I am thinking about purchasing a SACD player. Any recommendations? I would
like to keep the price down.

Recommendation at the $3k level?

Recommendation under $1500?

Under $1k?

Thanks

r


--
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from
magic."

Arthur C. Clarke (1917 - ), "Technology and the Future"

"Rich Andrews" wrote in message
. 44
I am thinking about purchasing a SACD player. Any recommendations?

I would like to keep the price down.

Recommendation at the $3k level?

Recommendation under $1500?

Under $1k?

Just wait a while. Sony will eventually give up on the format, and the
players will be cheap because they are obsolete. Either that, or even $39
Chinese DVD players will support it.

"dave weil" wrote in message

On Sun, 20 Jul 2003 08:18:39 -0400, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

"Rich Andrews" wrote in message
. 44
I am thinking about purchasing a SACD player. Any recommendations?

I would like to keep the price down.

Recommendation at the $3k level?

Recommendation under $1500?

Under $1k?

Just wait a while. Sony will eventually give up on the format, and
the players will be cheap because they are obsolete. Either that, or
even $39 Chinese DVD players will support it.

Yes, you should also wait to buy a computer from people like Mr.
Krueger because eventually they will be a lot faster and cheaper per
megabyte than they are now.

I often tell that to my clients, and they laugh and buy the computer anyway.

I guess the lesson is that if a piddling little comment like that puts
someone off, they really didn't want the device in the first place.

"Rich Andrews" wrote in message
.44
"Arny Krueger" wrote in news:RfOcne-
:

"Rich Andrews" wrote in message
. 44
I am thinking about purchasing a SACD player. Any recommendations?

I would like to keep the price down.

Recommendation at the $3k level?

Recommendation under $1500?

Under $1k?

Just wait a while. Sony will eventually give up on the format, and
the players will be cheap because they are obsolete. Either that, or
even $39 Chinese DVD players will support it.

Why do you think Sony/Philips will give up on the format?

It's going nowhere. It does little or nothing for the listener.

They may
eventually, but it will take a long time as it took a long time for
beta to succumb to VHS.

I think that Sony is operating under different management, now.

Then they took the Beta format and sold it
to broadcasters and it was lovingly nicknamed BetaJam.

Like so many things it got replaced by something digital.

Personally I think the DVD format is entirely too sensitive to dust,
fingerprints, etc. on the media. That alone is enough of a nuisance
to me to keep me gun shy. Having to clean something in the middle of
a listening session really bothers me.

I haven't noticed that DVDs are appreciably more dirt and scratch sensitive
than CDROMs, but YMMV.

On Sun, 20 Jul 2003 13:32:39 -0400, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

"dave weil" wrote in message

On Sun, 20 Jul 2003 08:18:39 -0400, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

"Rich Andrews" wrote in message
. 44
I am thinking about purchasing a SACD player. Any recommendations?

I would like to keep the price down.

Recommendation at the $3k level?

Recommendation under $1500?

Under $1k?

Just wait a while. Sony will eventually give up on the format, and
the players will be cheap because they are obsolete. Either that, or
even $39 Chinese DVD players will support it.

Yes, you should also wait to buy a computer from people like Mr.
Krueger because eventually they will be a lot faster and cheaper per
megabyte than they are now.

I often tell that to my clients, and they laugh and buy the computer anyway.

That's because a statement like that is pretty piddling. Nice to see
that you you intereact with your customers in that way.

I guess the lesson is that if a piddling little comment like that puts
someone off, they really didn't want the device in the first place.

Nice of you to admit that you are a piddler. And apparently a Luddite.

LOL!

LO"ts!

"Rich Andrews" wrote in message
. 44...
I am thinking about purchasing a SACD player. Any recommendations? I
would
like to keep the price down.

Recommendation at the $3k level?

Recommendation under $1500?

Under $1k?

Thanks

r



http://toy.realbuy.ws/B00005NP4L.html


MvB

Rich Andrews wrote in message . 3.44...

