Thread: How many of you are - actually - SACD-ONLY buyers???

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Post by Fitzcaraldo215 June 17, 2009 (311 of 321)
I have gotten totally mesmerized by hi rez, dicrete multichannel sound, which to my ears is exponentially beyond anything any stereo can even dream of providing. I have sizable collections of CD and vinyl classics, including many performances likely never to be equaled. I already have most of the works I want in stereo, though something undiscovered might always pop up. There is also significantly less jazz, rock and other genres in my stereo collection.

My focus today is much more on the sonic experience of recreating the best replica of concert hall sound. My voyage of musical discovery is therefore focused on building a collection of Mch SACD's. But, the tradeoff of musical performance vs. sonics still matters. However, today I would gladly take the best sonics in an above average SACD performance over the very best performance in stereo. I would also buy DVD-A's if there were anything interesting in that comatose catalog, but there is essentially nothing. I have not bought a CD or LP in over 2 years and I have no plans to.

Mch SACD has greatly reinvigorated my music collecting. I am buying mostly works I already own on SACD, because the catalog is obviously limited and my existing collection quite large and diverse. But, it is still a very exciting new path for me, and actually I have not listened to stereo at all, except for brief comparisons, for quite some time. Sonically, stereo just pales by comparison even on a very good sound system.

Blu-ray interests me greatly, if for nothing else than opera. I have bought a few music only releases there to better evalute the sonics of that medium, which I find superb. It makes no sense to me to even think of buying opera on SACD at this point: no video, no subtitles and little price difference. However, rather than buying opera, I can exist for a little while, at least, on Netflix rentals from their limited Blu-ray selection.

Post by electro September 9, 2009 (312 of 321)
bissie said:

Hello,

this is Robert from BIS, aka bissie.

In the current business climate even we have to look at bean-counting.

Since we release all our SACD:s as Hybrids and since we don't charge a premium, but absorb the extra costs for recording, editing, mastering and production of an SACD, selling at the same price as a RBCD,

*I would be extremely interested in knowing how many EXTRA copies we sell because of the SACD option.*

Mathematically, starting from the edited master tape, we need to sell some 600 EXTRA copies of the production in order to break even for the extra costs of producing the SACD, compared to releasing only a RBCD.

Question: do we do it? Since we don't have double inventory, there is no way for me to tell.

Obviously there are other factors as well: prestige, good-will, satisfaction with a superb product, but, when it comes to paying the salaries (BIS is nowadays probably the only classical company in the world with its own, full-time production staff - we have 7 producers/engineers hired that roam the 6 continents of the world recording with our own equipment) we need the green stuff.

So, since this would be the relevant Forum to ask something like that: how many of you, who do buy the occasional BIS SACD would abstain from doing so, were the identical programme to appear only as RBCD?

I think this is a relevant question to put, especially so, since many of my colleagues seemingly have made the same calculation - and then abandoned SACD.

Best - Robert

I have just started to rediscover classical music, and as I am building up a collection and have a state of the art hi-end surround system with Quad 2905's as the from left and right speakers I am ONLY BUYING SACD's.

Given that classical music is well served on SACD and I love the quality and surround sound acoustic it makes sense! It is also rather fun tracking them down. I found a second hand store in my home town in England with a box of classical and Jazz SACD's - I bought six titles form around £9 each to discover that most are changing hands second hand on ebay or Amazon for double to triple that price. I'm keeping them of course.

As for Jazz, I have bought lots of titles BECAUSE they were SACD's only to discover that most I really liked.

Rock and pop - nothing is coming out on SACD sadly, but I have all that I like spanning Miles Davis to Snow Patrol.

If the music industry had embraced and really sold the higher quality and surround, maybe we'd still have record shops and the recording industry wouldn't be in such a mess. SACD's after all cant be ripped.

For me, SACD has finally given digital the edge over vinyl, and while RBCD has improved, there is no substitute for all that extra data.

Post by Bobpaule September 9, 2009 (313 of 321)
I have not purchased a CD for 7 years now.

I have a 600 SACD collection.

If i want nice music in the car i use a digitally linked iPod
PCM to decoder in radio.

Around the home i have ROKU iTunes linked players.

My HTPCs have 192 kHz B-Gears Oxygen HD chip based sound cards,
i use Octoshape plugin based 192kbps stations mostly.

