New Audio Format: High Fidelity Pure Audio

[baph]

I'm guessing this will be almost exclusively focused on classical and jazz (jazz lite, really) and some embarrassing dad rock. A broad swath of the audiophile market listens to that, exclusively, and they're a captive audience. They'll spend $5,000 on a fucking "transport" and bitch about the Redbook format. As long as they sell these discs for at least $30 or $40 so that Audiophiles know they're buying something for Audiophiles, this format has a built in market and probably comfy profit margins.

 

Have you tried to buy a well-recorded classical recording on standard Redbook cd? It's like $30 for a single disc. If you find a $12 disc, it's acknowledged to be a lesser recording. I reckon that strategy of marketing to the audiophile niche does well enough, it's a low volume strategy, and now there's an excuse to charge even more.

 

I doubt this is even intended to cross over into mainstream markets at all.

[MisterE]

i think even that market must be dwindling by now. these 'dads' have sons/daughters who may laugh at them and inform them about flacs. although i guess if a recording isn't available in 24/96 flac, then this would be your only way to get that resolution. i still think it's going to be interesting to see how these things are mastered, esp with regard to brick wall limiting. classical stuff would surely probably receive none and just be normalized, but classic rock seems up in the air, and if they don't use it there it would be like they were admitting it was bad for quality.

 

and this is all beside the question of, are they even going to do new hi-res transfers from the original tapes, which in some cases are many decades old by now? surely a point has been reached where the audio on some of those tapes is degraded to a point where the sound you can get off of it will be less good than the 16/44.1 digital transfers made back in the 80s or 90s. the higher resolution just seems so pointless. it might make some kind of sense for a modern recording done with super hi-fi techniques, but several decade old recordings on tape?

[MisterE]

another thing about it that's kind of weird is the business model the rec industry has when it comes to old albums. the price on them never goes down. why? a ps3 game comes out at 60$ and drops to 40 or 30 within a year and plummets from there. you can maybe grab the pc version for 5 bucks on sale after a yr. yet albums retain their value forever? wtf is that shit?

 

a blu ray can have 25gb, or 50 or 100gb with multi-layer discs, and they're only putting one album on each disc? ONE ALBUM? even at 24/96 they could prob fit 35-40 albums per dual layer disc. seems like they would move more units if they were more flexible with their pricing of these 'golden oldies' and bundled them so that you could grab half of someone's discog on one disc. if i could buy 30 miles davis albums on one disc, for a reasonable price, i might be on board. in fact that'd be awesome if i could buy like 20 discs and have half a grand albums of jazz/rock/funk/blues/pop from ye olden times to listen to.

 

i don't get how they think they can maintain the illusion that the recordings in their vaults are still worth the price of a new album even if it's over 50yrs old, while most other media content type things lose value with age, and most people just swipe it from a torrent anyway. it seems like they would sell more of this stuff, and make more money for themselves in the process, if they bundled this stuff in big genre specific or artist discog packages. but wat do i kno

[Candiru]

[BobDobalina]

So basically fools and money will part ways in a sea of empty bits. #nothingnewunderthesun

 

ps Did i twiddler that correctly?

[joshuatxuk]

 

This thread feels like a collective journey back in time

 

man that's cool!

 

EDIT: not sarcastic, seriously cool

 

 

That's bitchin' as hell. I actually saw one these at a GW - still kicking myself in the ass for not picking it up:

 

 

I'm guessing this will be almost exclusively focused on classical and jazz (jazz lite, really) and some embarrassing dad rock. A broad swath of the audiophile market listens to that, exclusively, and they're a captive audience. They'll spend $5,000 on a fucking "transport" and bitch about the Redbook format. As long as they sell these discs for at least $30 or $40 so that Audiophiles know they're buying something for Audiophiles, this format has a built in market and probably comfy profit margins.

 

I lurk at both a tape recording forum (tapeheads) and a huge vintage audio forum (audiokarma) and at the end of the day 97.4% of them listen to that exact music.

 

surely a point has been reached where the audio on some of those tapes is degraded to a point where the sound you can get off of it will be less good than the 16/44.1 digital transfers made back in the 80s or 90s. the higher resolution just seems so pointless. it might make some kind of sense for a modern recording done with super hi-fi techniques, but several decade old recordings on tape?

 

exactly - higher than 16/44.1 is basically post-analog studio standard, resolutions intended for mastering and mixing before it's released: this isn't going to apply to very little in any worthwhile way, i.e. new 5.1 surround sound installments and things like that. And a lot of the new music released this way will be major label rock, pop, and jazz. Seriously, John Mayer in High Fidelity Pure Audio, nonsense like that.

[Guest jasondonervan]

Posting cos of JVC VCR video up there

 

 

The 'lyrics' also line up with Universal and their desire to keep milking the physical media cash cow for as long as possible:

 

"Angel please don't go... I'll miss you when you're gone... please stay..."

 

 

 

 

 

Angel pls

[YO303]

Didn't know the rolling stones had album cover with a gorilla in it. mmm

[BCM]

I think Gorillaz are doing an album with a picture of a stone on it.

[hello spiral]

lol

[joseph]

 

 

the sad thing is that this shit is being released because there are probably enough morons who still buy this kinda of stuff.

Essentially, this is .FLAC on disc

Lol