DVD audio

Posted by: Peter Gear on 30 July 2001

Saw an article in a Times supplement yesterday which indicated that DVD audio is the new format for audio and is about to take off. Panasonic apparently have a player at about £500 which was used in a demo listened to by 4 semi professional classical musicians. Being backward compatible they were able to compare directly with the same recordings on CD. It was stated that DVDA was much clearer and sharper than CD and the musicians felt it was much closer to the 'real thing'.

Can someone tell me what DVDA is about and in what way it can be so much better than CD? Also, bearing in mind that I'm musing about replacing my CDI is Naim looking into this format?

There was also mention of yet another format by Sony and I think phillips - but it was dismissed as being not being a real competitor to DVDA.

Thanks for any info/comments

Peter

Posted on: 30 July 2001 by Chris L
quote:
Being backward compatible they were able to compare directly with the same recordings on CD. It was stated that DVDA was much clearer and sharper than CD and the musicians felt it was much closer to the 'real thing'.

I'm always a bit wary of this type of thing. A DVD-A player will be optimised for playing DVD-A's, not for normal CD's. It's almost always the case (in my experience) that the backwards compatibility functions of such a player will not be a match for a player dedicated to the "obselete" format.

Chris L

Posted on: 30 July 2001 by Simon Matthews
Only if there was a half decent library of music available would one of the new formats stand a chance of gaining a foot hold. Both formats seem really slow in this respect - don't hold your breadth!
Posted on: 30 July 2001 by Martin M
I would be surprised if companies such as Naim and Linn didn't have an eye on DVD-A and SACD but I think this is for the future (maybe) as far as you're concerned.

The main selling points of SACD & DVD-A to the sound quality concious market for both SACD & DVD-A is a lower noise floor and wider bandwidth. As far as I am concerned at least the wider bandwidth issue is contentious.

The lower noise floor will make music easier to master, but if care is taken CD is capable of good results.

Moreover, I'm currently of the opinion I'd like to get the bandwidth and general sound pressure levels I know I can hear correct before moving on to stuff that I may not be able to (40 kHz cymbols).

In addition, there seems to be some ruining of great music by re-mixing to surround (drums and backing singers behind you is one example).

I would wait till this kind of 'showmanship' gets dumped till and the technology polished up before I invested my money.

Besides the current crop of SACD and DVD-As seems to consist of re-mixes or re-masters of ossified rock bands (do you really want 'Rumours' yet again or some Billy Joel?) and 'plink-plonk' boutique offerings from 'specialist' auiophile labels of dubious merit.

I'd stick with you CDI for the time being in other words.

Posted on: 30 July 2001 by Mike Hanson
Unfortunately, the only thing that will drive either of these new formats is mass market appeal. Most non-audiophiles (none of us are permitted to apply) think that CDs are already fantastic, and they probably can't hear the benefits of sound quality from these new formats (especially on their awful midi systems). Therefore something other than sound quality must draw them in.

The only viable offering that I can think of is surround sound. If all the new music comes out remastered as a surround recording, the mass market will think they're getting something new. (The mass market is also stupid.)

Another possibility is that record companies and audio equipment manufacturers will squeeze out the CD format, forcing the market to convert, whether it wants to or not. I'm not sure of the likelihood of this, though. If people want CDs, the market is likely to provide them.

Then we must consider on-line music formats. A friend from England visited my place the other day. He was drooling over my system, and actually recognized the "Naim" brand. It turns out that he was an audiophile before he started raising a family, with an LP12 with a Valhalla, etc. However, now he downloads MP3s off the net and burns them onto CDs. What is the world coming to?!?

Ultimately, it's not going to be our (a.k.a. the audiophile's) choice to make. We're a small segment of the overall market for music replay, and we really don't count all that much. The only ones who do are just like my wife: listening to Cher and U2, and blissfully happy with a cheap Panasonic midi system.

