Format Wars - It's all about money

Good that the strategy of the hifi-industry doesn't really seem to work for the moment.

But it could one day - as proven by the awful "APS" format in photography. Processing labs and clueless photographers habe thrown silly amounts of money out of their windows just to have less quality for more money.

And, well - are these new technologies really that much better ? That's what everyone thought after the presentation of CD. Things have changed somewhat since

Bernard

"If it sounds better it is better".

I actually really dig the idea of DVD-A, you double the sampling rate and therefore double the timing accuracy of the medium.

I have heared SACD and it is crap, Marantz did a demo at the Y2K Hammersmith Show and the normal CD beat the pants off the SACD. In contrast, the Technics DVD-A and the EMI DVD-A demos were astounding.

Having said this, I will still not dump my CD collection for DVD-A as it is too extensive.

Andrew

Andrew Randle
2B || !2B;
4 ^ = ?;

The first responsibility of any company is to make a profit. Any chairman who acts contrary to that, gets the sack.

Shareholders invest for profit , not love.

Its easy to be pure and white when you are Joe Public but if the company runs at a loss its goes down the pan. You cannot blame them for trying to maximise their profitability by whatever means within the law.

Regards

Mick

I heard the Sony SACD at Bristol and sure it sounded great, but not in terms of ‘oh my God, that’s so amazing, what is it?’.

Sorry, but I don’t buy gizmo’s for gizmo’s sake or care for greedy chairmen.

Steve

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SACDs are already starting to appear and to date more than 325 titles have been produced using the format.

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More than 325 SACDs to choose from?!? Wow, that's probably a tiny fraction of what's available new on vinyl. And once you exclude the "re-mastered for the new format" audio-wanker specials (no doubt the Eagles' Hotel California, ELP's Tarkus and DS's Brothers in arms) I wonder how many worthy titles are left in the catalogue.

By the way, has anyone demmed an SACD machine? I heard the $2,500 US Sony 777 playing a Sony and Reference Recording SACD sampler, no doubt picked because of the stunning sound. All I can say is it transported me to 1984, when I heard my first (Sony) CD player, except the new machine was different -- 10 times more detailed but just as sterile and clinical.

Pass.

Want a better format? Put a Prefix and Hi-Cap on your table.

Joe

DVD in any whatever format will be the popular choice because the vast majority of people will want to see movies in their home suround sound sytems and if that can play CD as well then fine. let us not delude ourselves, we are not any where near a mass market.

cheers

Nigel

I decided to buy a CDS 2 and I've spent the last 8 weeks hearing CD like I've never heard CD before. I've also accelerated my purchases of CD. I think that we may never see depth of catalogue in either SACD or DVD-A, but CD is here now, and life is in the present !

In other areas eg amateur cine film the availability of video made the concept of home movie more accesible to more people as the running cost was reduced dramatically.

With sound, the nearest we will have to reduced cost, will be transient music ie delivered from the internet or distributed global server and stored locally for a relatively short period of time. However the transient process does not allow a collector to show off their colection in a passive manner - eg shelves of records and CDs. A screen of titles gently scrolling past may not be so attractive.

The global serve will also be subjected to political/commercial interference as to what music will be made available to be served.

So my thoughts are that CDs as we know them will be be useful for many more generations. What will happen is that backward compatible improvements will be added to the stored message to benefit the the user of the latest playing device without locking out the users of older playing devices

just my 2p

Derek

There is an argument that the public don't know they want something until it is available e.g. CD, and another that whatever they might want, all they can have is what big manufacturers are prepared to supply e.g. CD, VHS. Add to that the additional cost of buying something they really want but is not a mass market product e.g. naim and big companies can dictate the market.

"The big corporations appear to me to attempt to do just that,rather than carefully asess the market and identify a demand, they seem quite often to go in with a product and then try and force it down the publics throat."

See above why should they bother, and it works more often than not.

"If you ask colleagues at work, or people you know in the pub if they require a better sound than CD offers the response is wholly negative towards the idea.None of them in general even remotely get the best from the medium we have at present and when I point that out to them they dont really care much either."

I've said it before, we are the minority. Most of my friends have cheap mini-systems, enjoy music as much as I do, and have no desire to spend on hardware.

