sacd

[ken kaczmarz]

The last decade brought the birth of the MP3, the DVD audio, and the SACD.

Clearly the worst format is the only one standing. The MP3 is the first audio format in my lifetime that is a step down. It is a shame that no one is embracing high fidelity audio. The only glimmer of hope is DTS master audio. RUSH is going to release moving pictures on DTS master audio...is this a sign of things to come?

Anyone that has listened to Fleetwood Mac Rumors on DVD-A, Steely Dan Gaucho on DVD-A, Hotel California on DVD-A or Dark Side of the moon on SACD will completely understand this post.

[Chris A]

Do you think that it says something about the demographics of those that appreciate the better formats? Where are the flocks of young folks that are aficionados of good music reproduction? Have these existing and upcoming aficionados been disproportionately affected by our economic downturn?

I believe that you're right about MP3 - there seems to be a high demand for low-quality music reproduction.

Chris []

[willland]

Ken,

You are so right. I have only heard one SACD(PF-DSOTM) and am blown away by the sound quality. I do have a few BR concert videos(Rush, Dave Matthews, David Gilmore, U2) and if this kind of detail and realism is a sign of things to come, I am licking my chops. Lets hope the Rush BR-audio is great and others will follow their lead.

Play the Pink Floyd SACD and listen to the 4th track("Time") and you will understand.

Bill

[jjennings2510]

Well here is my perspective of being a young person during the time when those formats were released. Nowadays young people are not that into home theater anymore unfortunately. I know I've heard lots of people telling me stories from back in the day when they would save their money from their summer jobs and allowances just to get that new HiFi set.....speakers, cassette player etc. Thats when people cared about their music quality a lot more. Of course the natural evolution was CD. Then when CDs came out I believe they caught on with young people quicker....vinyl aficionados preferred their 45s.....but eventually it became widely accepted.....even then it was still a huge thing for people to buy hifi systems. I don't think anything made a guy any happier back in the day than buying his first system.....I mean I know my dad still has his hifi system. Of course now they've upgraded to Klipsch thanks to me but his system still works. A sliver Sharp stereo receiver and Techtronics speakers (I think thats the name) He also had the cassette player and equalizer etc.....The cassette crapped out but everything else is still going strong. But back on topic. That was something everyone looked forward to. it was in the culture. Nowadays we look forward to buying our first smartphone.....our first laptop......our first video game system etc. I mean music IMHO takes a backseat to games and other entertainment. Music is a convenience thing now I believe. I mean its there in your car.....and if you just need to get away for a minute then you can whip out the Ipod or your phone and play your favorite songs.....of course MP3 does lose a lot of quality but young people rarely realize that bc we're either listening through crap headphones all of the time or we're listening on little crap bookshelf systems....(you know the all in one units) or even listening through tv speakers bc we don't have room for a bookshelf system.

So people never realize just how much quality they are losing bc it sounds "similar" to the way the cd sounds....of course with crap equipment everything sorta sounds the same. When I started converting my Cds to MP3s I chose the smallest bitrate.....bc I couldn't hear a difference through my earbuds and I wanted to cram as much music as possible on my player.......so 400-500MB a cd wasn't worth it when I could cut it to 75MB a cd.......then when I finally did get a home theater system it was a cheap HTiB system....once again everything sounded good to me so no use in using loss-less or the highest bitrate. Unfortunately we don't have many local sound shops anymore. So we can't do what you guys did....go in a store....play around with the different systems....decide which sounded better etc......or build a relationship with the sales guy who knows everything and can give tips on stuff....we don't have that anymore. I mean Best Buy and HHGregg have stuff set up but the speakers that are actually hooked u are limited.....and generally they are not setup in the best way. Sometimes all 5 speakers are clustered together on the wall with a price.....sometimes they sorta have they setup right....it all depends. But when they are all clustered together then the Klipsch and Polk don't sound any better than the Sony....maybe louder....then of course with all of the racket in the stores anyway its hard to really hear the nuances of each speaker sometimes.....and then most workers don't make it any better. If you ask them to recommend a good system they steer you to the Sony or Samsung HTiB systems.....I mean I knew the speaker room had better speakers......but I never set foot back there unless a customer wanted to look back there. And even then I'm just like why would I pay $400 for a sub when the full Sony system cost $300?

