Hi! So what will the future bring in with regards to audio technology? We`ve seen the great vinyl and cassette come and go, then came the compact disc which is durable,good life span when stored correctly, plus it`s digital sound allows audio to remain the same quality use after use, but it`s down flaw is the 16bit 44.1khz! which just cannot re-produce the full and rich sound of analogue and therefore costing the audiophile a fortune in essential converting devices. Then came the mp3! which is perfect for listening to with earphones, but fails horribly when played in an uncontrolled environment.
There is a pattern developing in the world of audio innovation and that pattern is a noticeable decline in sound quality! So what`s next? Will the DAC converter 24bit 96khz,192khz become the standard converter found within the common hi-fi and cd player? or will music be distributed in chip form!
Actually based on what I saw of the dCS Puccini clock this weekend, the future is asynchronous USB DACs. Ayre is coming out with one for less than $2,000 soon. USB seems to be the big thing at CES this year.
Sorry I meant decrease in cost/megabyte, meaning storage is getting cheaper and cheaper. This trend will probably continue indefinitely. At a certain point, to justify the sale of newer, larger capacity players, companies like Apple will discover they have an interest in offering files above 44.1KHz.
MP3 will not be as ubiquitous for much longer for the following reasons:
1. The concept of "high definition" has greater penetration among consumers thanks to high-definition televisions, video game consoles, blu-ray and the 2009 digital transition.
2. Manufacturers of portable music players will inevitably need to pitch new generations of devices to consumers. As small profile hard drives increase in capacity and cost/megabyte, manufacturers will inevitably brand their players as "HD" and introduce higher bit rate downloads to justify the larger storage capacity.
when it comes to physical media SACD is definitely it, if you're interested in PC audio, hi-rez PCM downloads are best option IMO.
Personally I prefer SACD's because they are cheaper than downloads and have both Hi-rez layer which I can play on my main system, and low resolution layer I can play on my portable player.
PC based downloads seem to be the best bet for hi-rez music. I had big hopes for bluray but there seems to be a limiting factor with hdmi because it will always be linked with video wich we all know is bad for pure audio. Charles Hansen of Ayre says the big mistake was not having a seperate clock for audio with hdmi.
I bet hdmi still sounds better than Dolby Digital and maybe even CD, just not quite to the standard of dvda or sacd. Maybe one way around it might be anolog outs on a quality bluray player. I still think it will be PC/Mac for 2 channel.
You might want to investigate the latest technology from Reference Recordings with respect to their latest concept and I might add ..HRx releases. This new technology available on DVD-R playing through a Windows XP desktop fitted with a Lynx AES 16 card and fed to a Berkeley Alpha DAC has caught the attention of Alan Taffel and Harry Pearson of The Absolute Sound April / May edition.
The website www.referencerecordings.com under the HRX section discusses this in more detail.I am moving forward purchasing the DAC and a dedicated desktop for this.
This is music sourced from uncompressed bit-perfect copies of 176.4/24 mastertapes.
there are some older technology players and dacs which can compete with vinyl. in particular a 1990's naim cd-x i heard i preferred to most vinyl set-ups.
i also find some of the earlier aad 16 bit cds more musical than some of the higher resolution formats. 96/192 is not the answer.
I think dweller is right, I have the Norwegian symphony Blu-ray w/DTS HD MA and the SACD version as well, the Blu-ray from my Sony BDP-S1 via the Denon AVP-A1HDCI blows away my Esoteric DV-50s with the SACD.....
If Neil Young truly releases everything on Blu-ray, maybe others will follow.
The mass consumer is more concerned about how many songs they can put on their ipod/phone then the quality of sound. Anything higher than 16/44.1 will have a hard time gaining any traction in the future unfortunately. Distribution is going download style with artwork and inserts available on-line. Truly sad in a way.
The best sound available is still vinyl. Digital is getting closer, maybe even comparable in the new formats but still lacks the "alive" sound of vinyl.
If I wanted to know what you are asking,I would email Gordon@Wavelength or Steve@Empirical and start at the source and work out from there to a place like this......maybe you have........good luck,Bob
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