Personally I think the DVD format is entirely too sensitive to dust,
fingerprints, etc. on the media. That alone is enough of a nuisance to me to
keep me gun shy. Having to clean something in the middle of a listening
session really bothers me.

r

Rich -

Are you talking about DVD-As, specifically? Or video DVDs as well?

I don't have any DVD-As, but I have noticed my video DVDs seem to
break up (pixillate?) after playing them a couple of times. I'm really
disappointed in this, and I don't know if it means I need a new DVD
player or what.

If this is audio-related (i.e., DVD-As are equally problematic), are
SACDs as vulnerable to dust, fingerprints, etc., as DVD-As?

Thanks.

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message ...

I haven't noticed that DVDs are appreciably more dirt and scratch sensitive
than CDROMs, but YMMV.

I think this issue becomes much more prevalent with regard to rental
DVD's. While the ones we own are typically kept in pristine
condition, the one's you get at say Blockbuster can be anywhere from
brand new to looking like they have been through hell and back. I
would tend to agree that the data density of today's DVDs are
bordering on the extent of being too vulnerable to even the most
innocuous looking of scratches, smudges, or various unidentifiable
gunk. It seems that issue will only get worse in future formats
unless they retreat back to a "cartridged" medium (or perhaps
sacrifice some of that tremendous data capacity for some hardcore data
redundancy/correction capability).

"dangling entity" wrote in message
om
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...

I haven't noticed that DVDs are appreciably more dirt and scratch
sensitive than CDROMs, but YMMV.

I think this issue becomes much more prevalent with regard to rental
DVD's. While the ones we own are typically kept in pristine
condition, the one's you get at say Blockbuster can be anywhere from
brand new to looking like they have been through hell and back. I
would tend to agree that the data density of today's DVDs are
bordering on the extent of being too vulnerable to even the most
innocuous looking of scratches, smudges, or various unidentifiable
gunk. It seems that issue will only get worse in future formats
unless they retreat back to a "cartridged" medium (or perhaps
sacrifice some of that tremendous data capacity for some hardcore data
redundancy/correction capability).

Hey I watched two Blockbuster-rental DVDs last night. Both played
flawlessly, neither were cleaned. Not an isolated occurrence. Every once in
a while we have to clean one to get it to play flawlessly - maybe 4 per year
of the 50-100 that we rent.

(dangling entity) wrote in message . com...
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message ...

I haven't noticed that DVDs are appreciably more dirt and scratch sensitive
than CDROMs, but YMMV.

I think this issue becomes much more prevalent with regard to rental
DVD's. While the ones we own are typically kept in pristine
condition, the one's you get at say Blockbuster can be anywhere from
brand new to looking like they have been through hell and back. I
would tend to agree that the data density of today's DVDs are
bordering on the extent of being too vulnerable to even the most
innocuous looking of scratches, smudges, or various unidentifiable
gunk. It seems that issue will only get worse in future formats
unless they retreat back to a "cartridged" medium (or perhaps
sacrifice some of that tremendous data capacity for some hardcore data
redundancy/correction capability).

I've got DVDs I bought, kept perfectly clean AFAIK, and they still
pixillate up during the third viewing. It might be the player, I don't
really know. I'm not much of a video collector, so it's not a big
deal, really. If audio DVDs or SACDs were to do the same thing, that'd
be a *big* reason not to buy them, though.

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message ...
Every once in
a while we have to clean one to get it to play flawlessly - maybe 4 per year
of the 50-100 that we rent.

