I find the valuable points everyone has made in this thread regarding CD and SACD along with their advantages and disadvantages as physical media. I have read one of the drawbacks of streaming is that low resolution sources can be copied into a high rez format and from the listener’s point of view there is no indication on your streaming equipment to indicate that it is happening and reportedly often practiced by high rez steaming providers. Fool me once... I would much rather listen to one of our excellent local FM stations in the area than even bother with streaming in the first place.
I don’t think there has ever been anything wrong with the CD format just that the newer players, transports and DACs have ameliorated any of the previous sonic deficiencies the playback equipment had.
The main issue with marketing SACD is it was never intended to be a mass consumption format but was developed for archiving the incredible number of master tapes that are disintegrating in warehouses. Sony and the rest of the industry becoming very aware of the inevitable a long time ago, needed a means of doing the best possible flat transfers into a format that could sustain long term preservation. Not only that but they could possibly create masters using existing technology superior to the original one, maximizing all the parameters from one tape splice to the next. Obvious issues like azimuth, levels, equalization as well as tape degradation could be compensated for precisely, just as Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab admitted to doing several years ago.
MOV has had it’s fingers in the Sony archives for decades now and has been producing superior reissues of titles not licensed to other reissue houses and at very competitive price points compared to those up until recently when tariffs came into effect.
They are known to use high quality metal parts left over from other mastering houses releases and you can also see direct evidence they use newly generated lacquers to create their metal parts. The engineering staff and the DMM mastering technology they use most of the time instead of laquears and barrowed metal parts, results in pressings second to none just using the standard vinyl formulas at their Record Industry factory in the Netherlands. I find it hard to believe the claim Sony is no longer directly affiliated with them but they still claim total independence.
