[Audio Empire]

On Wed, 26 Jan 2011 15:15:54 -0800, bob wrote
(in article ):

On Jan 26, 9:20=A0am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:

I would like to presume that music company executives aren't total idiots
and use customer surveys, focus groups and blind preference testing to gu=
ide
their audio production efforts. If that is the case, then rioting against
current music production norms is futile, as they are simply being good
business men and giving the custormers what they want.

Very true. The sad thing is that, by and large, audiophiles don't want
good-sounding CDs either. I visited the Acoustic Sounds Web site
earlier today, and here's a count of how many offerings they have in
various categories:

CD: 1,610
*SACD: 3,100
Vinyl Record: 22,049

It would appear that audiophiles see alternative formats as the route
to better sound. But, as some of us have been saying for years and
others (good for them!) have discovered recently, it just ain't so--or
at least it doesn't have to be so. And I think audiophiles would be
better served by a niche market in well-made CDs--or FLAC downloads--
than by what they've got.

*I threw the SACD number in there because I suspect that many of them
are being played on 2-channel systems. But as multi-channel disks,
which most of them are, they really do represent a superior format.

bob

Well, this is what I've been saying. The audiophile interest in
high-resolution downloads just MIGHT be misplaced. They hear the mediocrity
that is generally commercial CD releases, and they assume that it's the CD
format itself that's responsible for their dissatisfaction when it's really
not. It's the way the CDs are produced. CD itself is capable of amazing
sound. And here's the irony, high-resolution versions of poorly mastered
source material has every likelyhood of sounding just as poor as the Red Book
CD of the same material.