So with all of that being said we don't ever get to hear the true potential of those speakers unless you're lucky. I mean Magnolia stores generally do a better job at setting up stuff right but its not in every Best Buy.....and the few local shops that are left are considered "high end" shops. Two words a young person does not want to hear bc we think of outrageously priced stuff. So I know I avoided those shops like the plague.....especially with Best Buy and Circuit City folks telling me that Sony and Samsung can't really be beat.....and how they love their systems. No point in spending more than you have to right? Well I didn't get the high end fever until the night we had a movie night at the store. The home theater guys setup the full Synergy F3 system....we watched Van Helsing.....I had went to the movies and enjoyed it.....when it came out on DVD I purchased it and enjoyed it at home......but when I heard it on that system that night......it was like I was back in the movies. Wall rattling bass......awesome dynamics and effects flying around. I walked away impressed......and made it my goal to one day own a Klipsch system. Of course I couldn't believe the price of each speaker. $400 for each tower,,,,I believe another $300 or so for the center...and another couple of hundred for the surrounds...and another $400 for the sub....but even though I passed out after adding it up I knew I had to have it. But if we hadn't did the movie night then I'll still be in the dark about quality.

Which leads to my point. You can't hear quality on crap equipment. With us young people never or rarely hearing a properly setup, good quality system we don't know what we're missing and we settle for what we think is good. I believe back in the day shops had more freedom with their setups....now the major players want all of their stores to have a similar feel no matter where you go so this system has to go here.....this one goes here but its only for display, don't hook it up, etc.....so we mainly buy from the recommendations of our peers.....whether its the young worker at one of the stores or one of our school friends etc. Nowadays its all about convenience. You can easily buy a MP3 player or a portable cd player. I never heard anything about portable SACD players or DVD players (unless you wanted to watch movies...of course I couldn't see myself carrying around a huge portable dvd player just for music) and listening to music on my TV? No thanks. Or on my crappy system which I thought was good. No thanks! The Cds and MP3s sound good enough and I don't have to shell out money for expensive SACD players and expensive media for SACD or DVD. Plus the selection of those formats really sucked. I honestly think we had half of a section dedicated to those formats (this was back in 2003-06...things may have changed by now) so maybe 20 different titles. Once again young people have never heard the advantages of SACD firsthand....or if they have then maybe its the lack of selection that makes it not worth the hassle. either way we just stick with the MP3 which we can put on our phone or in our pocket on a player. With me not having a quality system I tried one DVD audio disc and was sorely disappointed. Plus I hated the fact of having to listen at home. I want to listen on the go! When I'm at home I'm on the net or playing xbox or texting or doing something else that keeps me busy. Sitting down just to listen to music never really crossed my mind.

But that flew out the window when I finally got a quality system and played DVD audio on it....I was blown away.....and now I'm looking into a SACD player....bc I still have not experienced a SACD firsthand. But yes now that I have quality equipment the MP3s are highly lacking and sound crappy. I'm actually debating over when I should convert my collection to loss-less. A long process I am not looking forward to plus I need to make sure I have enough space. But with music sounding so good and with me hearing the nuances i actually want to sit down and just listen to music now. But as I said on;y because I got to have that "HiFi" experience. All of my friends who have heard Klipsch have converted. One guy had an addition put on and made it into his really loud mancave lol. So i just feel like if young people can hear the differences then we will flock to the high quality formats. I mean we will still use MP3s on the go of course but at least at home I feel like we'll have those formats on the shelves. I had never heard of Klipsch before I started working at Best Buy....even when I worked there I only knew them as one of those expensive brands in the speaker room.....I didn't really research them until after that movie night. Before the movie night my ultimate dream system was a Bose Lifestyle....it sounded good in the store....had plenty of advertising talking about their technologies.....and i figured you couldn't get any better than them. Of course Klipsch blew that thought out of my head. But I know I'm not the only young person who is uneducated when it comes to home theater. I'm doing the best I can to spread the word and let people hear the differences. As more young people get into home theater I think the trend may end up being similar to back in the day....we prefer quality sound and we will be excited to bring home our first high quality system. Once you hear the differences there is no going back. So until companies can get setups similar to Bose in the stores that allow them to truly demonstrate what they're capable of then i feel like young people will continue to use MP3 for everything bc they don't know any better. I'm just glad I was lucky enough to hear quality in my early 20s (26 now)

