Fafner

There's always something better next year

All the textbooks say that redbook is sufficient for optimal human hearing (the sonics) and the nyquest/shannon confirms that (theory). Add to that the commercial failure of hdcd; sacd; and dvd-a, what makes your analysis better than the analysis of every major record label?

You should get a FujiFilm X100, its like an M3 with circuits.

Francis: The unusual part of the concert you attended was not that there was a variety of old instruments, but it seems that you attended a chamber music battle of the bands. The instruments come with the performers. In fact, its common for each musician in many string quartets to have an old master instruments. I live in NYC, so I can probably hear 4 different old master instruments in one evening several dozen times a year.

The age of CD's isn't the issue, human hearing hasn't changed in the past 30 years either (except for mine which I'm pretty sure was better 30 years ago). I can think of three attempts at obsoleting standard CDs: hdcd; sacd; and dvd-a. All three have failed. If the difference in quality was audible, you would think that people would have bought them in droves.

Barry: Talking your book is a wall street expression. It means presenting an analysis that supports your current investments. Going to your web site, the first thing you see is a new album release that in large bold face type touts its availability in high res formats (what does "slow burned" mean? do you make them in a crock pot, or a sous vide cooker). You clearly use high res as a marketing bullet point, so you're talking your book. It's not a comment on the accuracy or even the motivation of your views on high res, it just pointing out the obvious fact that you profit from it.

I'd like to see that KEF "research". Was it published or was it the usual marketing nonsense packaged to look like research. With all due respect Barry, what you're doing is called "talking your book". Your business model includes promotion of high res as a differentiator. Caveat emptor dude!

The spectra paper simply confirms the obvious, that there are harmonics above 20khz. It doesn't address the question if those make any difference to what you hear, either live or recorded. There are many people who believe they can hear the difference. There are many studies that show they are wrong, there are one or two that show they might be correct.

Weiss may lack soul, but soul is for musicians and composers. What he has is engineering, which trumps soul when you're designing electronic equipment. If you read the interview, he implies that you can hear the difference between hi res and standard cd.

Ripping SACDs is illegal. The copy protection on SACD makes ripping them a violation of the DMCA.

You might consider Belden for speaker cables. If you don't know Belden, they are one of the largest most sophisticated cable manufacturers in the world. They probable have more experience in engineering and manufacturing cables than all the high margin high markup vendors combined. http://www.belden.com/docs/upload/NP210.pdf

Barry: One of the previous posters discussed how the labels looked at master quality files as specially valuable. I remember at one time master tapes were given special tax treatment. Is that still the case? Since "masters" are frequently data streams that go directly to a hard drive, what makes a master a master these days?

If you care about the music and want to hear world class performers, you won't find it in high res. Its not just that there are very few high res releases. Its also the fact that the vast majority of the high res releases are by mediocre performers. Soundkeeper, artists that prove the old joke, what's the difference between a musician and a pizza, a pizza can feed a family of four. Reference, a collection of regional orchestras that my version hell is having to listen to them. Yes the occasional top performer will issue an SACD, but the real advantage of SACD is not its high res, but its additional channels. The claims of the advantages of high res have clearly been rejected by the market. Unlike mp3 where people know they are trading off quality for convenience, the evidence that you can hear the difference between standard cd and high res is lacking. There's a big market of people with disposable income with high end audio equipment. The reason high res is relegated to nickle and dime performers and record labels is that the larger players have discovered that their customers can't hear the vast advantages of high res claimed by the true believers.

Mark, the crazies, as you call them, haven't made an impact even today. Despite all their take about the obvious advantages of greater than standard cd resolution, the market isn't buying it. There's almost no high res available. There's an old saying, people lie, markets don't.

Speakers