Well, I'm glad you have had such good experiences. OTOH, one
innocuous looking scratch in just the right way can make 30 minutes of
a movie inaccessible. It's really frustrating. I'm sure you will be
quick to point out that my DVD player must be "trash" for me to have
such experiences, as I don't deny that the sophistication of
error-contingency and thus player quality enters into the scenario
somewhere along the line. I did not mean to give the impression that
I've had problem after problem with my setup. I haven't. In fact, it
is quite reliable and troublefree. However, there have been few
occasions in the past where seemingly surmountable disc blemishes turn
out to be anything but. That's when I wonder if the format could have
been made just a bit more bulletproof. Then you compare that to the
worstly abused rental disc you've ever seen (which ends up playing
rather uneventfully, ironically), and you realize that DVD's are far
too naked to be safe from the careless rental customer (that got there
before you). So it's pointless to worry about DVD, as the cat is
already out of the bag, but I hope future, more data-dense medium
formats are born with greater "abuse-contingency" in mind. It's just
a wish. Yours may be different, I understand.

"dangling entity" wrote in message
m

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...

Every once in
a while we have to clean one to get it to play flawlessly - maybe 4
per year of the 50-100 that we rent.

Well, I'm glad you have had such good experiences.


OTOH, one
innocuous looking scratch in just the right way can make 30 minutes of
a movie inaccessible.

I've seen a similar thing happen with CDs.

It's really frustrating. I'm sure you will be
quick to point out that my DVD player must be "trash" for me to have
such experiences, as I don't deny that the sophistication of
error-contingency and thus player quality enters into the scenario
somewhere along the line.

I've never pictured my Pioneer DV-525 as a paragon of sophistication.

I did not mean to give the impression that
I've had problem after problem with my setup. I haven't. In fact, it
is quite reliable and troublefree. However, there have been few
occasions in the past where seemingly surmountable disc blemishes turn
out to be anything but.

Nothing's perfect.

That's when I wonder if the format could have
been made just a bit more bulletproof.

It could have been, at a cost in playing time.

Then you compare that to the
worstly abused rental disc you've ever seen (which ends up playing
rather uneventfully, ironically), and you realize that DVD's are far
too naked to be safe from the careless rental customer (that got there
before you).

It's up to the rental store to make sure that the product they rent is
usable.

So it's pointless to worry about DVD, as the cat is
already out of the bag, but I hope future, more data-dense medium
formats are born with greater "abuse-contingency" in mind.

I think we've seen a lot of progress in making distribution formats more
reliable and abuse-proof. Compare and contrast the LP and the CD. Compare
and contrast VHS tape and DVD.

It's just
a wish. Yours may be different, I understand.

"Geoff Wood" -nospam wrote in message ...
"Daniel" wrote in message
I've got DVDs I bought, kept perfectly clean AFAIK, and they still
pixillate up during the third viewing. It might be the player, I don't
really know. I'm not much of a video collector, so it's not a big
deal, really. If audio DVDs or SACDs were to do the same thing, that'd
be a *big* reason not to buy them, though.

I would suggest that you have a porr quality or broken player. Cound be
just the lens that is soiled...

geoff

How do you clean a dirty lens?

"Daniel" wrote in message
om
"Geoff Wood" -nospam wrote in message
...
"Daniel" wrote in message
I've got DVDs I bought, kept perfectly clean AFAIK, and they still
pixillate up during the third viewing. It might be the player, I
don't really know. I'm not much of a video collector, so it's not a
big deal, really. If audio DVDs or SACDs were to do the same thing,
that'd be a *big* reason not to buy them, though.

I would suggest that you have a porr quality or broken player.
Cound be just the lens that is soiled...

geoff

How do you clean a dirty lens?

Phase 1 is a CD lens cleaning disc.

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message ...
"Daniel" wrote in message
om
"Geoff Wood" -nospam wrote in message
...
"Daniel" wrote in message
I've got DVDs I bought, kept perfectly clean AFAIK, and they still
pixillate up during the third viewing. It might be the player, I
don't really know. I'm not much of a video collector, so it's not a
big deal, really. If audio DVDs or SACDs were to do the same thing,
that'd be a *big* reason not to buy them, though.

I would suggest that you have a porr quality or broken player.
Cound be just the lens that is soiled...

geoff

How do you clean a dirty lens?

Phase 1 is a CD lens cleaning disc.

Ah. Thank you.