"My feeling is that if a large corporation really put a fraction of the budget that they spend on trying to sell the public useless product"

If a product sells and makes money it is not by any business definition useless.

"and got really serious about developing a really superb CD player at a reasonable price thare would be a substantial return on that investment from the worldwide audiophile market"

The "audiophile market" is very small change in the global stereo business.

"remember the Pioneer A400?"

No, actually.

"I am reminded of Caffreys beer where when advertising was stepped down, sales went through the floor, why? Because the product itself was a tasteless sterilised nonentity that had no capacity to inspire brand loyalty."

Ah! Beer...not that Caffreys or any nitrokeg should be dignified with the word. In some respects this undermines your exhortations for better products from mass market stereo makers. The sales in the nitrokeg industry (and that includes Guinness, Murphys etc) are driven entirely by slick advertising aimed at the immature end of the market. It is kids and young adults who spend most time and money in pubs, not discering audiophiles or beerophiles. Advertising is designed to get that market, and because their attention span is limited, and that they have no loyalty except to the next fad, then brands change, are promoted then dropped, then promoted again, to maintain market interest. Kids don't care what something tastes like, provided it is sweet enough, nor do they care about loyalty to a brand.

In short there is no commercial reason why big corporations should make things better than they need to, except for that very small part of the market from whom they can make disproportionate profit by offering a perceived "premium" product.

Feeling a bit cynical today

cheers

Nigel

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I've said it before, we are the minority. Most of my friends have cheap mini-systems, enjoy music as much as I do, and have no desire to spend on hardware.

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We are a minority.

Your friends with mini systems, are they musicians, they seem to be the only breed that can get music with minimal clues.

Peter

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Your friends with mini systems, are they musicians, they seem to be the only breed that can get music with minimal clues.

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Not quite sure what you are implying here?

No they are not musicians (nor am I) but why is that important? Are you suggesting that only musicians could enjoy music played on mini-systems?

And are you also suggesting that mini-systems cannot play music?

If so what would you say is the minimum system that a non-musician would need to appreciate music?

cheers

Nigel

Yes I did suggest, assume in fact, that a mini system couldn't play music. To be honest I haven't heard any of the well regarded Teac, denon or Linn mini systems, so I'm not qualified to judge.

I was specifically thinking of some friends of mine, muscicians, who have a voracious appetite for music, performing and going to concerts. At home their system is dreadful, it's a mid 80's rack system that has no round earth or flat earth values, but they do enjoy music on it.

I'm also thinking of my own reaction to the same piece of music when played over different system. I often say that most hifi systems destroy music and that it's a miracle any of it comes through.

And as for a minimum system for listening to music, I honestly don't know.

Pete

The radio community (including the radio stations) are trying to encourage us all to move to DAB - with stations using their own advertising airtime to do so. The only ones who seem keen for us to cross-over are the radio community and UK Government - who are making looney predictions that FM will vanish in 5-10 years time (not even a mention of AM!!).

Even Barry Fox said DAB is really a toy only appreciated by radio corporations.

Andrew

Andrew Randle
2B || !2B;
4 ^ = ?;

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The first responsibility of any company is to make a profit. Any chairman who acts contrary to that, gets the sack.

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True enough, but you do need customers to supply those profits. Unfortunately marketing can only gurantee this if the product has a perceivable benefit, the example of Philips DCC shows that the general public (as opposed to us minority Hi-Fi users) will reject obviously flawed products, with little perceived benefit.

Of course the reverse is also true (Betamax / V2000 or DAT for home use), and here the lesson to learn is that conflict between formats rarely, if ever, results in both winning.

DAB's primary benefit, and one of the major factors in its design is to eliminate the effects of multipath.

This could be argued to be of benefit in a mobile (car) environment, but is of debatable benefit in a fixed location, where, in most cases, multipath can be eliminated by good antenna installation.

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Even Barry Fox said DAB is really a toy only appreciated by radio corporations.

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Blimey - Barry Fox has actually written something I agree with, mind you it is opinion rather than fact!