Now if BD audio really takes off, i may start buying BDRWs by the
100, that is if they go down to 23 cents a piece like DVDRs :)

Post by The Rang September 9, 2009 (314 of 321)
I'm not "SACD only", but I'm getting pretty damn close. The SACD to "everything else" ratio is growing constantly

The only exceptions in recent months are a few Audio Fidelity and MoFi 24K gold discs and the(very)occasional desirable DVD-A. That's it.

Oh...and I bought the Mono box by some well known English band. I hear they're quite good ;)

Post by Fugue September 9, 2009 (315 of 321)
Since I converted to multi-channel last month, that's all I'm buying for the foreseeable future. Of course, if some tantalizing RBCD comes along, I certainly won't fail to buy it, such as my recent purchase of the second volume of Sorabji Etudes on BIS!

Post by Links September 10, 2009 (316 of 321)
Almost all of my 42 disc purchases since July are SACDs.
Now that BIS has stopped recording in DSD (financial constraints)
I no longer buy new SACD releases from BIS.

"There's Life Above 20 Kilohertz!
A Survey of Musical Instrument Spectra to 102.4 KHz"

http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~boyk/spectra/spectra.htm

Post by bissie September 10, 2009 (317 of 321)
Links said:

Almost all of my 42 disc purchases since July are SACDs.
Now that BIS has stopped recording in DSD (financial constraints)
I no longer buy new SACD releases from BIS.

"There's Life Above 20 Kilohertz!
A Survey of Musical Instrument Spectra to 102.4 KHz"

http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~boyk/spectra/spectra.htm

We actually never said it is financial constraints. More like technical/artistical. We can make better-sounding SACD:s in PCM, if by sound you mean the complete sound-scape, and we can, for sure, make our products artistically much more pleasing and meaningful.

Robert

Post by rrkradio September 10, 2009 (318 of 321)
I buy only SACD. In the last 2 months about 25-30 titles (12 from BIS). My collection has about 300 sacd ... but every week i add some stuff ......

Long life to sacd

Roby

Post by Windsurfer September 10, 2009 (319 of 321)
bissie said:

We actually never said it is financial constraints. More like technical/artistical. We can make better-sounding SACD:s in PCM, if by sound you mean the complete sound-scape, and we can, for sure, make our products artistically much more pleasing and meaningful.

Robert

This flummoxes me! Of my 39 BIS SACDs the best ones to my ear are those which were recorded in DSD on a Sonoma.

The sound of PCM BIS recordings seems somewhat etched and hard by comparison with (just one example) most of my Polyhymnia sourced recordings.

I continue to purchase BIS SACDs because I want to support SACD in general and because several have performances or music not available elsewhere. I certainly do not think they are the best or anywhere near the best sounding SACDs. Somewhere in an earlier post I believe you stated that you could not afford to replace your existing kit with better stuff.

If that is true your statement above is somewhat disingenuous.

Post by Windsurfer September 10, 2009 (320 of 321)
Fitzcaraldo215 said:

I have gotten totally mesmerized by hi rez, dicrete multichannel sound, which to my ears is exponentially beyond anything any stereo can even dream of providing. I have sizable collections of CD and vinyl classics, including many performances likely never to be equaled.


My focus today is much more on the sonic experience of recreating the best replica of concert hall sound. My voyage of musical discovery is therefore focused on building a collection of Mch SACD's. But, the tradeoff of musical performance vs. sonics still matters. However, today I would gladly take the best sonics in an above average SACD performance over the very best performance in stereo. I have not bought a CD or LP in over 2 years and I have no plans to.

Mch SACD has greatly reinvigorated my music collecting. I am buying mostly works I already own on SACD, because the catalog is obviously limited and my existing collection quite large and diverse. But, it is still a very exciting new path for me, and actually I have not listened to stereo at all, except for brief comparisons, for quite some time. Sonically, stereo just pales by comparison even on a very good sound system.

Blu-ray interests me greatly, if for nothing else than opera. I have bought a few music only releases there to better evalute the sonics of that medium, which I find superb. It makes no sense to me to even think of buying opera on SACD at this point: no video, no subtitles and little price difference. However, rather than buying opera, I can exist for a little while, at least, on Netflix rentals from their limited Blu-ray selection.

You speak eloquently of my own experience! Except for me it is more like 8 or 9 years since I purchased any red book CDs for my own library .

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