Which audio format would you most like to see new material come out in the future?

[cyclone]

Which audio format would you most like to see new material come out in in the future?

 

[amey01]

Downloads for sure.

Who the heck wants physical media?

But I also selected "other" because as per my other post - I don't think the internet will allow for super high-res files to be downloaded any time soon. I'd rather quality over the convenience of downloading, so whatever can deliver those files to me cheaply - flash memory maybe?

 

[RichTeer]

ANother easy one for me: vinyl all the way, with the note that including a CD of the music in the packaging (for convenience and ease of transferring to portable devices) would be a great idea (some records already do this).

 

[JonFo]

I voted Downloads, as there are fewer politics around that than physical media.
Which means, more choices for those of us looking for high-resolution multichannel audio.

If forced to use physical media, then my preferences are:

DVD-Audio (easy to rip, easy to play)

BluRay (basically DVD-A v2.0 as far as audio is concerned)

 

[MiTT]

ANother easy one for me: vinyl all the way, with the note that including a CD of the music in the packaging (for convenience and ease of transferring to portable devices) would be a great idea (some records already do this).

I'm right there with you Rich; best of both worlds. Last one I was able to buy this way was Wilco's "Sky Blue Sky".

 

[cyclone]

I could only hope that more SACD titles will come out but I think it's a lost cause. I would have to believe Hi Rez downloads to a server is the new frontier.

 

[MiTT]

I could only hope that more SACD titles will come out but I think it's a lost cause. I would have to believe Hi Rez downloads to a server is the new frontier.

I don't think it's a lost cause at all - there are multiple new releases on SACD every week. If you subscribe to either Acoustic Sounds or Music Direct's weekly newsletters you will be informed of them. Now, I will grant that they are almost exclusively Classical and Jazz releases, but they are plentiful with more than 3500 some title available.

 

[cyclone]

I listen to blues and rock music mainly so I just don't see it happening at least in the music I lean towards. But you never know who would of thought vinyl would of made the come back it did.

 

[amey01]

I could only hope that more SACD titles will come out but I think it's a lost cause. I would have to believe Hi Rez downloads to a server is the new frontier.

It's almost a lost cause. Personally, I gave up on SACD years ago. I have got about 100 SACDs or so but the problems I face are:

A lot of them are not hybrid, so I can't put them on my music server.

Those that are on my music server are a mixed bag. Sometimes it is a treat when I come across something that is on SACD (I tag everything "SACD" at the end of the Album tag so I know). I run off, get the SACD and get better sound.

but

Half the time I don't get better sound. Some of them - I'm positive - even though the SACD layer light comes on, the sound is no better. Maybe the SACD layer is just taken from the redbook layer? In these cases, sometimes the music server even sounds better!

So in short, I gave up. I don't see why I need to pay a premium for something that is so yesterday (physical media) - especially when good sound is not a given.

Granted, there are some labels (Opus3 springs to mind) that do a fantastic job on the SACD layer!

 

[robertawillisjr]

I voted SACD, but only because I don't have a high res download system. Thought about it but not enough product yet.

 

[Gordon]

I've taken a liking to XRCD so I choose other. I purchased a jazz collection (25 discs) from ED by Blue Note and since my taste runs in that direction, they are fabulous! While the cost is way up there compared to a Redbook, I much prefer the quality of a XRCD and have fewer discs.

Gordon

 

[asindc]

It's almost a lost cause. Personally, I gave up on SACD years ago. I have got about 100 SACDs or so but the problems I face are:

A lot of them are not hybrid, so I can't put them on my music server.

Those that are on my music server are a mixed bag. Sometimes it is a treat when I come across something that is on SACD (I tag everything "SACD" at the end of the Album tag so I know). I run off, get the SACD and get better sound.

but

Half the time I don't get better sound. Some of them - I'm positive - even though the SACD layer light comes on, the sound is no better. Maybe the SACD layer is just taken from the redbook layer? In these cases, sometimes the music server even sounds better!

So in short, I gave up. I don't see why I need to pay a premium for something that is so yesterday (physical media) - especially when good sound is not a given.

Granted, there are some labels (Opus3 springs to mind) that do a fantastic job on the SACD layer!

My experience with SACD has also been a mixed bag. It seems quite ridiculous that some companies would release SACDs that sound no better than the Redbook version. That also happens with some HDCD releases, but at least you are not paying a premium for that format. I suppose some of it is the engineering, some of it due to a subpar master to begin with, and some it, I suspect, is due to marketing.

 

[babydoc]

Sound format for the future?

Which audio format would you most like to see new material come out in in the future?

I have had the opportunity to hear HRx discs (Reference Recordings) recently. They are 176.4 kHz/24-bit recordings from the original source. The sound is fantastic. It is hard to compare with SACD since there are not many parallel recordings. SACD is a mixed bag. True DSD recorded material sounds superb. However many SACDs are just reissues of non-DSD sources so the improvement would be marginal at best. I agree that the world may eventually dispense with physical disc media. The problem is that high resolution download playback depends on the quality of the USB interface which is not as good as it could be although getting better. Once this situation is remedied then SATAs with terabyte capacity would be the way to go.

 

[Andrew Pratt]

I voted digital download as well. My whole collection is stored and accessed digitally so I'd prefer efforts were spent improving sound quality there.

The other thing I've really noticed is that the medium is less important then the recording...meaning I've got some low bit rate MP3's that are really well recorded and sound incredible compared to say an SACD of "insert popular artists here". Most popular music now is mixed to play back on an iPod or FM radio so no matter what medium it is stored on or what format it is in it will still sound terrible. Garbage in Garbage out...

 

[Jimna]

Once this situation is remedied then SATAs with terabyte capacity would be the way to go.

I am at 7.5TB and growing. There are tons of spectacular hi resolution vinyl rips out there that sound better than my redbook copy, hands down.

 

[amey01]

I am at 7.5TB and growing. There are tons of spectacular hi resolution vinyl rips out there that sound better than my redbook copy, hands down.

From where do you get those HighRes vinyl rips?

Also, how do you manage your 7.5TB. I'm nearing the limits of my 1TB drive now and am thinking of migrating my Squeezebox Server back to Solaris so I can exploit ZFS (It's on Ubuntu now, which has been great, but alas, no ZFS ).

 

[Jimna]

My file management is a bit out of the ordinary. Im collecting live and studio music so for example I have a 1TB drive that has nothing but Frank Zappa live 1963-1988 + all his studio material (mostly in hi-rez files to this point), and others that have all Grateful Dead, Widespread Panic, ect...those make up 4.5TB of the collection. My general audio then is spread across 2 more 1.5TB drives that are in alphabetical order by artist. I dont use a squeezebox though, I use my PC as a music server along with all the digital coax Ive run all over my house. Its as easy as drag and drop into a playlist. Yesterday I loaded up a playlist in foobar 2k and I had none stop music all day while i worked outside.

Yesterday was the first time I had tunes outdoors though, I drilled my foundation yet again(Im not fan of a hammer drill) to run a set of speaker wire outside for an outside system. I now have my Denon via zone 2 as preamp to my Adcom GFA-545 (still in my living-room entertainment center for a clean dry home) which runs an old set of ADS L400A's I mounted in the garage. They are placed with enough extra cable to set them right outside the door for back porch tunes with evening cocktails. I finished that up yesterday and was very happy to have indoor/outdoor central stereo playing in my listening room, my living room, and outside all on the same digital clock so I had no lag from sound source to sound source. If I could get my vehicles on some type of wireless connect to my music server at home I would never need physical media again!


Sorry to go so far off subject.