I'm done blabbing. Didn't know a better way to explain except to sorta breakdown the mindsets of most young people. My friends that I've converted were all in similar situations. Couldn't hear the differences and didn't see the point.....Look at us now. I think I'm starting to sound like a home theater snob. *turns nose up* []

[kde]

When talking about old and young... was home theater as complicated back then as it is today? For instance... now you have all the different formats, power conditioners, 51. vs. 7.2 to the uneccessary 9.2, to stock vs DIY power cords, etc. Seems like it would have been easier back in the day, Now, companies like Apple are "making it easy" for people and maybe this is the difference... I'm 34.

[Fish]

I have a Tom Petty Bluray audio disc, he has a few, it's as good or better than sacd.I recall people saying dvd audio /sacd was dead.That may be true but the disc I bought for $15 or so are now worth $50 to 200, glad I bought em'.

[cornfedksboy]

I think the reason that MP3s are popular is because they are convenient. They are made to go with the items that teens and young adults have, smartphones, ipads, laptops, etc. Most music is bought by kids. They don't have big budgets or big speakers, so MP3 is the most popular format as a result. Just my opinion.

[Youthman]

Convenient...yes. But I'm not sure I agree that MP3's are purchased mostly by kids.

We live in a digital world. Although I've personally never purchased a downloaded CD, I have many non-teenage friends that haven't purchased a CD in years. They only d-load music.

I believe it all comes down to the fact that there are very people that actually really care about the quality of music they are listening to. My wife could not tell the difference between an MP3 or an SACD and if she could, she really wouldn't care which she listened to. For the majority, the quality of MP3 is perfectly acceptable.

I do agree that they probably are not the ones that have high end audio equipment either. They are just fine with a HTIB or small shelf system.

[jjennings2510]

very true. I didn't mean to put an age and say only young people downloaded MP3s.....I just meant the culture today is different and I just wanted to try and give a perspective on why my generation is not really into the hifi thing like young people were years ago. Yes there are a lot of people that don't care about the quality of music but I also feel there are a lot of people who care.....they just don't know what their missing. Because as I stated earlier we don't really have the same culture now that we did years ago. It is about convienience and wanting stuff now. Not only that but with very few workers out there that actually wanna take the time to explain the differences and show you what you are missing the customer usually just picks up a HTiB system and calls it a day. Nothing wrong with that. But it sucks bc a lot of people never realize what they're missing. Some won't care....others may care....and others will be disappointed when they finally do realize what they've been missing. I know another poster said there are a lot more formats etc nowadays but I feel like you had so many choices back in the day too. Between equalizers and tone arms for the turntables and better needles etc. Stuff I still don't know too much about nowadays. lol. I could argue that it may actually be easier nowadays to get info about stuff compared to back in the day. I mean we still have audio magazines etc but we also have the internet.....at home...on our phones. So you could actually do minor research on stuff while you're in the store.....of course that is too much trouble for some and too complicated for others but I don't really see that being any different than back then. But I understand all of your points. Its very interesting seeing everyone's point of view.

We can all agree on one thing though. We enjoy our systems and while we may agree to disagree on some topics we can agree that we're all working towards that one goal. Building that perfect home theater. Some have reached it. Some will never reach it, lol. Some have almost reached it. Nonetheless I enjoy debates and thank goodness Klipsch fans are not snobs. On another forum (not saying any names) I probably would have been flamed by now. LOL. But I'm going to go back enjoying my system now.

