Far from dead. Check out the acoustic sounds website. As an example, they offer 168 SACDs in hybrid multi-channel alone of all genres. That's just one type of SACD. It is my understanding that it's not just a matter of creating SACDs from existing music but that the original artits or whoever owns the music copywrites have to grant permission to have their original recordings remastered in SACD. Some will allow them to be remastered in 2 channel only and others will allow multi-channel. Has to do with how the music was originally meant to sound.
Any hope for SACD?
Is there any hope at all for transferring more music, especially classic popular music, to SACD?
I mean, so many audio companies are investing so much in R+D for the hardware, but, to me clearly, there is huge bang for the buck in having an SACD version of the recording.
For example, the recent Carole King Music SACD is incredible, with a totally natural image density and rock-solid soundstaging (qualities I hear in most SACDs of long-familiar albums). Is there no economic justification for this? You get so much for so little. I wish the audio companies would band together to fund this. It sure would make equipment demos sound better.
My little system at home with SACD trounced the quality of even the megabuck systems at the NY show a few weeks ago, including all the vinyl demos to my ears. (My EMM XDS1 helps, but my Sony 5400 on SACD is also quite fine.)
It just seems like such an incredible waste that SACD is dead or dying and nobody in the audiophile or larger music community is talking about this. Does everything have to suffer at the invisible hand of the profit motive? This is an artistic pursuit fundamentally, and you might as well always show all the paintings in the world behind blurry glass. It's a crime that, say, the Beatles aren't available in SACD or any HiRez format.
I mean, so many audio companies are investing so much in R+D for the hardware, but, to me clearly, there is huge bang for the buck in having an SACD version of the recording.
For example, the recent Carole King Music SACD is incredible, with a totally natural image density and rock-solid soundstaging (qualities I hear in most SACDs of long-familiar albums). Is there no economic justification for this? You get so much for so little. I wish the audio companies would band together to fund this. It sure would make equipment demos sound better.
My little system at home with SACD trounced the quality of even the megabuck systems at the NY show a few weeks ago, including all the vinyl demos to my ears. (My EMM XDS1 helps, but my Sony 5400 on SACD is also quite fine.)
It just seems like such an incredible waste that SACD is dead or dying and nobody in the audiophile or larger music community is talking about this. Does everything have to suffer at the invisible hand of the profit motive? This is an artistic pursuit fundamentally, and you might as well always show all the paintings in the world behind blurry glass. It's a crime that, say, the Beatles aren't available in SACD or any HiRez format.