Vinyl and SACD rule when it comes to...

I attended this superb round table at the philoctetes center a few weeks ago and highly recommend listenig to the proceedings. It was a very enjoyable 2 hours listening to the unique perspectives of some of the best pro's involved in getting music to your listening room as well as the POV of two dedicated listeners and audiophiles. Well worth the time to listen... The back stories on some of the recordings played are priceless!

Thanks for the alert. A fine show! Makes you feel there is hope for the masses.

So by corollary, may I conclude that redbook CD does not rule, I assume?

Maybe so, but, so what?

After endless discussions here and elsewhere, and lots of listening with my own ears, I still don't buy into the propaganda that the medium is too limited to deliver excellent sound quality.

If the panel's conclusion is that record companies should pay more attention to quality control and producing better recordings not only on redbook but all common audio formats, I'd agree with that.

Also, for the masses, it would help to lower the price of high end audio equipment so more people can enjoy it.

Thank you.

I got through about half of it (hard to find two full hours these days). Interesting discussion. Still amazing that the recording industry views sound quality as "good enough is good enough".

Don't hold your breath waiting for the big companies to improve quality. Years ago a large Japanese pressing company that was doing 30 million CDs a year sent a British mag 2 CDs. One was a standard pressing and the other was done by an alternate process that they could do at a slightly higher cost. The sound was so different they could not believe that the same data was on both CDs and had to download them both to computers to convince themselves that it was. Of course, the more expensive one was much better but they had never convinced any of the record companies to use it. I have been in audio 45 years and this is one thing that is exactly the same as when I started. I still prefer LPs but some CDs are quite good and , I am sure , could be better if anyone in the industry cared.

After almost half a century of being emotionally enthralled by the simple
meditation of listening to a great musical performance and enjoying the
benefits of what is earned from that, I found this brief (beginning)
conversation by these industry folks interesting.

For me, the very gestalt of the listening session, the process of warming up
tube amps, picking out a hand full of records, cleaning them and my mind so
I can sit down, shut up (both verbally and mentally), and take it all in,
exploring what an artist has to share, being transported to another rhelm, is
still one of the fondest enjoyments I have and sharing this time is indeed the
only thing that makes it more rewarding.

Yet for me it all (maybe nievilly) seems so obvious that the quality of an
electronically reproduced performance has to have that visceral impact, it has
to move you at an emotional level or it is just more background noise and it
doesn't keep our attention. It doesn't take a set of golden ears to figure out
why the common joe isn't drawn in. Even my three felines seem to be drawn
to our vinyl (or SACD) listening sessions and join us often, for the duration,
conversely, red book presentations seem to lose their attention. There is more
going on here then meets the eye and cause for much convergent
conversation, I would guess.

IMHO this is another fine case of Ockham's razor, recognizing what works
and what is so and enjoying it is far more important than understanding why.
Digital technology has come to our lives as both a blessing and a curse. The
later has plagued the very way we listen (or not) and the lo-res component of
red book or MP3 formats seem to have wasted a huge amount of time,
money, and energy. For me, the greatest lose is the irreversible lose of so
many great performances and the market momentum lose of interest or
understanding of value of (HiFi) music in our lives. The record industry is only
giving (selling) us what they think we want. Knowing what you want and
knowing what's good for you are both becoming somewhat vague concepts in
these days. Like him or not so much, Fremer hit the nail on the head when he
played that last selection. From something as cheap, disposable, and
insignificant as an intro to the 60's television variety show such as Red
Skeletons', in juxtaposition to some of our "best selling" albums
of today, what the hell has happened to our focus on high fidelity music in
our lives?

Hopefully we will relearn from the past again and retrogress to a time/techn.
when even the common joe (the plumber) understood what high fidelity was,
and in the meantime, I'll take any of those old records off your hands that
you're looking to burn via USB to the "perfect format"... P.T.
Barnum was unfortunately correct.

Happy (HiFi) Listening!

There will never be hope for the masses. Elitism exists. Why do we worry about the masses. If we have the ability to appreciate music beyond the millions who settle for Walmart sound systems, why should we care. And one doesn't have to spend thousands for decent sound. I felt the chill of excellent music on systems costing less than two thousand dollars. Let the ignorant listen to Bose Wave systems!

......ones' speakers are not up to much?

Mig007. I couldn't have said it better. High quality music reproduction is a priority for me. Most non-audiophiles I know get a bigger kick out of their car stereos (some really tweaked up) than they do when hearing my system. I'm OK with that. We all have our own preferences. Good listening, Jeff

I tended to agree with most of the conversation. One thing I had discussed recently with a non-audio person was that I believe CD actually pushed people away from music. Speaking for myself, I think this is so. I use to really enjoy the time I spent with my records. Once I started listening only to CD's my time spent with music diminished. Finally I stopped buying it. I didn't realize this till many years later. It was a slow creep. One day I decided to buy a new TT and get involved with higher end audio as a hobby. It was like welcoming back a old friend to my life. I still use CD music buck mostly as B/G noise. If I'm going to "LISTEN" it's on vinyl.

Yeah Dmc, right..... my non-audio friends said the same thing. CDs pushed them away from music. So now they all buy vinyl and nothing else. And suddenly all of them became audiophiles. Really!!!! :-)))

Cmd, I like what you said about if you are going to "listen" to music then it is on Vinyl. It is hard to sit down, listen and enjoy music on CD.

Dmc's experience was/is exactly my own.