<rant mode on>
I've never understood how this guy gets so much work, so many of the things he has written in the past are factually and technically incorrect - it winds me up a lot!
<rant mode off>.

Andrew L. Weekes
alweekes@audiophile.com

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However the transient process does not allow a collector to show off their colection in a passive manner - eg shelves of records and CDs. A screen of titles gently scrolling past may not be so attractive.

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As a small flat dweller, I would welcome this. The 500+ records and 300+ CDs I have take up considerable room. I would rather get music off the 'net and have just a few CD-type storage thingies with music I want to take with me (unless the portable player gets its music wirelessly from the web too). The records are seldom played due to the music being 'old' for me, and the space the records take is a primary reason why I keep considering dumping vinyl.

- Greg

Insert Witty Signature Line Here

Anyway, DAB will offer the average radio listener the same quality as FM but with more channels and more services. A damn good reason for most people to change over. The main problem at the moment is limted coverage and cost - hence Barry Fox's comment on it being a toy. As soon as coverage comes up to snuff and the price becomes comparible to 'normal' radio, FM will die, and Joe Public will not miss it. Just as they don't miss analogue mobile phones and do not miss analogue satellite television - both of which are superior to their digital bretheren.

Also, the government can flog off the freed up bandwidth. Kerching!

As to DVD-A and SACD, well we see. I'm none too hopeful though. I can't see the 'clear-blue-water' between these and CDs. Unless the Clear Blue Water get muddied by multi-channel re-mixes of old stuff. And personally I couldn't tolerate two pairs of DBLs let alone afford them.

Sproggle said

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"Timing" in a musical sense depends a great deal on dynamic resolution. I should think that, solely from the point of view of timing in this sense, CD’s sampling rate is already good enough.

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Erm, no... CD's 44.1kHz sampling rate introduces a timing error of +/- 11.33us. DVD-A's 196kHz sampling rate introduces a timing error of +/- 2.55us (accuracy improves by a factor of 4.4).

However, improved dynamic resolution is desirable too.

Andrew L. Weekes said

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DAB's primary benefit, and one of the major factors in its design is to eliminate the effects of multipath.

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Yes, multipath will always exist on the radio channel, but digital equalisation will be employed to reduce the intersymbol interference caused by multipath.

From what I have heard, DAB will also provide textual/graphic information services.

Martin M said

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DAB exists for simple reasons. FM as it stands is bandwidth inefficient (just look at the channel spacings) and the vestigial stereo system needs an absolute shed load of power to work properly (250 kW transmitters anyone) so you need lots of transmitters and you get a limited amount of stations. DAB is neither of these and people like a choice of stations.

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Agreed. Even though the higher frequencies of DAB lead to higher levels of propagation attenuation, the OFDM modulation scheme and receivers lead to more sensitive and selective receivers.

Martin M said

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Also, the government can flog off the freed up bandwidth. Kerching!

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Yep, same goes with digital TV. Kerching Kerching!

Andrew

Andrew Randle
2B || !2B;
4 ^ = ?;

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FM as it stands is bandwidth inefficient (just look at the channel spacings) and the vestigial stereo system needs an absolute shed load of power to work properly (250 kW transmitters anyone) so you need lots of transmitters and you get a limited amount of stations. DAB is neither of these and people like a choice of stations.

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But DAB is only bandwidth efficient if you utilise all of the allocated bandwidth (e.g. 6 full bandwidth stereo stations), to allocate a 1.5MHz bandwidth to a single station becomes extremely inefficient and therefore limits, not improves, choice.

With the current FM standard it is no problem whatsoever to allocate a frequency to a single, local low power, station. With DAB this becomes a massive waste of resource, which sounds like a recipe for a reduction in choice of locally-aimed content.

quote:

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Anyway, DAB will offer the average radio listener the same quality as FM but with more channels and more services.

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Services and quality possibly, but I have my doubts about channels - see above. Since bandwidth for each station can be adjusted dynamically at source it could result in reduced quality unless some rules are laid down. Commercial pressures will usually win here, I fear.

If your local transmitter is already transmitting 6 full bandwidth stereo stations it's unlikely they'll install another for a single extra station. This leaves two choices - refuse a licence or reduce bandwidth (read quality) for the other stations.