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message ...
"Daniel" wrote in message
om
"Geoff Wood" -nospam wrote in message
...
"Daniel" wrote in message
I've got DVDs I bought, kept perfectly clean AFAIK, and they still
pixillate up during the third viewing. It might be the player, I
don't really know. I'm not much of a video collector, so it's not a
big deal, really. If audio DVDs or SACDs were to do the same thing,
that'd be a *big* reason not to buy them, though.

I would suggest that you have a porr quality or broken player.
Cound be just the lens that is soiled...

geoff

How do you clean a dirty lens?

Phase 1 is a CD lens cleaning disc.

Thanks.

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message ...
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...


I've seen a similar thing happen with CDs.

So I guess that *does* make vinyl superior in the end, whereas such a
scratch would cause a "click" at most, and nowhere near anything on
the order of 30 min of missed music. On a CD, the most I've "lost"
from a scratch was 3.5 minutes for a single song track. More
seriously though, fine, you want to argue that DVD's are just as
useable as CD's when the surface has been scratched or abrased. I'm
just arguing that making them protected from scratches and abrasions
in the first place makes a lot of sense (or making the data recovery
that much more robust), considering the amount of data that will
reside on these future formats. It will make for a more robust format
for the rental store, as well as for original owners. In a perfect
world, none of this would matter, and all discs would be pristine for
playback. In the real world, something more would be desirable, IMO,
to cover the "$hit happens" factor.


It's really frustrating. I'm sure you will be
quick to point out that my DVD player must be "trash" for me to have
such experiences, as I don't deny that the sophistication of
error-contingency and thus player quality enters into the scenario
somewhere along the line.

I've never pictured my Pioneer DV-525 as a paragon of sophistication.


Just heading off potential wisecrack comments at the pass.

I did not mean to give the impression that
I've had problem after problem with my setup. I haven't. In fact, it
is quite reliable and troublefree. However, there have been few
occasions in the past where seemingly surmountable disc blemishes turn
out to be anything but.

Nothing's perfect.

Exactly, so maybe there is another level of quality control that is
worthwhile to address here.


That's when I wonder if the format could have
been made just a bit more bulletproof.

It could have been, at a cost in playing time.


It's not like a "5 hr movie" couldn't use *some* editing, anyway. The
sheer capacity of the formats involved here would seem to suggest that
giving some of it up shouldn't cause that much pain at all.

Then you compare that to the
worstly abused rental disc you've ever seen (which ends up playing
rather uneventfully, ironically), and you realize that DVD's are far
too naked to be safe from the careless rental customer (that got there
before you).

It's up to the rental store to make sure that the product they rent is
usable.


[falls off chair laughing] You would think they should. In actuality,
they don't care until the hapless customer returns to the store to
point out an obviously damaged disc, and they just issue a rental
credit (and you *hope* they don't just turn around and put that disc
right back up on the shelf). There is no way to replace the lost
opportunity to watch the movie the night you originally rented it, but
could not play it, due to a needless scratch.


So it's pointless to worry about DVD, as the cat is
already out of the bag, but I hope future, more data-dense medium
formats are born with greater "abuse-contingency" in mind.

I think we've seen a lot of progress in making distribution formats more
reliable and abuse-proof. Compare and contrast the LP and the CD. Compare
and contrast VHS tape and DVD.

See above. Similarly, a drop-out on VHS tape would yield a
momentarily noisey image, whereas the DVD may suffer a 15-30 min
drop-out of the movie (essentially killing the movie). You could
argue anything you want with such a comparison, so asking about
comparisons is a pretty pointless notion. Each format is better and
worse in certain ways, and in response to different failures.

The bottomline is still that it would be nice to see continued
improvements with future formats in data integrity assurance (by
whatever means) in addition to de rigeur improvements to video and
sound performance. Of all, at least make recovery from a "single
scratch" situation a bit more seamless than scenarios such as a
pixel-fubarred frame or outright loss of 15 minutes of video
(essentially a scene chapter as most movies are logically segmented).
I don't think that should be seen as so much to ask for.

