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In Reply to: Strange logic... posted by SE on November 19, 2002 at 13:57:05:
Maybe. I see your point. I just figure that the recording process must have been as near perfect as possible to produce such a CD, and if SACD has the capability to translate or convey more resolution, I can just imagine the results to be that much closer to reality. We deal with the law of diminishing returns in this pursuit, don't we.. where the slightest improvement in resolution and detail adds exponentially to our enjoyment? I have no first hand experience listening to any of the Chesky SACD's, but Chesky themselves tout the improvement over the standard CDs.
Follow Ups:
Yes, I too would like "the best possible". I think that I'm reacting more to the nonsense I read over at Hi-Rez as to why SACD is the "end all" of audio perfection. The trouble is, as I think you well know, most current CDs are more than good...especially jazz recordings. SACD, as much as I would like to embrace it wholeheartedly, looks to me like a "transitional" format which, to make things even worse, requires its own dedicated hardware. FWIW, I don't buy the arguments for "combo" or "universal" players -- they tend to compromise one or the other portion of their playback quality. So, with an already very significant investment in a CD library, I'm just not convinced right now. Truly, what's next? Suppose SACD (physically spinning platters) give way to CompactFlash, or some other "non-moving" digital format? Then I've got to have yet another playback device? Right now, my best guess is that at some point computer hard drive storage becomes totally MASSIVE during the next few years. We'll be able to store terabytes easily. When that becomes the case, we can all have "music warehouses" in our homes, and download the entire contents of whatever the format of the day is, and retrieve those files to be played optimally by a single high quality DAC. Until then, I'm done investing in new formats.
I go along with your thinking on getting into a new format too, thats why I've been holding off so far. When you say our digital storage will become MASSIVE, you're not kidding. That's the problem. I already have a taste of that problem due to all of my kid's MP3's that are hogging my hard drive space. Can't clean them out quick enough. Worse than the MP3's though, would be any serious audio files, because I don't think I could get myself to trust any compressed format. Digital audio fidelity is only now reaching some of its potential, and that seems to be due to sampling rate increases, etc. I have real doubts that the info can be compressed without losing some critical info, although I've never done any serious listening to MP3s. Digital storage of uncompressed data would have to be MASSIVE indeed!
....for uncompressed CD quality, it's something like 10 MB for each minute of stereo sound.
dh
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