Let me get this straight. Universal/Sony is going to produce all SACD's with only on pressing plant. Doesn't sound like they have the capacity to produce very many disc. And, in the mean time they are going to screw all those consumers with standard cd/dvd players. Sounds like suicide to me.
So, how many cd (dvd/cd) players have consumers purchased since cd became available? A hell of a lot more than 1 million units. Personally, I own 7 cd,dvd players (2 person household, including cdrom and car unit). So, universal is going to forget about all those hundreds of millions of cd players to concentrate on 1 million sacd players. Again, the numbers don't add up.
Universal is hoping to charge about $23 per disc. Key word is hoping. A bet anybody that those disc hit the shelves for $30-$40. So , let me get this straight; I go out and buy a $300 sacd/dvd/cd player and have to pay $30-$40 to buy one disc. In my professional opinion (27 years in the audio industry) a customer that comes in and buys a bargain cd/sacd player is not looking to spend even $23 on a cd. The only customers who buy bargain cd/dvd players fall into the "I don't care how it sounds-I just don't want to see it and make it easy to use crowd" commonly refered to as custom installation.
Finally, Sony says that they are committed to high quality audio. In the last 6 months I have purchased 4 cd's distributed by Sony that had nothing but MP3's on them. When I called to bitch at Sony they told me this is a way for them to control illegal copying. So, you put the CD label on a disc (which means that it has to conform to red book cd audio) and fill it with MP3's and pass it off as a real CD. Looks to me that Sony is really interested in quality audio. BTW Sony did replace them with real CD's.
So, how many cd (dvd/cd) players have consumers purchased since cd became available? A hell of a lot more than 1 million units. Personally, I own 7 cd,dvd players (2 person household, including cdrom and car unit). So, universal is going to forget about all those hundreds of millions of cd players to concentrate on 1 million sacd players. Again, the numbers don't add up.
Universal is hoping to charge about $23 per disc. Key word is hoping. A bet anybody that those disc hit the shelves for $30-$40. So , let me get this straight; I go out and buy a $300 sacd/dvd/cd player and have to pay $30-$40 to buy one disc. In my professional opinion (27 years in the audio industry) a customer that comes in and buys a bargain cd/sacd player is not looking to spend even $23 on a cd. The only customers who buy bargain cd/dvd players fall into the "I don't care how it sounds-I just don't want to see it and make it easy to use crowd" commonly refered to as custom installation.
Finally, Sony says that they are committed to high quality audio. In the last 6 months I have purchased 4 cd's distributed by Sony that had nothing but MP3's on them. When I called to bitch at Sony they told me this is a way for them to control illegal copying. So, you put the CD label on a disc (which means that it has to conform to red book cd audio) and fill it with MP3's and pass it off as a real CD. Looks to me that Sony is really interested in quality audio. BTW Sony did replace them with real CD's.