Hypothetical question

Pez · « **on:** 27 Dec 2011, 04:06 pm »

Hypoyhetical question: your favorite artist releases their latest album in the three above formats. You can only pick one. They are the same price. Which one do you pick? And why.

ted_b · « **Reply #1 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 04:15 pm »

I vote 24/44.1 for all the 24 bit reasons; better headroom, etc. And it will be played back on a computer-based music server, so why not have it in that form from day one. This all assumes 24/44.1 is the recording source. If the source is analog, and it is mastered via analog (doubt it) then vinyl or DSD (not a choice here) is the preferred.

Phil A · « **Reply #2 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 04:20 pm »

Ditto to the 24/44.1. Easy choice for me - no turntable.

Pez · « **Reply #3 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 04:21 pm »

I intentionally left dsd or 24/96 or higher. I guess in my mind the choice at that point is obvious. Maybe if someone convinced me otherwise...

Don_S · « **Reply #4 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 04:29 pm »

None of the above. I am still miffed at Sony and the idiot DVD-A guys for killing off 24/96.

We could have had an excellent format on disks that would play on tens (hundreds?) of millions of existing players. Eventually the hi-end audio guys would have made CD+ players using DVD drives to accommodate CDs and 24/96 audio-only disks. No need for the download nuisance niche market.

I am not commenting on the quality of downloads, just the limited titles, high cost, and major nuisance involved. That market will never reach the masses (like me). My wallet votes for 16/44.1 or 24/96 on a disk in my chubby fingers. I could easily load 24/96 audio-only disks into my music server. Downloading is another issue. It took forever to download the sampler from HD Tracks. And those were in FLAC which I have yet to convert in my player. And even worse, I bet I won't give a rat's fanny about any of the sample tracks.

JCarney · « **Reply #5 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 04:35 pm »

Vinyl, the original hi-rez. I can rip the album if I so choose at 24/192, and do whatever I want with it in the digital domain. Plus I get to enjoy the album itself. The best of both worlds.

JCarney

Pez · « **Reply #6 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 04:40 pm »

Don, Sony didn't kill off hi rez, consumer demand (or lack there of) did. I personally don't have any issue with downloading anything. I pulled a 1.2 gig 24/44.1 in less than an hour last night off HD tracks. Bjork Biophilia, Listening to it now!

Don_S · « **Reply #7 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 04:58 pm »

Quote from: Pez on 27 Dec 2011, 04:40 pm

Don, Sony didn't kill off hi rez, consumer demand (or lack there of) did. I personally don't have any issue with downloading anything. I pulled a 1.2 gig 24/44.1 in less than an hour last night off HD tracks. Bjork Biophilia, Listening to it now!

Pez,

Sorry to disagree but from my perspective Sony and DVD-A killed off a viable hi-rez option--24/96. SACD needed special players and DVD-A needed a monitor to navigate conveniently. Both cost more than CDs. Consumers were left confused and disgusted. That is not the way to build critical mass. My point is 24/96 had a shot due to all the DVD players in existence.

I have a couple of DAD 24/96 disks and they are definitely superior to many (not all) of the CDs I have. And they are easy to play. I think (just an opinion) that 24/96 could have been a viable format if it had not gotten squashed by competition that eventually failed. Four formats (CD, SACD, 24/96, and DVD-A) went to war and MP3 won.

You comment that lack of demand killed off hi-rez and then you state: "I pulled a 1.2 gig 24/44.1 in less than an hour last night off HD tracks. Bjork Biophilia, Listening to it now!

" Talk about lack of consumer demand.

Major yuck on my part both for the time/money spent and for the music. Granted, it is your choice and I hope you enjoy it. But we were talking about consumer demand and building critical mass. Time, effort, skill-level, cost, titles available for downloads just don't support critical mass. 24/96 on a shiny disk might have. And maybe it would not. That ship sailed and sunk.

ted_b · « **Reply #8 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 05:06 pm »

Quote from: Pez on 27 Dec 2011, 04:40 pm

Don, Sony didn't kill off hi rez, consumer demand (or lack there of) did. I personally don't have any issue with downloading anything. I pulled a 1.2 gig 24/44.1 in less than an hour last night off HD tracks. Bjork Biophilia, Listening to it now!

Kinda chicken or the egg. I do blame Sony for the lack of consumer demand. They never marketed it properly, IMO. Same with the DVD-Audio consortium. The onset of true universal players kept them both alive (due to not needing dedicated machines) and yet I'm worried that BluRay audio (as hirez music delivery) is going the same way. It had better acceptance initially, but now seems destined to be a small niche market. The future is downloads, once we all get decent bandwidth (to me that means 50 mb/ps plus). Spinning (shiny) discs are going to disappear.

Phil A · « **Reply #9 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 05:17 pm »

24/96 DADs are great. I have a bunch. It was a fight over royalties between SACD and DVD-A. They could have made discs with compressed 5.1 for HT fans and hi-rez music for audiophiles. Then they had the DualDisc fiasco which were a bit heavier and thicker. And yes Sony did make some of those with 16/48 (perhaps with the intent to confuse or kill off those made with DVD-As? - whether intentional or not it did muddy up the waters). Format wars usually leave a bad taste in the mouths of many consumers - original Circuit City DIVX, HD DVD. It's going on now with 3D. Yes, there is a limited market for audiophiles but if there was no format war and DADs with 5.1 Dolby Digital for HT fans might have fared a bit better (of course depending on how they priced it - $1 more than a CD might be good - look what Sony did with the initial release of single layer discs and their pricing. No special player to buy which would have helped.

