Some good news on Blu Ray Audio

They are. Digital music, ironically, spelled the end of the physical medium. Why buy discs which take up space in our new 'utilitarian' homes (sic) when you can have lovely, low quality lossy downloads on awful sounding IPod docs? The Ipod dock is the new music system and even people I know who are into HiFi have found themselves buying one or facing the wrath of the missus. That nasty hifi looks ugly and takes up too much space, never mind that it sounds about a million times better...

The domestic battle is one that cannot be won, in particular when the media impress on the fairer sex how much better a house is with very little in it.

I don't buy CD now because the vast majority sound utterly crap. If I can find one that isn't compressed to the point of becoming a mini black hole I'll get it, but that doesn't happen that often.

I wouldn't say physical media lost the battle, it was never in one. The record business may have put up a token fight, but once they realised what they were missing out on (minimal costs and massive returns) the writing was on the wall for CD. The battle over copyright wasn't to protect CD, but the corporate Music businesses online future. Blu Ray will only ever be a specialist market, eventually replacing CD and Vinyl, as the current generation are totally switched off physical media. Why go back when you are happy with what you have?

However, as long as the 'few' keep buying and the prices are sensible, we 'might' see Blu Ray as the future for those of us who actually want a physical disc.

 

I'd happily ditch the majority of my CD's IF internet music streaming services offere at least a FLAC version or above. Never been a fan of RIPPING them to a HDD and then selling on the CD's, what if the HDD crashes? Then you start talking about backups etc. and all of a sudden it will be like being at work again! Why bother, your backup is already on the shelf, the physical CD!

But as Overkill says, the majority of CD's sound like crap, so hence why most of us are hanging onto their vinyl these days. The CD medium was great when it started, remember the "limitations of the source tape" warning on the sleeve? Now they just compress, gate the hiss out and strangle any dymanic range of anything out it by turning it up to 11 and beyond, and call it a remaster.

Ironically CD's have ended up cheaper than digital downloads by quite a considerable margin, and are better quality! (even though its slim pickings most of the time). Digital downloads have another issue to me as well, to me its just another name for price fixing.

 

Keep the CDs in archive storage

 

I think Blu-Ray audio has already killed itself by announcing another Supertramp disc...

 

Antidote: Amy Winehouse's Back To Black, also out on Blu-ray Audio soon

 

What are you doing with your discs? I have 3,000+ CDs and in 25 years have never broken or scratched a single one.

Got the Blu Ray Audio disc of Histoire De Melody Nelson at the weekend. A 10 Euro bargain from and eBay France Market Place dealer.

Sounds superb. The surround mixes are superfluous for me, as the two channel mixes give a more natural, integrated sound-stage.

 

CD's scratch easily. The worse ones I have are in the dopey 'card sleeves' that they insist on putting them in when you buy box sets like Floyd's Immersion series, and recently Hawkwinds WOTEOT. I treat my CD's like vinyl (as they advise these days after the earlier propaganda caused havoc) but they still get small scratches. Not enough to cause problems, but still irritating.

Thanks for the heads up on the Serge disc! My vinyl copy of Histoire is ancient and knackered.

 

I was thinking more about how he managed to break them rather than scatch them.

Yes, it seems the more expensive the all bells and whistles CD box set, the more they insist on some kind of annoying cardboard gripper system designed to scratch the CDs.

I keep a stock of those little opaque poly inners the Japanese use on their LP replica CD packaging and as soon as I receive carboard sleeves or the above mentioned box set packaging, the CDs go straight into the protective sleeves.

 

If you don't mind my asking where do you get those from? I looked on Ebay and all I could find were paper sleeves or the expensive Amray felt type.

 

Off this guy...

Semitransparency Plastic Sleeves for CD's disc 100 | eBay

 

Oi, I quiet like Supertramp.

I notice that Bob Marley's Legend is to be released on blu ray in September. Will give this a go definately.

 

I don't believe it - an article on the BBC website about Blu Ray Audio :
BBC News - Blu-Ray albums target hi-fi fans

 

*faints*

Wasn't a bad article either.

 

Hopefully there will be more discs available in the UK

 

amy winehouse back to black and Nirvanas In utero added to the list! happy days. there also giving you the album in mp3 aswell (which kinda defeats the object)..but its to combat the downloading naysayers about the bluray audio. afaik the albums are in stereo only. i hope 5.1 follows aswell and we have both versions to listen to.

also noticed nick drake five leaves left, dont think thats been mentioned either and marvin gaye's what's going on.

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universal music high fedelity pure audio

 

Looking forward to hearing Winehouse in Blu ray, but Nirvana in hi resolution I can live without. You can't polish a turd.

 

i happen to like both, i think there is some decent titles coming out, but 24 bit/96 htz does not mean a good sound mix to the album, so i hope there taking care. i have the rolling stones grrr, but some people have said that limiting has been used. the selection on amazon is a little sketchy couldnt find all the titles. my second purchase will be back to black as that should sound awesome if done right.

 

also a 5 disc set of eric clapton, for lovers of old slow hand on the way...now if only it was a 6 set of jimi hendrix, now were talking mmm

here the article

Give me strength 74/75 recordings box set

 

if people are buying the blurays. lets share info on this thread. state what you have and the sound quality.and also the specs, whether it has stereo only or other mixes and what audio options are available ie. dts, pcm etc.

what i have found is info is very sketchy from retailers what exactly you get on the disc.

 

I had purchased the Rolling Stones GRRR Blu-Ray Audio disc last year and put my thoughts in the SACD thread at that time but yes here is a better place

If interested you can see what I thought here on post #635

http://www.avforums.com/forums/music/1246048-list-your-sacd-dvd-music-collections-22.html

Thanks

 

Anyone know what sort of price range we are looking at for these discs?

 

@universal there £16.99 + £1.99, for the new stuff (amy winehouse, nevermind, whats going on (all released Oct 21st)

but if you shop around

bob marleys legend, and the stones grrrr can be had for £10 - £12 quid.

 

ive got to be honest..what im really after is... the highest sound quality available, decent new releases ..but that is movable around my home network..and my devices. and i think thats what we all what... why include mp3 .. the point us quality.. why not include flac downloads. 24/96 so we can listen at home. then take it with us on the move!?

 

I know, they should include the Flac files but I guess they don't want people to share them.
You can of course rip the Blu-ray audio discs to Flac using DVD-audio Extractor.

 

This bad boy turned up today, been playing Grrrrrr a lot recently and really love it, I reckon it sounds great, I'll post thoughts on Legend when I've played it.

 

I like the idea of higher resolution audio but it's always going to be a niche market. With the majority of people happy to download at bit rates of a polyphonic ringtone it's going to be hard to get into any market.
Unless it's night and day and standard kit again who's going to buy it?
I don't class myself as having bad kit, a little old now yes but it's not bad. And if I'm not going to get a benefit then the people that buy a package deal from currys wont and that's when industry takes off.

That aside who's listened to what and how does it compare and why system are you using for it

 

look forward to it. this is on my list..let us know what audio options are on there (we should compile a list)..and if we have stereo and 5.1