Re: VHS formats & SACD

[John Hill <jphill@home.com>]

Birgitte Jorgensen wrote:

> With regard to last week's postings on technical aspects of the Gould
> recordings, has anyone had the opportunity to hear the new Super Audio
> Compact Disc (SACD) version of the 1981 Goldbergs, recently issued by
> Sony and available from CDNow?

I have not heard the GG Goldbergs yet.  But I have heard two different
demo presentations on SACD, one by Telarc and one by Sony.  The demos
were very impressive (particularly the Telarc one).   Telarc had set their demo

up so that it was possible to switch fairly quickly between listening to the
red book (standard) CD playback vs. the Super Audio CD and the differences
were astounding.  Despite the fact that we were listening in a very
non-critical
space (actually a medium-sized lecture room) I believe that *every* listener
there heard quite a dramatic difference between the two formats.  It was
not subtle and the SACD sounded really amazing.

Whether SACD takes off or not in the consumer market is another question.
It's still only a two-channel format and the hardware and software used in
its creation is still quite expensive.  Hopefully we will have truly
*universal*
DVD players soon that will allow DVD-V, DVD-A, SACD, standard CD,
DTS decoding, etc.  Right now, I believe that the SACD players are still
up around the $3k (US) range and this will also work against mainstream
market acceptance of the format in the short term.  How many of your
friends would be willing to spend $3k on what is essentially a CD player
upgrade (albeit a pretty impressive one)?

Would love to hear the Goldbergs in SACD and also Kind of Blue.

cheers,
jh