Jump to content


Please note: You can easily log in to MPN using your Facebook account!

Why Did SACD Fail


Recommended Posts

Several people, myself included, have mentioned here that they feel the SACD sounded better than conventional PCM audio. In fact I can't think of anyone who didn't think it sounded better.

 

So if it was audibly superior...why did it never take off? Any theories out there?

Link to comment
Share on other sites



  • Replies 12
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

There was never that much music available in SACD was/is there?

 

I heard some SACD playback on some uber-pricey systems, and it was definitely another level better than regular CDs at least to my ears. But the cost of the playback systems were way too rich for my blood.

 

Playback can be acceptable, or good, or really good, or stunning. To get from really good to stunning is a big hike up the price mountain. Really good is good enough for me, and I can afford it.

 

nat

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the general public just doesn't care about the finer points of sound, instead they just want to sing along with the words.

 

After all, when I was a child, we all bought 45RPM records, later the worst all-time music invention the 8 track, followed by the second worst--the cassette, and then at the urging of the labels, they replaced all their cassette tapes with these new "CD-Quality" discs.

 

The industry told them CDs were the best sounding thing in the world even though they are not. And the public believed them. The music listeners already replaced their 45s&LPs with a couple of different formats and now the ads tell them they want to replace their "CD Quality" discs again? You can only pull that trick a few times before people tire of it. They'd rather spend the money on a game console or iphone. (The iphone itself is going through that now, people don't buy every new one that comes out every year anymore.)

 

We musicians care very dearly about tone, and we should, but the general public does not. If tone was the first consideration John Lennon, Dr. John, Stevie Nicks, and so many others wouldn't have sold many records. Even more 'sophisticated' listeners listen to Blossom Dearie, Dave Frishberg, John Coltrane, and others with questionable tone because they like their music. And remember, tone is subjective, while I think 'Trane has poor tone, others love it.

 

I repeat, the general public cares about lyrics and expression more than tone. People mostly listen to mp3s with earbuds (yuck). Neil Young's PONO didn't make it either.

 

So IMHO the public got tired of replacing their music in format after format. CDs are convenient, they don't skip like records and tape machines don't eat them for lunch so there is nothing driving them to replace their music with something that to untrained ears just sounds a little different, not necessarily better to them.

 

It's sad. The SACD sounded much better than the CD to this musician's ears. I thought the tone was fuller and more life-like on the SACDs I was able to hear.

 

But to tell the truth, I wouldn't replace my entire LP/CD collection with SACDs, just the most important ones to me.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

 

 

Bob "Notes" Norton

Owner, Norton Music http://www.nortonmusic.com

Style and Fake disks for Band-in-a-Box

The Sophisticats http://www.s-cats.com >^. .^< >^. .^<

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Several people, myself included, have mentioned here that they feel the SACD sounded better than conventional PCM audio. In fact I can't think of anyone who didn't think it sounded better.

 

So if it was audibly superior...why did it never take off? Any theories out there?

 

You have high quality friends who have the opportunity to hear SACD playback over a good system. Most people listen to lossy-compressd audio on mediocre earphones, on a player powered by a 3 volt battery. And most of those fall into one of two categories - either they can't tell the difference between an MP3 file and a CD or they can hear the difference but they don't care because they're not listening to the music that intensely anyway.

 

And for those with the appropriate playback system to take advantage of the SACD format, they're still physically CDs and the recent success of the phonograph record has demonstrated people want the fun of playing music, not just hearing it. And all the improvements over PCM go away when you transfer files (I assume you can do that) to your phone where you're more likely to listen to it.

 

So I can't say that MP3 killed SACD, SACD just couldn't get enough traction to encourage the record companies to make more product.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the average consumer has gotten tired of replacing their music collection every time a new format comes out. Records, then cassettes, then 8-tracks, then CDs. Since CDs, mp3s has been the only format that offers any compelling feature to upgrade - it's hard to get more compelling than a compact computer file that can play on any mobile device without DRM.

