. Stores don't like to carry double inventory. This was also a problem when LPs and cassette tapes coexisted. The problem is exacerbated by the small market for SACDs which are probably on their way out anyway, perhaps in favour of high-rez music on Blu-Ray discs, or something else. SACD's time has passed before it ever really got off the ground.
merganser
216 posts
 
You can thank Sony's lack of support along with the greed of musicians/agents in that for releases in the USA, they wanted 3 times the royalties due to the 3 layers on hybrid SACD's. That alone killed it here.

Hi-rez Blu-Ray? Yeah, I'm not buying that one. At least, not hi-rez like SACD.
tomcy6's avatar
tomcy6
2,598 posts
 
I think that when people didn't repurchase their entire record collections in SACD the way they did when cd came out the big record companies lost interest.

High-res digital is going to be downloads stored on servers. I would guess that you'll be able to burn them onto cd-rs or dvd-rs.

The current issue of TAS has an article about the QSonics Q110 music server, which is available with storage drive capacities from 250 gigabytes to 1.5 terrabytes. The latter will store over 4,000 cds in WMA format (Windows Media Audio Lossless). Cost is around $6,000 for the 250GB with 15 inch touchscreen to $9,000 for the 1.5 TB with 17 inch touchscreen. I expect the storage, sound quality and features will improve steadily while the cost goes down.

QSonics is teaming up with website MusicGiants to deliver cd quality (HD) and high-res (Super HD) downloads. MusicGiants says they'll have thousands of titles available in Super HD soon. We'll see.
gs5556
1,237 posts
 
It's the way the market is today. According to the RIAA, vinyl outsells SACD and DVD-audio combined by a 4-to-1 margin. Business is business, sad to say.
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