I think I know what the authorities would do

Andy.

Andrew L. Weekes
alweekes@audiophile.com

Anyway, the new formats give more band width so if used properly with decent analogue support they will be better then CD and potentially do what CD was supposed to do, supercede vinyl.... maybe not for a while!

Matthew

My other half had a DAB unit fitted in her company car about 2 months ago and since we have been spending the weekends zooming all over England trying to find a new house I have grown quite fond of it.

Let's face it - FM radio in the UK is bloody crap! -Or are you going to admit that you can stand to listen to FM Commercial Radio stations? I know I can't - and I used to like Hall and Oates!

Anyway speaking as someone who has a Sky digibox plugged into his 52 (now and then) I quite like Digital Radio.

Planet Rock - nod nod

P

Basically there were absolutly RAVE reviews on this amp,and having just purchased a Creek 4140 S2,less than a month previously,I had to check it out against the lastest "wonder amp".

I Walked in to the store where the A400 was fully warmed up,playiong away to itself. The salesman then proceded to plug the 4140 s2 in....to cut a short story even shorter,after less than 30 seconds,I ran out happily still clutching the 4140. !

I think that the A400 was one of those products that only excelled when having nothing less than stunning sources and speakers attached,and at all other times,just sounded,well ,"conservativly average". (unfortunatly,I never actually got to hear it in a High End environment),

The Creek was in no way or shape accurate or detailed etc.,it just had a knack of sounding very "rose tintedly" pleasing (and is still doing sterling service in Dave Catlin's back room.)

... I was very happy indeed with my little Creek for a very long time,until I purchased a second hand 32 and 110....the rest is history...

Regards

Chris

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Let's face it - FM radio in the UK is bloody crap! -Or are you going to admit that you can stand to listen to FM Commercial Radio stations?

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Certainly not (with one exception)!

Most of the rock / pop output from commercial and BBC stations (including R1) is heavily compressed and unlistenable, although I do listen to at least one commercial station as background, solely for the type of music played, not it's quality.

I have no reason to suppose that, in the long term, DAB broadcasts will be any different, since compression is added purely to ensure listenability in the normal daytime environment (cars / noisy workplaces and homes). If the content is uncompressed at present make the most of it, I'm certain it will change as popularity increases.

But R2, R3 and R4's content is excellent, and often uncompressed, or more subtly compressed. Even Classic FM has more subtle compression than most.

Listening to 'Late junction' on R3 at night has proved to be a revelation. Some very varied and eclectic music, little, if any, of which is clasical has made owning a tuner a very worthwhile experience for me.

I am not anti-DAB or progress, but I object very strongly to publicly funded organisations, such as the BBC, spending a significant proportion of their revenue over the last few years on a system infrastructure that will currently benefit a few, when a significant proportion of the population could not have NICAM stereo broadcasts as the cost of upgrading transmitters was 'too costly'.

Whilst I'm not a big TV fan, the resources should be placed where they will benefit the most people, and many, many more households will have NICAM than DAB!

Andy.

Andrew L. Weekes
alweekes@audiophile.com

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I am not anti-DAB or progress

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That's why you're always knocking it.

R2,R3 and R4 all use compression to some degree, while their DAB equivalents do not. I can hear the difference and for me I think it sounds better dynamcally uncompressed with lossy compression rather than dynamically compressed with no data compression.

As dynamic compression can be added at the user end, there is no need to add it at the broadcasting end, so there is no reason to think that the BBC will add it at a later date.

I have a NAT03 with a decent ariel and a DAB tuner. On all but the best FM signals/broadcasts I much prefer the DAB. I can get loads more stations, all in very good quality (certainly better than the FM equivavlents), I get a completly noiseless background and no dynamic compression.

I also send CD copies (I know you hate CDr as well - ooo that progress ) of Radio broadcasts to guys in the USA, and since I've been using DAB, they all comment on what amazing quality my stuff is compared to other stuff they get.

I agree that with a high end tuner with a fucking big ariel and an uncompressed signal, FM gives better results than DAB ... but there are very few uncompressed FM programs and very very few people have high end radio gear. To the average punter DAB offers obvious improvements in quality and convenience