 

DRM is another reason why SACD wasn't widely embraced. The industry wants a format that they can control. Consumers don't want their content locked out or degraded, and they don't like the industry to control playback by disabling their SACD players remotely. That's why the industry has struggled to kill the mp3 format.

 

Sony tried to control the CD players on computers with their notorious rootkit virus hidden on selected CDs. Not only did this raise public awareness of DRM, but they raised the scorn of the government because the rootkit threatened computers running crucial tasks like air traffic control. No one has attempted anything like that again.

 

Same thing with BluRay, not as widely adopted as DVD was. And for many of the same reasons.

 

It was 1981 when I bought my first record and they were poor quality product by then - after returning too many records that skipped I stopped buying them. Only ever had a handful of records. When CDs came out I embraced them.

 

My entertainment collection is now up to over 1000 CDs and DVDs. I'm almost 60 years old and I doubt I will ever adopt another format.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the average consumer has gotten tired of replacing their music collection every time a new format comes out. Records, then cassettes, then 8-tracks, then CDs. Since CDs, mp3s has been the only format that offers any compelling feature to upgrade - it's hard to get more compelling than a compact computer file that can play on any mobile device without DRM.

 

DRM is another reason why SACD wasn't widely embraced. The industry wants a format that they can control. Consumers don't want their content locked out or degraded, and they don't like the industry to control playback by disabling their SACD players remotely. That's why the industry has struggled to kill the mp3 format.

 

Sony tried to control the CD players on computers with their notorious rootkit virus hidden on selected CDs. Not only did this raise public awareness of DRM, but they raised the scorn of the government because the rootkit threatened computers running crucial tasks like air traffic control. No one has attempted anything like that again.

 

Same thing with BluRay, not as widely adopted as DVD was. And for many of the same reasons.

 

It was 1981 when I bought my first record and they were poor quality product by then - after returning too many records that skipped I stopped buying them. Only ever had a handful of records. When CDs came out I embraced them.

 

My entertainment collection is now up to over 1000 CDs and DVDs. I'm almost 60 years old and I doubt I will ever adopt another format.

 

You reminded me of the "copy protection" debacle. I remember wanting to burn one of the "protected" CDs on my Mac and it would not allow me to do so.

Oddly, when I made a Disk Image of the CD, I was able to burn a copy, with the copy prevention "feature" fully intact. I was pretty amused by that.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[You reminded me of the "copy protection" debacle. I remember wanting to burn one of the "protected" CDs on my Mac and it would not allow me to do so.

Oddly, when I made a Disk Image of the CD, I was able to burn a copy, with the copy prevention "feature" fully intact. I was pretty amused by that.

 

I used FreeRip to grab the songs. It only uses the red book format so it does not even see the rootkit on the CD.

 

After that I stopped buying Sony products. They were so arrogant when the news went viral, and there was always a conflict between their entertainment (CD commercial music) and consumer device divisions that their players/recorders were crippled to please the entertainment division and they were pretty much useless. Plus Sony is always building devices that use their proprietary memory and format.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The mass market doesn"t buy technology, it buys solutions. SACD isn"t a solution for people who want ALL music available ANYTIME, ANYWHERE. Not yet, maybe never. Picture a consumer going to an electronics store decades ago. 'Yes sir, Beta is the best quality, but the latest Chevy Chase movie isn"t available on that format. And unless you upgrade your TV monitor you won"t see a difference.' Any questions?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The mass market doesn"t buy technology, it buys solutions.

 

That's a pretty brilliant, and concise, summary of how to predict which products will succeed and which products will fail.

 

It also ties in with the "should I upgrade my phone?" thread. If the upgrade provides a solution to a problem...yes. If not, pass. The only time subjectivity gets into it is if you think that, for example, a newer phone doing everything your old phone does, but faster, is a solution. For some, speed may be a problem, For others, it may not be.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the average consumer has gotten tired of replacing their music collection every time a new format comes out. Records, then cassettes, then 8-tracks, then CDs. Since CDs, mp3s has been the only format that offers any compelling feature to upgrade - it's hard to get more compelling than a compact computer file that can play on any mobile device without DRM.

