great post devil.

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1. The public is spending its consumer dollars on plasma screens etc worth thousands and supplementing that with crappy, cheap, surround sound audio.

yup. the "average" consumer of audio products don't know any more than what circuit city or best buy or walmart offers them. and the fact of the matter is that some of that stuff does a "decent" job. it's a tiny community of wackos like us who grok with our minds and our ears that there's more out there.

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2. Following on 1., the public is no longer interested in audio & is spending dollars on DVDs

violent agreement. plus the MP3 phenomenon has taught them that audio quality is less important - that can't help the cause at all.

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3. The public is pretty ignorant about DVD-A & SACD - none of my friends, even those keenly interested in music, have a clue what I'm talking about.

and why would they since neither format has marketed itself properly? nor does either format have a catalog that would attract anything except hardcore audio types like us.

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4. The public generally cannot appreciate the better fidelity of hi-rez. A demonstration here meets polite interest with no spark of "WOW!". They recognise surround sound but that is about all

i'd wager that the vast majority of people only really experience audio in their cars. where they might spend 30 to 120 minutes a day commuting. at home their kids monopolize the stereo and the teevee. and listening to music is somehow "less" of a couples activity than watching the tube. another shame.

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8. Even nutters like me who have a very resolving system with hi-rez capacity are not spending big dollars supporting the software. Why? The performances, the artists etc are just not there whereas there is heaps of choice, at bargain basement prices, to choose from in the CD catalog.

yuppers. and to your point #5, us "nutters" have systems that can make redbook sound really quite stellar - so while i re-bought REM Automatic for the People on DVD-A i'm not about to re-buy Document.

and the jazz selections are HORRIFIC.

hi-rez audio is a niche market. the ultra-pessmists would tell you that 44/16 is going to become a niche market too, btw. with wal-mart pushing its downloadable music and itunes doing well and on and on, eventually the only substantial quantity of people buying CDs will be "nutters" and those without the Internet (eg: older folks and very poor folks).

i think my 861 is the greatest thing since sliced bread. nothing comes close. but i definitely have some regrets about my 598DP purchase. it'd be one thing if the DVD-A content was there, but alas and alack [Linked Image from softronix.com]

doody.


The universally-derided DSP6000 Standing Desk, R.I.P.
Gathering dust: 598 w/SDI & 562V

Current system: Roon feeding a Chord Hugo2go driving Omega Compact Alnico Monitors