Category: Inventions

SACD Not Dead After All, At Least Fans Hope

In my last post, “The Rise and Fall of High Fidelity” I suggested that the Super Audio CD (SACD) was dead.  A reader, Steve Cooney let me know this was not true, and I started researching the subject.  A major online clubhouse for SACD fans is http://sa-cd.net – where diehards keep the SACD fires burning.  Other fans, like Teresa at SACD Lives, worry contrary to her blog’s name, that the SACD is really dying. 

My research taught me that SACDs are still being produced, with almost 7,000 titles created to date, and that some audiophiles still back the format.  So I immediately went out and ordered two more SACDs for my meager collection because they do go out of print fast.  Most of the major SACD record producers have called it quits, but not all, and after Telarc threw in the towel, many of the faithful SACD fans are having a hard time seeing a rosy future.  They cling to the idea that if LP buyers can have a niche market, why can’t they.  There are specialty producers like Linn Records that cater to the high fidelity crowd, but they specialize in classical and jazz music, so popular music on SACD is extremely uncommon.

As far as the royal rulers of music, their attitude towards the masses is let them eat MP3s.  They believe people who listen to Arcade Fire, Kings of Leon or Katy Perry aren’t concerned with quality sound, and they are probably right.  Audiophiles HATE CDs.  They love LPs or SACDS, and Studio Master FLAC downloads, which are more expensive formats, requiring very expensive, hard to configure equipment to play.

Audiophiles, like those at positive-feedback, have always been a small subculture, mainly people who love classical and jazz.  Audiophiles are rich, or middle class fanatics willing to spend a significant chunk of their income on their hobby, so it should have been no surprise to me that these people did embrace the SACD format and have clung to it because it’s about the only show in town featuring the best level of high fidelity.  These guys don’t flinch at $4,000 SACD players, but they are also quick to point out that us poorer folks can find $300 players too, and that many Blu-Ray players, especially from Sony still support the SACD format.

It’s a shame that all Blu-Ray players don’t support the format.  If you build a high definition television entertainment system with surround sound, and have the appropriate Blu-Ray player, you have everything you need to try out SACD audio.  If you don’t, there’s a lot of equipment to buy just to hear what all the fuss is about – and that’s why the SACD format hasn’t caught on.  Or least one of the reasons.

Most new SACDs are imports with $29.99 list prices.  If you balk at spending $18.99 for a CD, then SACDs are poison.  You’d think record companies would be promoting a format that can’t be ripped on a PC (because SACDs can’t be played on PCs users can’t make copies).  Why wasn’t SACDs the answer to CD piracy?

We are living in an age of abundant technology, and the reigning rule of thumb for most citizens of this era is the “Good Enough” principle.  Don’t spend too much money, don’t waste too much time on consumer research, don’t get involved with anything requiring too much learning, just settle for good enough.  SACD technology is expensive, requires lots of consumer research, and a great deal of technical knowledge to use correctly.  iPods and iTunes are cheap and easy, so their sound is good enough.

What I want to know is why high fidelity isn’t cheap and easy?  Most people can afford high definition TV sets, and cable and satellite companies make it reasonably easy to see HDTV shows.  Why has the music industry failed to bring HD music to the masses?

I gave up on SACDs several years ago when I was afraid the format was going to be another Betamax.  I should have kept buying SACDs as they came out and helped support the cause.  I’m sorry I didn’t.  I was sidetracked by streaming music from Rhapsody and other online sources, and figured that was the future of music.  Many SACD fans hope the DSD download will be the future of streaming music, but that mostly seems to be a gleam in their eye right now.

Since sales of CDs are in sharp decline, it could be the the music industry feels the CD will be the niche market for audiophiles as plebian music fans flock to the good enough MP3 file format.  But audiophiles who have gotten used to the extreme quality of SACD don’t want to go back to CD – a format they’ve always hated anyway.  In fact, they may be the ones buying LPs again and improving its market share.  Doesn’t it seem strange to be going back to 1948 technology to get high fidelity?

For years now I’ve been listening to streaming music as my main source of music.  It’s convenient and I have access to millions of songs and albums.  It has been way to easy.  But when I do play my SACDs and actually sit and listen to their quality I wonder if I’m sacrificing too much for ease of use.  Maybe “Good Enough” really isn’t all that good?  I could return to LPs like my friend Lee has.  He’s even giving me a turntable to convert me to the cause.

And there’s another issue that my friend Luther pointed out.  He says there is so much content that people don’t discriminate anymore.  In the old days most people had a shelf of LPs (or a crate of them) but a very small number.  They were albums they cherished and knew.  I have over a thousand CDs, maybe even as many as 1,500, and most haven’t been played in years and years, and I can’t even remember what I have.

