Home Hi-Rez Highway

New high resolution SACD releases, players and technology.

What's the percentage?.

The fact that there are almost 3,000 SACD titles is a good thing. The fact that virtually all new releases are now classical is a very bad thing. What percentage of these 64 per week are classical. Way too many given the overall buying potential in the market for classical versus all other genres. The limited representation of broader music genres other than classical in new releases is the death of this format.

Don't get me wrong. I love SACD. I can live with DVD-Audio. I even had hopes for DualDisc until I realized that Hi Rez material was not a requirement for the DVD side of the format, but the pratical matter is this will only survive on a very limited level as a niche market for specialty labels. I hope people like MFSL and Audio Fidelity pick up the pace on jazz, blues, pop/rock and other genres because if all there is to pick from is classical then I have nothing to choose. This is not disparaging of classical music it just is not my flavor anymore than country. If you are targeting the smallest portion of the buying public with classical music (and I thing industry sales figures would bear this out though I do not have this information at hand to prove my point)then you have a format with ever decreasing potential.

This next point is more of a question. Look at the vinyl market as another niche market. Do you think classical music is supporting this market or is it combined with all the other music genres that really creates the market.

Let's see for the last couple of months for my areas of interest there has been exactly one title since the Clapton/John releases I would be interested in and that would be Cassandra Wilson's Traveling Miles. That is really, really discouraging for someone who looks forward to and enjoys the benefits of high res music.


This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  Sonic Craft  


Follow Ups Full Thread
Follow Ups


You can not post to an archived thread.