The world is a sad place... frown

-=> Mike Hanson <=-

Posted on: 30 July 2001 by Peter Gear
Thanks for the quick replies all.

quote:
It is almost certain that we could have a digital technology in 2001 that would blow away CD and analogue. I don't think either of these is it - and I don't think we'll get one for another 20 years. Bugger.

Jonathan - do you mean there are other formats out there being developed. In what way would they need to be different (to DVDA or SACD) to blow away CD and analogue.

quote:
I'd stick with you CDI for the time being in other words.

Martin

Does this mean you would not change the CDI until a new format(s) is/are in place? I was thinking along the lines of a CDS2 maybe next year.

I can't see Naim being left behind in all this.

Peter

Posted on: 30 July 2001 by Martin M
quote:
Does this mean you would not change the CDI until a new format(s) is/are in place? I was thinking along the lines of a CDS2 maybe next year.

Both your current CDs and the thousands upon thousands of CD titles out there will all benefit from the change from CDI to CDS-2. I think this easily justifies the upgrade. At the moment there is nothing for Naim to get left behind from. I believe component obsolensce is a bigger problem for them than DVD-A or SACD when it comes to CD Player designs.


There are perhaps 400 SACD and DVD-A titles out there. I don't think this alone justifies a purchase. If want to try out a DVD-A or SACD player out I'd get one with good quality video (progressive scan, good RAMDACs etc) so at least you can watch films on it when you find the CDS-2 pees on the new technolgy from a great height!

Posted on: 30 July 2001 by Rockingdoc
In my experience, musicians have no particular skills relating to the assessment of reproduced music. Any player will confirm that the sound when involved in a performance has almost nothing in common with the sound in the audience. Musicians skills relate to the playing and perhaps content of the music, not its electronic reproduction.
Posted on: 30 July 2001 by Martin M
quote:
Basically I mean the digital sampling should be good / quick enough to give us the effective infinite analogue granularity plus the noise (lack of) benefits of CD.

I suggest that as a starter you borrow (or even buy) the most dreaded of things. A CD test disc. Play the 19kHz tone. Can you hear it? Now play the 1 kHz LSB signal. Can you hear that? I very much doubt you can hear either - I can't all I hear is the hiss of my 135s. Your CDS-2 or whatever will reproduce both of these signals cleanly with very little distortion.

So maybe, the performance of digital coding system employed by CD does in fact out perform that of playback system (amps loudspeakers) being used?

If so, and you can't hear the limits of the current coding system why do you need something better?

For recording I can see the point. You need headroom for when someone kicks the mic stand and for mixing, but playback. Mmm. Debateable.

Now DVD-A is quite interesting. We are led to believe that we now need greater bandwidth and dynamic range. DVD-A allegedly delivers this. So it codes the analogue signal with great detail. OK, so now DVD-A watermarks this data. Watermarking it involves actually changing this data so that a cross-correlator on a recorder can pick out the watermark and then stop recording. This watermark is so robust it can withstand transmission on AM & FM radio, which posses less resolution than CD. MMmm. But we are told that this watermarking is inaudible. Mmmm

So on the one hand we need coding in incredible detail and the benefits are supposedly audible. On the other hand this detail is tweaked to such an extent that identifying features are not obliterated by very poor quality systems (where quality is defined as a combination of Signal to Noise and bandwidth a la Shannon) but this is inaudible.

Doesn't quite stack does it? Its is interesting to note that the patents on CD are close to running out though.

[This message was edited by Martin M on MONDAY 30 July 2001 at 20:30.]

[This message was edited by Martin M on MONDAY 30 July 2001 at 20:49.]

Posted on: 30 July 2001 by Mick P
Peter

I totally agree with P. There are millions of CD's around which should keep you going for years to come.

Also DVD's are the same as CD's in that they are of varying quality. Many will beat the average £500.00 CD player but the likes of the CDS11 will be unapproachable for years to come.

Buy yourself the CDS11 and enjoy yourself.

