Sony axes SACD - certain not official

jasontkennedy · « **on:** 20 Oct 2004, 08:38 pm »

Here's the deal. I work at an audio store here in st. louis. I heard from some of the regional big wigs from MONSTER that sony has officially abandoned SACD. Any releases near compleation will see the light of day, but apart from that, no new production will be taken on. They will not continue pressing exsisting releases beyond the pressings of their final releases. They will not be liscensing out the DSD engine to anyone else. So, I didn't catch it from Sony, but I did get it from the higher ups at MONSTER, who I wouls call "well connected". And they way they said it, there was no second guessing or pandering. So according to them, it is certain. But since it didn't come from a sony PR person, I dare not call it official.

Apparently Sony is trying to keep it on the downlow, considering they still have SACD players on their current roster. So, my internet searching to confirm this has been unsuccesful. I would keep watching slashdot for the next few days to watch for the media release for this information. I am not putting you all on, this is not some sort of prank. Apparently the driving reason behind this is theat Son'y believes that the CD is "dead" and are looking to further audio technologies in other areas. I huess they mean Ipod, and mp3 players, and other stuff like that.

shokunin · « **Reply #1 on:** 20 Oct 2004, 08:55 pm »

Over on the asylum, I thought I read that Sony was pulling support from studios. They were providing DSD mastering facilities and equipment to studios create SACDs, since most did not have the $$ nor the technical facilities to do so.

I guess we'll all find out in a few weeks if SACD is here to stay...

Charles Calkins · « **Reply #2 on:** 20 Oct 2004, 09:20 pm »

I wouldn't be a bit surprised about the demise of SACD. The local stores I buy from can't give them away. The selections they have are older recordings and a lot of them sound about as good as a redbook CD. I'm thinking SACD was designed for something like surround sound reproduction. I have a surround sound system that I use for movies only. My main audio system is good old two channel. Works and sounds good enough for me!

Cheers
Charlie

dogberry · « **Reply #3 on:** 20 Oct 2004, 09:53 pm »

What a load of hooey.

Oh, and hey, if I am wrong, I'll apologize later. But CD isn't dead, and there are more reasons why DSD was invented than selling music. Even if Sony didn't want to bother selling SACDs any more, they could still license it to others. There are plenty of other companies who see its potential and survivability.

soundboy · « **Reply #4 on:** 20 Oct 2004, 10:00 pm »

These "pulling the plug" stories has been floating around for a while. Here're some links if you are interested....

http://www.sa-cd.net/showthread/2875/

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=39238&highlight=massenberg

New SACD titles continue to be announced and released.

Charles Calkins · « **Reply #5 on:** 20 Oct 2004, 10:19 pm »

Hey Guys!!
Something I just thought about. Seems to me that a long time ago Sony was involved with a war against VHS tape players. Sony was pushing their BETA format for recording and playback and everyone else was pushing VHS. I guess we all know which format was accepted worldwide. Might be that SACD has the same problem.

Cheers
Charlie

soundboy · « **Reply #6 on:** 20 Oct 2004, 11:30 pm »

SACD is currently averaging 3 to 4 titles being released everyday on a worldwide basis. Over 2,500 SACD titles are listed at www.sa-cd.net; I know of at least a dozen that aren't even listed there.

http://www.sa-cd.net/additions.php

I don't think DVD-A has half the number of titles available.....and this is before it's being morphed into DualDisc. DVD-A, as a viable format, is dead in the water.

CELT in AR · « **Reply #7 on:** 20 Oct 2004, 11:52 pm »

If it is true, it would be so typical of Sony. Forever introducing and abandoning formats.

gonefishin · « **Reply #8 on:** 21 Oct 2004, 04:10 am »

You know...I'm not so sure if sacd will last or not. Something keeps telling me it probably won't ever be accepted mainstream.

Will I lose sleep over this? No. But I will enjoy some SACD's for quite some time. Even if they stop making more sacd titles, I'll still have a good number of current production sacd titles to choose from...in addition to the sacd's I already own.

That being said, I live in an area that I consider to be... Well, not very "hifi" ready. We've got a lot of decent audio stores within driving distance, but I doubt many people actually make the drive. But, even so...the local record stores (including best buy) have an increasingly larger selection of sacd's than I would expect.

Is this good news for sacd? I'm not too sure...but it's good news for me

dan

audionoob · « **Reply #9 on:** 21 Oct 2004, 04:46 am »

Perhaps they are talking about axeing SACD II which feature video and better encryption code, instead of dumping SACD as a format. SACD II is supposed to be launched in late 2003, but nothing to date.

http://www.highfidelityreview.com/news/news.asp?newsnumber=19363192

stvnharr · « **Reply #10 on:** 21 Oct 2004, 05:13 am »

These "Death of SACD" are becoming like Elvis sightings!!!!

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #11 on:** 21 Oct 2004, 10:33 am »

Hmmm...late 2003? I'd say very late, since it's now late 2004.

soundboy · « **Reply #12 on:** 21 Oct 2004, 06:42 pm »

The rumor of SACD II came and went.

I believe the rumor of SACD being axed came from some article on audioholics.com mentioning that Sony is pulling sponsorship of their DSD mastering equipment from studios. On top of that, Denon announced it will not support universal capabilities (SACD and DVD-A) in its entry level DVD players because hi-rez is not a factor in that sector of the market. No big deal since Denon was never active in the under $200.00 universal player market, unlike Pioneer or Toshiba.

The Denon announcement is kind of odd since its sister company, Marantz, announced all of its CD players will also be SACD capable. Of course, the number of dedicated CD players are dropping as J6P consumers buy DVD players instead.

Woodsea · « **Reply #13 on:** 21 Oct 2004, 09:53 pm »

I hear that Sony is dumping the playstation platform as well. Microsoft is on the verge of capturing 30% of the market, they see the slippery slide.

Sony is to big to abandon this market, IMHO. It is not a big gamble or costly to keep with this platform. Sony is all about quality, maybe not economical. It's not going anywhere. Beta was along time ago, when the walkman was just at the crawling stage. If Sony was as big now as then we would have alot smaller boxes of cassettes in our video storage areas

soundboy · « **Reply #14 on:** 21 Oct 2004, 10:57 pm »

For what it's worth, Rhino Music now acknowledge SACD on its online store. Rhino Music is one of the labels owned by Warner Music, one of DVD-A's strongest proponents. However, since Warner Music changed hands earlier this year, who knows what will happen?

Poll

Have you already heard this? (apart from my other post)