New formats, same old story?


OK, we continue to be inundated by advice to upgrade to a new digital format. Most say SACD, the rest tell us that DVD-A will be the ticket. My thing is that I would be ready to buy if things were sorted out. They are not yet. It doesn't look any clearer to me than it did a year ago today. Am I blind? Neither has taken precedence. More importantly, neither has had the major influx of software we have been waiting for. A major determinant as to which one wins out in the end. Yes, SOFTWARE. Where is it? Sure, there are some titles out there(how many currently???), but new albums are still more often than not released CD only. The people at the record stores still have not heard of either of the new formats. Yes, I know Sony keeps dangling the influx of new players(even cheap ones) at us, but I am still in the same mindset I was last year. That I don't want to invest in a new player that won't be a REAL step up in terms of CD playback(which would make it worth it) until one of the formats emerges as the future path. And, once the players come, will they be obsoleted by a new twist a couple of years later? As in multichannel - which I am not interested in, or by offering a digital output of the new format's signal. Are my feelings correct, or do I need the way I see things corrected? Thank you.
trelja

Showing 1 response by audiodude1

Has anybody heard either of these formats? Even on a marginal HT receiver and marginal speakers they sound drastically smoother and more listenable than anything previous. On a good system they are tremendous.

2 things important for either format (assuming software is available)are disc prices and copy protection. The discs are $10 higher than "sale" CD prices, which will not encourage the mass market to buy them. There is also very little support from high end manufacturers. No one wants to committ till the copy protection crap is resolved, and the digital hi-rez signals can be output out the digital port. Not unlike early CD players, the DACS will be improved but the poor early adopter will be w/o a cost effective upgrade path.

Not unlike DIVIX, the greedy corp. fools may kill both formats before they catch on.