[ARSCLIST] Surround releases (was OK - Does Anyone Know More About This?)

[Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'd love to see something like these Monster DVD's as reissues of all the old quad mixes of early 
70's rock albums. If the 4-track quad master tape still exists, it would not be a huge technical 
feat to encode the quad as Dolby AC3+ADs- I'd just keep it 4-channel but you could slice out the 
subwoofer frequencies and make a center channel out of the common lef/right content minus 3dB. Of 
course, this could just as easily be done as discrete 4-channel DVD-Audio at 96/24. I'm pretty sure 
but not positive that most of the installed base of DVD players do DVD-Audio and most players made 
over the past 3-5 years have 5.1 analog outputs.

One thing that might have killed SACD is that record labels invested a lot of money in the format by 
remixing classic albums from scratch instead of dusting off the quad mix to see how the format would 
fly and thus being able to invest more in marketing. But SACD had problems from the get-go. When it 
came down the pike, the DVD group made all sorts of announcements about DVD-Audio as a competing 
format, making sure to point out that most or all DVD players can do DVD audio as part of the 
standard format. Sony and Philips first pushed SACD as the be-all-and-end-all 2-channel format, 
supposed to replace the CD. Then at the AES show 4 years ago, I noticed the DVD-Audio group just had 
a table and was handing out brochures but Philips and Sony had relaunched SACD as a multi-channel 
format and had a huge demo room with lines forming for each hour-long demo. That was probably the 
high water mark of interest in SACD, but the public at large never bothered with it. Most 
+ACI-civilians+ACI- I know -- people who aren't in the audio business nor are audiophiles, but many of whom 
love music and listen to it all the time -- have never heard of SACD. Bad marketing or just a total 
lack of interest in formats beyond the CD and now the iPod?

My own take on surround audio is that it's a neat/fun gimmick but it's not necessary to enjoy 
high-fidelity music recordings. Very few people I know are willing to sit in a sweet spot -- and 
most of their wives will have nothing to do with 5 large speakers and a subwoofer in the listening 
room -- for an album-length amount of time just to enjoy a musical experience. Especially since some 
would argue that the headphone/earbud experience is psychologically all-encompassing even more than 
5 speakers. So I think we fans of surround-sound music releases and owners of surround-sound systems 
are +ACI-doomed+ACI- to a permanent if enthusiastic fringe.

-- Tom Fine


----- Original Message ----- 
From: +ACI-DAVID KEKONE+ACI- +ADw-DKEKONE+AEA-CANTOFIVE.COM+AD4-
To: +ADw-ARSCLIST+AEA-LISTSERV.LOC.GOV+AD4-
Sent: Friday, June 15, 2007 6:14 PM
Subject: Re: +AFs-ARSCLIST+AF0- OK - Does Anyone Know More About This?


+AD4- Monster Cable has a new partnership with Concord Records that has been
+AD4- releasing titles in 5.1 on DVD, great stuff.
+AD4-
+AD4- http://www.monstermusic.com/
+AD4-
+AD4-
+AD4- DAVID KEKONE
+AD4- +MMcwozDTMMMwyTD7MLEwszD8MM0-
+AD4- DKEKONE+AEA-CANTOFIVE.COM
+AD4-
+AD4- 080-6572-0480 Tokyo  +AHw-  213-422-1121 LA
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