Wouldn’t it be better to have fewer albums, ones of of the highest fidelity, that I knew intimately?  I should use the wealth of Rhapsody to only find new albums to buy and cherish on my living room stereo instead of using it as my only source of music.  Audiophiles are telling me that true, and they bitterly complain those albums shouldn’t be on CD, but LP or SACD.  If I go by availability, the LP is the answer.

When I sit in my La-Z-Boy and crank up my SACD copy of Blonde on Blonde, and close my eyes and listen, the experience is so much fuller than playing music as the background soundtrack to my activities.  Music deserves our full attention like watching a movie.  Teresa, the writer of the blog SACD Lives listens to music in a total dark room without clothes so she can give her fullest attention to the experience.  Now that’s an extreme audiophile.  Makes me want to have a sensory deprivation chamber outfitted with SACD sound, so I could float in music.

JWH – 10/2/10

The Rise and Fall of High-Fidelity Music

I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s when high fidelity was important to music listeners.  I first heard music on a 1955 Pontiac radio – AM mono in all its finest.  Later on I got a tiny 5 transitory radio with a single ear-bud.  The sound was terrible but I didn’t know it.  In 1962 I got a clock AM radio that I listened to for years.  That same year my sister got a portable stereo that I eventually stole.  In 1968 I bought a console stereo with my own money.  In 1971 I bought my first component stereo, and it’s been a series of component setups ever since.  Life was always about stepping up sonically.  Strangely enough, living in the 21st century means stepping down in high fidelity.

Currently I can listen to music on these systems in descending high fidelity:

  • Playing CDs and SACDs on a modest $1400 system with floor standing Infinity speakers
  • Playing CDs in the car
  • Playing CDs on my computer through Klipsch THX speakers
  • Playing ripped CDs on the stereo or PC
  • Playing Rhapsody downloads on the stereo or PC
  • Playing Rhapsody streams on the stereo or PC
  • Playing MP3s on my iPods or Zune portable player through ear buds

I have over a thousand CDs but I seldom play them anymore.  I have ripped 18,000+ songs to 256kbs MP3 files.  I have access to ten million songs through Rhapsody that I can save as 160kbs WMA files or stream live.  Right now I’m listening to the new Neil Young album Le Noise playing loud through my PC’s Klipsch speakers, the most common way I listen to music daily.  It sounds good, but not nearly as good as CDs on my living room stereo, and especially not as good as SACDs.

Why didn’t Super Audio CD catch on?  Probably for the same reason quadraphonic systems didn’t catch on back in the 1970s, because people had to buy too much extra equipment.  On the other hand, people are buying surround sound systems for their high definition TVs, and SACD could have easily integrated into such systems.

I can’t believe kids today love iPod quality sound.  Not only has the SACD quality music been rejected in the marketplace, but now people are rejecting CD quality sound in favor of digital download song quality.  A small percentage of music fans are returning to the LP and turntable, but I don’t know if that’s because of sound quality or nostalgia.

I remember when I was much younger going to audiophile stores and listening to very expensive equipment in custom sound rooms and dreaming of having the money to buy such setups.  Those $25,000 systems made recorded music sound as close to live as I’ve ever heard.  But those showrooms also featured a trick.  When the salesman puts you in a chair in the aural sweet spot and cranks up the volume, you aren’t doing anything but concentration on the music.  People seldom listening to music today with the same concentration they put into watching TV or reading a book.  Why?

Back then, in the 1980s, I assumed that one day those $25,000 systems would one day sell for $1,000 or even $500 because of the relentless drive of technological development.  And it would be cool if a $149 iPod Nano did play music like those $25,000 sound room systems, but they don’t.

When people started ripping MP3 music for their computers they decided that their sound quality was good enough.  People marvel at Blu-ray and DVD sound on movie discs, but they no longer want to sit in their recliner and just listen to music.  Music has become the background beat of an on-the-go-life.  People who really love music go to live concerts, and maybe that’s where they expect to hear high fidelity.

The real audiophile fanatics are usually classical and jazz music fans, and fans of those genres seem to be dying off, which might explain the declining interest in high fidelity stereo systems.  But what if some company started marketing a PC soundcard with a simple soundbar that had magnificent dynamic range and filled a bedroom or living with the sensation of being in a small club listening to music live?  Would such a gadget becoming a game changer like the iPod?

Everything is about carrying around tech, iPhones, iPads and iPods – but will we ever return to sit on our butts in the La-Z-Boy tech again?

If we can stream high definition movies over the Internet, why can’t we stream SACD quality sound?  How long will the MP3 file define the sound of music?

