O
Ovation
Guest
CJROSS said:Enjoy the tunes for a while more like.
I wonder if you will be giving that advice to newbies into high resolution music when the rug is pulled from MC music, especially with SACD when Sony are seriously considering pulling the plug, DVD-A is being consigned to the bins with Dualdisc here now, and we are now being foisted with a dodgy format [Dualdisc] that has inherent manufacturing problems & limited audio width on its DVD-A/V layer. Oh and its only multichannel audio too (hooray I hear you cheer but why has MC audio not set the heather laight to this point ?). Do you think the world is going to go Dualdisc crazy ? If so why not with DVD-A to this point ? Ovation you are doing new users into hifi/AV a disservice with advice like that TBH, I speak as someone who has been burned with promises of high resolution audio in the past, investing in kit to achieve it. Only to find the format dead (DVD-V DAD 24/96 stereo FYI).
To the original poster, yep go for SACD releases they generally have a very nice CD hybrid layer on them, so even if SACD does die, you will be left with a CD playable disc anyway, I guess Im one of the purists Ovation mentions as I have a very large collection of CD & Vinyl that needs to have stereo based equipment to sound its best, when you consider that most audiophiles agree that vinyl is the most realistic high resolution format [I enjoy CD as much as vinyl FWIW], then you can see why some purists find it funny to see SACD or DVD-A held aloft as the saviours of high resolution audio, especially thru a 5.1 AV MC system that sounds hobbled with CD or Vinyl. Another way to look at high resolution audio and the amount of releases is to comapre SACD or DVD-A / Dualdisc to Vinyl and compare what you can buy today. Multichannel High resolution formats can sound great, but there is a very limited supply, your kit will not do CD or Vinyl justice and as a result you will end up listening to a smaller amount of music in satisfaction.
Good luck.
When I say "purists" I mean those who sneer at MCH mixes as being "unnatural" or "gimmicky" after having been exposed to a few samples. Yes there are some poor MCH mixes out there. It is in its infancy, however. In the early days of stereo, there were "gimmicky" mixes too. They went out of style rather quickly. Or are you telling me that if you were 30 years older, you'd only listen to mono, because "stereo" is too gimmicky and unnatural? No? Well I've read many old reviews (I'm an historian and have a particular interest in popular culture) and the same complaints about MCH mixes I read now were made about "stereo" then by lots of people. Furthermore, "stereo" was conceived as THREE channels, not TWO (it means THREE-DIMENSIONAL, not TWO-CHANNEL) but the technology to play back three channels was not feasible at the time, so it was mixed down to two.
Are there excellent two channel mixes? Of course. And I don't advocate the end of two channel releases. However, I find well done, DISCRETE MCH mixes (not artificial DSP-generated MCH) extremely satisfying musically. I've been in recording studios (even recorded a tune or three myself) and I know what the immersive sound in those studios is like. MCH (esp. hi-res) captures that experience far more effectively than two channel ever could.
As to a "hobbled system". Well, we've had this discussion about $$$ vs performance and number of channels. I don't want to rehash that issue again. I will say, though, that it doesn't take an enormous amount of money to get decent sound, even from a "hobbled" system.
Here's my setup (no doubt you'll tell me how crappy it is in your reply)
Boston Acoustics VR-M60s front left and front right
Boston Acoustics VRC centre
Boston Acoustics VR-M50s surround left and surround right
Boston Acoustics PV900 subwoofer
Integra DTR 6.4 six-channel surround sound receiver/processor
Cambridge Audio 540D DVD-A/V/CD player
Marantz DV6400 universal player
The Integra has a PURE AUDIO mode that turns it into an integrated amp. I use the Cambridge for CD playback, as I did a head to head comparo with it and several dedicated CD players (including the 540C) and (along with the store owner, for whom the comparo was blind) found it the best CD player at it's price point and up to double that. For hi-res, I use the Marantz (whose CD performance is preferred by my fellow audio "nut" friend as it is a bit deeper in bass, but I prefer the Cambridge's wider soundstage). I'm not a believer in exotic interconnects and speaker cable, so no fancy names here for those. In the future, I plan to add a separate two channel pre-amp/amp or integrated for two channel listening, though the Integra does a pretty good job. My speakers are set up in the ITU configuration--to conform with the recommended standard for both mixing/mastering MCH audio and playback of the same.
This gear retails for 4500$C for the speakers, 1700$C for the receiver, 489$C for the Cambridge and 799$C for the Marantz for a total of 7488$C plus 15% GST. Not peanuts, but not outlandish. Certainly I could have purchased one player, one integrated and a great pair of speakers and had a wonderful two channel system. And someday, money and space willing, I will have a separate system for that purpose. But in the real world, where compromise is king (I also use this setup for movies), I still get what 95% of the listening audience would consider decent sound (in the general population, they'd probably call it "killer sound"). And I've listened to two channel systems that cost as much as my MCH setup. They're great, but the difference is not HUGELY spectacular.
You don't want MCH hi-res, you don't need to get it. But, I stand by my statement that MCH music is worth experiencing and, what's more, it doesn't have to cost a lot.
As for it disappearing, perhaps DVD-A and SACD and even DualDisc will not take off, but I'd not be too quick to write all of them off. The new hi-def DVD specs (both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD) include MLP (DVD-A) as part of their specs. Lossless DTS is also on the way and when they finally reduce the connection complexity, MCH music will take off.
I'm not doing anyone a disservice. It doesn't cost that much to try MCH hi-res and if someone doesn't like it, they'll move to two channel anyway.
As for vinyl, well, in order to truly benefit from that, you need to sink a lot more money in that than you do to benefit from hi-res discs. I have friends with large vinyl collections and I agree it can sound wonderful (provided they're well treated and are of good quality pressings--not always the case), but for those who don't have a vinyl collection, I'm not sure I'd encourage them to get into it at this stage. But then again, I'm not a "purist".