 

DRM is another reason why SACD wasn't widely embraced. The industry wants a format that they can control. Consumers don't want their content locked out or degraded, and they don't like the industry to control playback by disabling their SACD players remotely. That's why the industry has struggled to kill the mp3 format.

 

One of the reasons for SACD was that Sony and Philips wanted the CD's successor to be the same patented format so that they could continue to receive licensing fees. But that was a mistake, because it wasn't perceived as "different" enough to represent a breakthrough to consumers.

 

We always had "hardcoer" and "paperback" versions of music. LP and 45. Vinyl and cassette. CD and MP3. It's anomaly that we pretty much have only the paperback version any more.

 

I always thought the next "hardcover" medium would be USB sticks that contained the music in multiple formats, interviews with artists, artwork, etc. The price would be about the same as a CD or less, and you wouldn't need to spend money on a player because you could use it with a tablet or computer, or transfer files to a phone. I definitely got that one wrong. At some point, though, I still might release my own music that way and see what happens.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The mass market doesn"t buy technology, it buys solutions. SACD isn"t a solution for people who want ALL music available ANYTIME, ANYWHERE. Not yet, maybe never.

 

That's a profound thought, but in order to need a solution, first you need a problem. And so much of today's consumer technology presents a solution to a problem that nobody has. And then they try to convince you that you've always had the problem that their product solves, you just never knew it before. They tried to sell high resolution streaming and downloads as being just like what you get with MP3s, but "the problem" is that with an MP3, not all the music is there. So, given the choice of getting all the music with some of the fidelity or getting some music with most of the fidelity, the status quo is the winner - for most people.

 

High resolution downloads are easy to make, so there's plenty of content available for those who want to invest in the playback equipment that will give them what they're paying a little extra for. SACDs are another story, though. Each one must be pressed, printed, and packaged individually. The cost of putting an unpopular high resolution file on line is practically nothing, but if they press 20,000 SACDs and only sell 5, that's more of a loss than most businesses can afford on a regular basis.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another factor was the competing DVD-Audio format. Learn more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD-Audio

 

DVD-A was the official audio product from the DVD forum, the coalition that created DVDs. Media formats that are only sold by a few companies, not by all manufacturers, nearly always fail. SACD was exclusive to Sony and Sony never sold DVD-A players. If there was only one high quality audio disc format it might have been a bit more successful.

 

Another factor is that the sound quality of ordinary DVDs was already very good, especially with music discs encoded with DTS.

 

If most DVD players routinely included compatibility with SACD and DVD-A at the time they were introduced (without a noticeable extra cost) more people would have had players and might have been tempted to try it. Instead only a few audiophiles ever bought players for either format. It might have been in the interest of the record industry to subsidize the cost of manufacturing SACD and/or DVD-A players in order to drive interest in the content, but that never happened.

 

High quality audio is always a niche market, but it could have been a successful niche market if everyone had cooperated, chose one format to support, and made the cost for compatible players negligible. Competition is not always good for consumers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

DVD-A was the official audio product from the DVD forum, the coalition that created DVDs.

 

Wow, I had completely forgotten about that.

 

Media formats that are only sold by a few companies, not by all manufacturers, nearly always fail.

Excellent point. Some companies learn, though...Native Instruments opened up NKS to other companies rather than trying to keep it exclusive. In the long run, they'll all be more successful because of that if people like the NKS concept.

 

High quality audio is always a niche market, but it could have been a successful niche market if everyone had cooperated, chose one format to support, and made the cost for compatible players negligible. Competition is not always good for consumers.

Nothing proves your point better than MIDI. I'm happy to see that MIDI 2.0 is following the same development curve as MIDI 1.0, with every important manufacturer on board.

 

FWIW I enjoy your posts. You consistently make a lot of good points.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...