JWH – 9/29/10

Reading Online: Safari’s Killer Feature

I’m not a big fan of Apple.  Who needs another browser after you’ve already installed IE8, Firefox and Chrome?  So, I saw little point of installing Safari, Apple’s horse in the browser race.  Well, it turns out Safari has a feature that other browsers lack that makes it worth the time and effort to install. 

The feature is called Reader.  It takes a web page that looks like this:

screen1

 

And makes it look like this:

 

screen2 

If you do a lot of online reading this makes all the difference in the world.  Now it doesn’t work with every web page, but it does with most, like the New York Times I’m reading here.  And it’s very easy to use.  If you look closely at those screen shots above, you’ll see a blue button on the right of the URL locator box, and a purple one in the Reader view.  They both say “Reader.”  If the button doesn’t show up, the feature is not available.  That’s all there is to using it.

While in Reader there are five buttons that will appear at the bottom of the page if you hover you mouse.  They do:  shrink the font, enlarge the font, email the page link, print the reader view and quit Reader.  I wished there was a sixth nifty button:  Save for Ebook.

Reader is great for reading shorter articles online while seated at a desk, but if you find one that’s dozens of pages, it would be cool to save to my Kindle and read from my La-Z-Boy.  If you have Acrobat or a clone, you can print to a .pdf file, but I’d rather have it save to a format common to most ebook reader.

I hope IE9 would add this feature, or even Chrome, because it is annoying to use four different browsers for various reasons.  But as of now, when I want to read the New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly Magazine, or most of my other favorite online newspapers and magazines, Safari is the go-to browser of the moment.  It’s like having a special large print edition that filters out all distractions.

JWH – 9/6/10

Ebook Ethics

Everything we do in life has ethical considerations, even something simple as buying books.  Ebooks represent a change, and that change has good and bad consequences.

Bad

  • Ebooks will put a lot of people out of work.  Bookstores may disappear like record stores.  This is a horrible consequence in these bad economic times.  The digital world is just more efficient than the analog world and that kills jobs.
  • Ebooks will also kill competition, reducing the number of businesses in the marketplace.  Amazon and Apple could theoretically take over all the book and music business from tens of thousands of small businesses.
  • Ebooks are anti-social.  Instead of buying books at a bookstore and meeting other people you order books directly.  Instead of sharing books with friends, readers are locked into a closed world of DRM.
  • Ebooks could damage cultural heritage and history.  Printed books can last for hundreds of years, and people value them, but ebooks probably have no lasting power at all.
  • Bookstores might become extinct which would be a huge cultural loss.
  • Book ownership is probably a deceptive concept and sellers like Amazon shouldn’t describe their ebooks are “for sale.”  To be honest, sellers should claim they are long term rentals until DRM copy protection is removed.

Good

  • Ebooks are extremely environmental.  Wood pulp technology uses lots of water, energy and chemicals, and those chemicals get into the environment.  Printing takes both energy and chemicals.  Distributing books creates lots of carbon and other pollutants.  The carbon footprint of ebooks is almost zero.
  • Ebooks could mean more money for writers, editors and publishers because ebooks could do away with the used book market.  As long as DRM technology is successful, more readers would actually buy books, instead of borrowing them or buying used, which is more ethical for the writer and publisher.
  • Ebooks might encourage more reading and literacy because of their convenience and possibly make reading more appealing to young people because ebooks are available on smart phones, an essential device for kids.
  • Ebooks could enhance cultural heritage and history.  It’s quite easy to load up an ebook reader with the great books of the western world.  Every child or family could have their own library of thousands of free books.

Ethically, the primary conflict is jobs versus the environment.  But that will be true of all industries and businesses as time passes.  If all books, magazines and newspapers were read on digital readers it would have a positive impact on the environment, but at a terrible cost in jobs.

The secondary ethical concern is which format is better for promoting literacy, knowledge and culture?  This is much harder to judge until after ebooks have taken over.  We won’t know their full impact for a very long time.  But consider this:  What if you could hold a device that had every book you ever bought or read in your entire life with annotations, notes, and supplemental reference essays and reviews?  Would such a superbook library have a positive social impact?

I already miss record stores and LP album covers, but I don’t miss LPs.  I don’t even miss CDs, but I do miss shopping for music at record stores.  I have a subscription to Rhapsody Music and can listen to as many CDs as I can cram into my month for $9.99, but the fun of discovering new albums is gone.   From about 1965-1995 I bought 2-4 albums a week.  I loved going to record stores, but that activity is as ancient as horse and buggy rides. 

I’ve been going to bookstores 1-2 times a week since 1965.  It’s about the only shopping I still like to do recreationally.  I’ve bought far more books than I have ever read, or will ever have time to read.  I will truly miss bookstores if they disappear.