Regards

Mick

Posted on: 01 August 2001 by Stephen Bennett
With the advent of cheaper high quality recording equipment, more musicians, instead of availing themselves of recording studios and experienced technical support, now record on their own - often at home. Now, while this can benefit the actual musical process - i.e. song writing, arrangement, etc, it invariably reduces the recording quality. Then there's the digital summing, copying, poor acoustics, very poor monitoring of your average home studio - even so called 'professional' ones. I'm amazed most CDs aren't unlistenable. Of course there are well recorded CDs - it's just that the percentage is dropping. Super CDs may benefit the classical/acoustic world but as most releases are compressed to within a few dB of their lives, it won't make a shot of difference to them.

Regards

Stepjem

Posted on: 01 August 2001 by David Quigley
As the concern seems to be about how quickly this new technology will be adopted, I think it might we may be missing the point about the motivations of those behind either SACD or DVD.

I had understood that the original patent on CD format was expiring / had expired and that therefore there was now a race to find a new patentable format from which to extract some rent for another 15+ years. If this is true, and given that there appeat to be several willing manufacturers out there, adoption of either technology will depend on several factors:

1) Willingness of mass market retailers to push machines - my assessmnet of this is as pretty high, they always seem willing to put the latest doggy in the window

2) Willingness of labels to produce and retail the new format - if they believe the technology to be more copyproof then this is likely to be pretty high

3) Willingness of on-line and physical retailers to stock another brand - I suspect they need this increased inventory carrying cost like a hole in the head, they all have pretty crap economics anyway

4) Belief of average joe that he/she is getting something better - sadly, this seems likely to be pretty high

All in all, I suspect given these factors, adoption is likely to be faster rather than slower, unless retailers can hold back.

David

Posted on: 01 August 2001 by Rob Doorack
Steven Rochlin of enjoythemusic.com has observed that there are more new titles being issued on LP now than on SACD or DVDA.
Posted on: 01 August 2001 by Alex S.
Perhaps the administrators would like to deny the rumour that Naim are currently working on this device.
Posted on: 01 August 2001 by John Schmidt
quote:
I would be surprised if companies such as Naim and Linn didn't have an eye on DVD-A and SACD but I think this is for the future (maybe) as far as you're concerned.

Found the news item below on Sony's official SACD web site (superaudio-cd.com). A little hop over to Linn Records reveals that they have about 7 recordings available in SACD. Since Linn CDs all carry the exhortation "This recording sounds even better on a Linn CD player", can a player be that far behind?


quote:
Linn Records re-release Hue & Cry on Super Audio CD

Records, has announced plans to re-release the Hue & Cry album, Next Move on Super Audio CD. The album was originally released on CD earlier this spring.

The re-release forms part of Linn Record's on-going research and development of new audio formats. The album, the second in the band's "jazznotjazz" trilogy, was originally recorded using Direct Stream Digital (DSD), a revolutionary 1-bit recording system developed jointly by Sony and Philips and used to make Super Audio CDs (SACD).

Now, with the launch of SACD in Europe, Linn Records is able to release a high-definition Super Audio CD and evaluate the record buying public's perception of this new audio carrier. The company has re-mastered the o riginal DSD recording to create an SACD master. The subsequent production of SACDs from this new master ensures that Hue & Cry's audience will hear their latest album in its most pristine form.

Linn Records grew out of an enthusiasm for music, the same enthusiasm which first led the people at Linn to get involved in Hi-Fi. The company's goal is to deliver the best musical performances to the listener with the greatest possible accuracy. "The Hue & Cry DSD/SACD project was an experiment into a new recording system," explained Philip Hobbs, Label Manager at Linn Records. "Always, we must first evaluate a new technology, however, we are very impressed with the sound quality we can achieve with DSD and SACD. There is little doubt that this represents an advance in music recording and replay. We are keeping a close eye on how the market reacts. We are confident that the end result has justified the experiment."

Cheers,

John Schmidt
"90% of everything is crud" - Theodore Sturgeon