Pez · « **Reply #10 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 05:18 pm »

Don, honestly no disagreement here. I have no love for Sony these days as a matter of fact I've purged every Sony device I own except for my blueray player. I HATE the new CEO he is working hard and fast to tank every aspect of the once great juggernaut. Yes I do hold them accountable for shoddy product promotion, weak will and zero stick-to-it-ivness. But even if they did a perfect job and did all the right things for sacd/dsd I still believe te product would have failed.

why? Because physical media is the problem. Physical media is dying. All of it and fast.

Don_S · « **Reply #11 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 05:26 pm »

Quote from: ted_b on 27 Dec 2011, 05:06 pm

EDIT The future is downloads, once we all get decent bandwidth (to me that means 50 mb/ps plus). Spinning (shiny) discs are going to disappear.

That is exactly my point. In what parallel universe is ubiquitous >50Mbps going to happen? Not in my 'hood. And certainly not soon.

ted_b · « **Reply #12 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 05:36 pm »

Quote from: Don_S on 27 Dec 2011, 05:26 pm

That is exactly my point. In what parallel universe is ubiquitous >50Mbps going to happen? Not in my 'hood. And certainly not soon.

I can get 50 for an extra $20/month from what i get now (15). And I'm in Cleveland, OH area...so not the capital of technology.

And I'm talking about whats required to easily instantly do HD movies, streaming,etc. Lowly 24/96 is not a bandwidth issue compared to streaming HD movies, etc. 50 is needed for the bandwidth necessary to make ALL spinning shiny discs irrelevant..

Pez · « **Reply #13 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 05:48 pm »

I have a mere 7 mbs on a good day. That is enough to stream HD Netflix to my tv and hd to my iPad and still have more than enough overhead to surf the interwebs with no discernible drop in speed or buffering on any device.

Not trying to be argumentative I'm just really surprised that anyone would have an issue with download times for a mere <2 gigs of data. I downloaded season 4 of breaking bad from iTunes overnight in HD AND SD with extras. It had to be close to 300 gigs of data. Don't quote me on that though.

Phil A · « **Reply #14 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 09:18 pm »

The last time I tested my download speed (I've not downloaded very much to date) I believe it was 23-24. I think what I'm contracted to get is 15 but each time but it has been more each time I've tested it. I like physical media but it probably won't be around forever(perhaps specialty audiophile recordings will be around for a bit more), especially with mainstream items like CDs. I have the new PC and probably will start converting WMA (I used with an old Zune Player) I have on an older PC into FLAC and will bedigitizing more stuff as time goes forward. I would not be surprised if a year or two down the road I start thinking more seriously about an upgraded digital playback chain. It is just the reality of the situation.

Mike Nomad · « **Reply #15 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 09:49 pm »

Er... Not really a great set of options. Assuming the price point is the same for the download and the CD, it would depend on who the download is coming from, and what company is putting out the CD.

+1 on the sentiments re: DAD. I've got a couple of handfuls of H/DAD. The Hi-Rez wars were all about the competing Lawyer Layers: SACD vs. DVD-A. The underlying technologies (DSD & LPCM) both have merit. That's what makes H/DAD a great thing: No Lawyer Layer.

Sony are a bunch of stupid, greedy bastards. As far as I am concerned, they are still trying to get even for Betamax. They bought a record company, a movie studio, and have proceeded with the land grab ever since. Sony holds massive sway over the success of a format simply by deciding whether or not to withhold catalog.

Must. Leave. Soapbox. Now.

ted_b · « **Reply #16 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 10:09 pm »

HDAD's were not SACD and DVD, they were DVD and DVD-A (24/96 DVD-V on one side, 24/192 MLP'd DVD-A on the other). Hence the HDAD (vs DAD, which was 24/96 DVD-V only).

Don_S · « **Reply #17 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 10:47 pm »

Quote from: ted_b on 27 Dec 2011, 10:09 pm

HDAD's were not SACD and DVD, they were DVD and DVD-A (24/96 DVD-V on one side, 24/192 MLP'd DVD-A on the other). Hence the HDAD (vs DAD, which was 24/96 DVD-V only).

Ted, I think you meant to say DADs (24/96) were audio only.

ted_b · « **Reply #18 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 10:55 pm »

Quote from: Don_S on 27 Dec 2011, 10:47 pm

Ted, I think you meant to say DADs (24/96) were audio only.

No, I meant what I said. HDAD's and DAD's are both audio only, and neither have DSD/SACD as a technology; I'm arguing the comment that HDAD's were somehow DSD/LPCM and no lawyer-layer. They are/were DVD-V (in the case of DAD's) capable of 24/96 and dual sided DVD-A/DVD-V in the case of HDAD's. The term DVD-V does not mean necessarily video, just means the audio is stored in the DVD-Video spec; i.e 24/96 max. DAD's could be played on standard DVD players, and one side of HDAD"s could be. The other side required a DVD-Audio player.

Don_S · « **Reply #19 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 11:07 pm »

Ted,

OK, I get it. "V" does not necessarily mean video. In this case it meant audio compatible with the DVD-video format. Don't you think that is a little confusing?

I get what you are saying now but it is also very easy to misinterpret what you meant. My mind went directly to video when I read the "V".

DAD stood for Digital Audio Disk didn't it? Just checking. English is a funny language (especially when engineers, lawyers, and marketing executives mess with it).

Poll

Which do you pick?

Hypothetical question