On the other hand, I discover all my books and music now from the Internet.  I’m in four online book clubs.  I’m far more involved with books, authors and readers then when I only shopped at bookstores.  Most of my friendships are based around talking about books or music.  I never really went to bookstores or record stores to socialize with the staff, or ask them for recommendations, although I’ve always liked meeting other book and music fans.

Amazon, with its supplemental content and customer reviews has been a quantum leap in helping me discover new books to read.  It’s far more social in helping me make book buying decisions than bookstores ever were.  Web 2.0 technology is a different kind of socializing.  It’s intellectual over physical. 

JWH 8/21/10

How Kindle and Nook Can Better Compete With The iPad

Last weekend I wrote “To Ebook or Not To Ebook” and I’m still agonizing over which ebook reader to get.  There are two main issues I’m still worrying over.  First, which book is the most comfortable to read for long periods, and second, which ebook reader is the most universal in terms of buying ebooks.  I imagine the light E-Ink readers, the Nook and Kindle, are easier to hold for long periods of time, but it’s obvious the iPad can read books from Amazon, B&N, iBooks, and many other smaller ebook sellers.  The iPad is almost the universal ebook reader and I’m leaning towards buying it.

My need for reading comfort might put me in a limited market so my buying desires are of less concern to ebook engineers, but I wished they’d consider them.  I have bad eyes, and back problems that make it uncomfortable to sit long in one position, and an arm problem that makes holding a book pain inducing over time.  I’m getting old and wimpy.  I’d love to sit and read for hours like I used to, but it’s a struggle.  That’s why I fear the iPad – many reviewers have complained its difficult to hold for lengthy reading sessions.

And, besides that, I don’t want Apple to just crush the competition, so how could the Kindle, Nook, Kobo and Sony ereaders better compete with the iPad?

Universal Reader

First off, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Borders should make a cross license deal to display each other’s DRM material.  That way any Kindle, Nook or Kobo owner could buy and read books from all the leading booksellers.  The obvious solution would be a universal ebook format and DRM, but that might take years to hammer out.  It might be easier to add competitor’s software to each others readers.  Obviously, the iPad does it with ease.

The reason why I’m leaning towards the iPad is because I can buy books from all the major ebook retailers and read it on the iPad.  If the E-Ink readers want to compete they need to do the same thing.  It was foolish of Amazon to start the trend for proprietary readers.

Add a Handle with Trigger

The second way to compete with the iPad is make the E-Ink readers even more svelte and easier to hold.  I wished they came with a detachable handle so the ebook reader would look something like a church fan.  A nice handgrip with a trigger to page forward would make holding an ebook reader nicer, and make the page turning more convenient.  You can leave the back page button on the reader because it wouldn’t be needed that often.  I don’t know this for sure, but I imagine a handgrip handle would be more comfortable to hold than holding the ebook reader like a book. 

I’m talking about making the device comfortable for reading 8 hours at a stretch.  This is where the iPad is weak.

The Third Option

I’ve even thought of another option, but this one by-passes the E-Ink technology.  Keep the books in the handle and beam the content to a pair of special glasses via Bluetooth.  I wonder if it’s possible to make a pair of glasses that displays words that are even easier to read, something that helps the reader tune out the world and become one with the word.  In the music world we’ve moved the speakers into the ears, why not move the page right in front of the eyes?

Why Reading is Specialized

iPad fans lord their gadgets over the E-Ink readers claiming its a universal solution.  They ask why anyone would want a specialized device when one device, the iPad, can do so much.  I think the iPad is a revolutionary device, it moves the computer screen off the desk or lap and into the hands where it makes a big functional difference.  But is that the ultimate location?  And is it the right weight and form factor?

Bookworms like to read for hours on end, and the ultimate ebook reader will cater to that need.  I tend to believe the lower weight of the E-Ink technology gives it a chance to compete with the more glamorous and universal device of the iPad if they are optimized for streamline reading of text.

Many bloggers and journalists have written about the approaching doom for the E-Ink reader, but I tend to doubt those predictions.  That doesn’t mean I won’t buy an iPad any day now, but it also doesn’t mean I won’t buy a Kindle 3 when it comes out.  The new Pearl E-Ink technology is appealing.  It just galls me to think about buying ebook reader that can’t read all ebooks.

The Deciding Factor

To be honest, the universal ebook reader of the iPad sways me more than comfort of the smaller E-Ink technology readers, and I’ll probably buy an iPad for now.  That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t buy an E-Ink reader too, especially if they become a universal reader.  I’m greatly disappointed that most books I’m reading right now aren’t available for any ebook reader.  That sucks.  But we’re living in transitional times for books and times will change soon.

JWH 7/4/10