I think the premise that "the most serious music lovers among us are not jumping in" is flawed. Serious audio enthusiasts *are* jumping in. Secondly, I think you have to do a little study of adoption cycles. I just read a curious fact; The first VCR was built in 1956 and was as big as a piano. How many people bought one of those puppies? The Automobile industry had a tumultuous infancy -- many people didn't want to trade in their horse and buggy for an automobile because there were very few gas stations and even fewer people who knew how to fix one. It took the microwave oven 20 years to catch on. So -- the *MASS MARKET* is never the first to jump in -- they are always the very LAST to adopt any new technology. The first to adopt any new technology are called "Early Adopters." They are always a tiny esoteric group, usually affluent, and usually male. The first to adopt High Rez certainly fits that demographic. So, what you can say is that there is nothing about this early adoption phase that makes High Rez Audio unusual in comparison to other technologies that were eventually adopted by the mainstream consumer. So far, it looks like a typical EARLY ADOPTION phase. But, this does not
necessarily fortell the success of High Rez Audio, either. Unless the EARLY ADOPTION PHASE is eventually followed by a wider pattern of adoption, it *could* reach an evolutionary dead-end. Anyone who claims to be able to fortell either the failure or success of High Rez Audio AT THIS POINT -- is pulling your leg. On the other hand, virtually everything is going digital and digital tends to evolve towards HIGHER RESOLUTION. DVD replaced VHS. The first DVD players cost thousands of dollars. TV's have evolved towards higher resolution. HDTV and HD-DVD are on the horizon. Digital photography started with one pixel cameras that cost thousands of dollars and have evolved towards higher resolution and the price has come down along with the spread of the technology. High End SACD players like the Meitner EMM LABS Dac6, which costs around $15,000 (Transport plus DAC) are enjoying sold-out production runs, with lines of back-orders. Finally, when I read this writer's experience, it illustrates perfectly why it is the best interest of the music industry to push a High Rez revolution. When this poster switches to High Rez, he will likely want to replace some part of his collection with SACD's and he'll want to replace his CD player with an SACD player. It is in the music industry's best interests to get us all to buy our music again. It makes great economic sense. Similar to how many of us had to replace our VHS library with DVD's, or Vinyl with cassettes or cassettes with CD's, etc. And, the music industry is employing a sort of "Trojan Horse" strategy with mainstream consumers by selling them "remastered CD's" which have a High Rez layer. At some point, the average CD buyer will wake up to find that he/she already has a music library stocked with "HYBRID" CD/SACD's with a High Rez layer -- and by that time, the technology in high end SACD players will have filtered down into lower cost machines. A consumer will go to buy a CD or DVD player and will be told that he/she can listen to the High Rez layer on those HYBRID CD/SACD by buying a UNIVERSAL player for a little more money. Like buying a progressive scan DVD player instead of one without it. And by that time, you will be able to hear the difference between CD and SACD even on lower end players. How long will all this take? Your guess is as good as mine, but I see it happening at some point. Because it is a superior format and there is money to be made by getting consumers to switch.