[Youthman]

It is about convienience and wanting stuff now.

We do live in an instant society.

Nonetheless I enjoy debates and thank goodness Klipsch fans are not snobs. On another forum (not saying any names) I probably would have been flamed by now. LOL. But I'm going to go back enjoying my system now.

Priceless.

[chisoxpurdue]

We can all agree on one thing though. We enjoy our systems and while we may agree to disagree on some topics we can agree that we're all working towards that one goal. Building that perfect home theater. Some have reached it. Some will never reach it, lol. Some have almost reached it. Nonetheless I enjoy debates and thank goodness Klipsch fans are not snobs.

I like this post. It sums up why I like this forum. But this topic also got me very interested.

First, I am young (24) and love quality music. Some of my friends dislike what I listen to, but always are surprised when I complement something they listen to that is not "my style". I love great music. I love how it sounds. I am not a jazz enthusiast, but great music is great music. My tastes sometimes overpower not so great music and I enjoy it. Not every Pearl Jam or Replacements song is great, but I love all of them. Yes even the bad ones. I was bred into the home audio and Klipsch crowd. It will drive me crazy for the rest of my life I am sure. I just wanted to say, that there are some of us young people chasing that unreachable goal of the perfect home audio (and theater) setup.

But lately, I have been exploring my Dad's old vinyl for quite some time. This spaced out by listening to the more than a month and a half's worth of Lossless music on my computer. So it has been a lot of ELP, Tommy Bolin, and Rush. Today, I fired up some SACD and DVD Audio discs, and thoroughly enjoyed them so much. I wondered what I have been doing with the vinyl and computer. The change is huge. But I enjoy it all. The high quality discs available are great. But I hear not all titles are great.

I was hoping some people could recommend some title that they feel are very strong.

I recommend the ELP Brain Salad Sugery DVD Audio.

I also recommend the Eric Clapton "Slowhand" and "461 Ocean Blvd".

Anything wit Diana Krall has sounded great as well. Any other titles people recommend? Maybe we can get a list or database going. Just a thought.

Also, I am looking at all formats of the high quality, including SACD, DVD Audio and even HDCD. If anyone has any other formats, let me know. I also would consider the Blu-ray Music (concerts).

If this has been started or covered elsewhere, help me find it. I looked and could not find it here. Thanks all.

[Uts]

i have the bluray of Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood Live at Madison Square Garden. i've watched it a couple times, & thought it was pretty solid.

as a side note, i've seen them both seperately in concert. i think either one could take any of their live shows, & have them recorded.

[Quiet_Hollow]

I went on the road after school for some time and had to put my main system in storage. I resorted to a CD player walkman and earbuds for the next 3 years, never buying into the iPod craze. Didn't surprise me one bit they chose MP3 for space saving. That experience had taught and still continues to teach me ALOT about the differences in how music is produced in the studio and that source material is the other half of the pie. Spend 3 years listening to table-flat frequency and phase response and you'll catch my drift. To this day, I still spend about half my time listening to earbuds, even with my main Klipsch heritage rig directly in front of my living room.

I don't need an uber-system to appreciate any differences in sources. SACD on headphones at the hi-fi shop, didn't sound any different so long as it was mixed the same and played back at the same levels as any other source. I'm not sold on DTD-HD or SACD either because DVD movies soundtracks and CD's currently have a long standing history of never being used to their fullest potential anyhow.

Not everyone is buying into MP3's. Heck there's still a very large portion of the population that doesn't even listen to music critically, get a chance to, or claims they have better things to focus their efforts on. Pulling off a good audio system time and time again takes a fair bit of knowledge. Knowledge that not everyone can grasp easily or has access to. That, coupled with the aforementioned seemingly large proportion of relative apathy, is what I believe to be the driving factor in the bias observed from this side of the audio circle.