Having heard some of the new formats recently I now honestly think that we are close to the beginning of the end for CD and here's why....
The main reason is that a cheaper player (say sub £1000) equipped with the necessary decoding seems already to be producing a very 'market pleasing sound'. ALthough this is a big generalisation on my part, all my friends who are not into hi-fi love this type of sound.
The sound produced by these players, even those that are also DVD players, is big, smooth, warm and sounds much better at high volume levels than an equivalent CD player, especially with budget amps and speakers.
There is plenty bad stuff about these players -
PRaT really is non existent, musicality in general is poor. However, even in sub £500 players they seem to avoid the grain and hash that is often apparent in budget CD players whilst maintaining good levels of detail (for its price). IMHO the general public cares more about these qualities.
If Sony etc hadn't messed up the launch of the new formats I think CD may have been in trouble. For people like us maybe its a good job the format wars are happening.
Posted on: 09 April 2001 by Mike Hanson
Yes, a DVD player play CDs well enough to satisfy the general populace, even though they are awful by our (audiophile) standards. However, I contend that even the cheaper CD players do a better job at playing CDs than the DVD players. For the sake of having fewer boxes, though, this is not enough to make most people buy a CD player separate from their DVD (assuming that they want DVD in the first place).
As a music medium, I believe CDs will continue to be sold for at least another few years, and the CDs already in our collections will be around for many years after that. Therefore, I'm still planning to get a Naim CDS2 in the future. For that matter I just purchased a new turntable, so I obviously eschew the mass market mentality. It's people like me that companies like Naim have as customers, and that's not likely to change anytime soon.
-=> Mike Hanson <=-
Posted on: 12 April 2001 by Peter Stockwell
Laurent,
quote:
This 1% market will switch from CD to DVD/SACD when the high-end companies will do so and the media choice will be sufficient...
There's always enough people with too much money to nibble at new technology, SACD/DVD-A/Quadraphonic/Elcaset, etc, but it's going to be the mass market that's going to drive the media choice. I just don't see a boombox SACD player sounding better than the CD version. There's always millions of LPs for those that want superior sound quality 
.
Pete
Posted on: 13 April 2001 by Martin Payne
Laurent,
if 99% of the market go for DVD-A then all new music will be released in this format. There won't be any SACD discs.
One of the problems of jumping to a new format is making sure you go to the one which will have the music releases, which means chossing the one which is going to win.
Assuming you're right, in the far-off future there may be DVD-A players which will also play those SACD discs you bought, but I wouldn't want to bet on it.
cheers, Martin
Posted on: 13 April 2001 by Greg Beatty
quote:
I sold my marantz CD67SE to replace it by a cheap DVD-A player (toshiba), twice the price of the marantz.
Was the DVD-A player TWICE the price of the CD67SE or half the price? Which Toshiba did you get? Does it play DVD movies as well? I've been looking for a DVD player and figured I could save a shelf and replace my killer walkman at the same time.
- GregB
Insert Witty Signature Line Here
Posted on: 14 April 2001 by Martin Payne
Laurent
SACD was thrown together by Sony/Philips as a cynical means for them to continue to collect royalties on their CD patents.
It wastes the DVD's capacity in order to store an in-efficient bitstream.
The DVD-A format has theoretically better resolution & upper frequency limit.
Although SACD players have certainly had a better press (that's not meant cynically, I've never heard a side-by-side demo) I'm not sure if this is simply a better implementation of a lower-quality format.
Martin
Posted on: 16 April 2001 by Greg Beatty
Laurent -
quote:
but it's two steps below the CD67SE and one stair below the Naim CD5 in terms of CD playback quality
If I read this right, you prefer the CD67SE (which would be 2 steps ahead of the Toshiba) to the Naim CD5 (which would only be 1 step ahead). It this what you meant to say?
In any event, sorry to hear that the Toshiba isn't up to snuff with playing back CDs.
- GregB
Insert Witty Signature Line Here
Posted on: 17 April 2001 by Arye_Gur
Mike and others,
I think that the past taught us that quality and medium are not the main issue while manufacturers are planing their planes.
There is no doubt that at the early 80's discs where far better than compact disks. But the companies that all they want is to earn more and more money (naturally) rushed up to bury the records, to explain to the world how good is the cd vs the vinyl, and to earn hundreds of billions of $$$$$$ per year.
So if they can do the same with a new format,
anyone seriously thinks that questions like "quality" will stop them ?
Arye