On 22 Jul 2003 22:48:35 -0700, (dangling
entity) wrote:

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message ...
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...

I've seen a similar thing happen with CDs.

So I guess that *does* make vinyl superior in the end, whereas such a
scratch would cause a "click" at most, and nowhere near anything on
the order of 30 min of missed music.

I have *never* seen a similar thing happen with CDs, and I've been
collecting them since 1983. OTOH, I possess no vinyl which does not
have the ocasional click or pop (even though the vast majority of them
have no visible scratches).

OTOH, I *have* experienced such problems with DVDs, although
admittedly I have an old player (Pioneer DV-515). Finally, we write
CD-Rs at work for archiving financial data, and out of around fifteen
thousand that we have produced in the past three years, not one single
disc has shown *any* defects on bit-for-bit file comparisons with the
parallel tape archive.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

"Daniel" wrote in message

How do you clean a dirty lens?

Dust, stuck on by humidity, static, or gravity. Nicotine, air freshener,
flyspray, and other airbourne agents. Fingerprints, toast.....


geoff

"Geoff Wood" -nospam wrote in message
...

"Daniel" wrote in message

How do you clean a dirty lens?

Dust, stuck on by humidity, static, or gravity. Nicotine, air freshener,
flyspray, and other airbourne agents. Fingerprints, toast.....



Ooops, misread that as "How do you *get* a dirty lens" ....


g.

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003 15:32:21 +0100, Paul Dormer
wrote:

(Stewart Pinkerton) wrote:

..we write
CD-Rs at work for archiving financial data, and out of around fifteen
thousand that we have produced in the past three years, not one single
disc has shown *any* defects on bit-for-bit file comparisons with the
parallel tape archive.

This is utter crap.

No, it's basic fact.

There's no way in hell 15,000 CD's in series would
be without defect significant enough to make an unrecoverable
numerical error.

Yes, there is - and they are.

The bank probably has the discs pre-tested, uses
non-standard CD-R, or each coaster is discarded as it is uncovered.

We use standard CD-Rs from TDK, and indeed the occasional 'coaster' is
produced and discarded (about one in five hundred IIRC). I was
referring to successfully produced discs which are subsequently
compared for archive verification.

Do you personally check each CD against the tapes?

No, but I know a man who does. :-)

As this is a relatively new archive, and banks are *very* fussy about
archival media, there's a parallel operation running, and the archive
media are compared on a quarterly basis by the IT storage guys, to
check for deterioration.

Can you personally
attest to the "fact" that no disc has been disposed of in this three
year time period?

Yes, as we'd have been asked to do a reprint.

Can you buggery - you work in the print department.

We 'print' the CDs, you ignorant ****.

Probably some bloke with a moustache told you this over a packet of
crisps at the coffee machine (it's a Clix.. right?) and you took it
for gospel.

I do have a mouser, but I don't eat crisps, and we have a proper
coffemaker in the office..............

I wager my house, my car, all my electrical goods that you cannot
prove what you are saying conclusively.

Bad idea, Dormouse......................

I can easily provide proof of this, as the Bank is strangely sensitive
about the archiving of financial data. It's a legal requirement that
we archive all customer records for a *minimum* of six years, and that
we can provide an *exact* copy of any statement produced over that
period if required for court evidence. We do this all the time in
fraud cases.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003 11:09:42 -0500, dave weil
wrote:

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003 16:09:44 +0100, Paul Dormer
wrote:

George M. Middius wrote:

CD lens cleaning discs typically have a series of minute brushes glued
or imbedded onto a CD that you play in your machine. They may flick
off specks of dust that cause intermittent problems, they may also
irreparably scratch and damage the lens.

Sounds dreadful. Were they designed by "some bloke with a
moustache"?

The designer almost certainly sported a moustache.

And apparently left some of it on the CD cleaner.

LOL! :-)
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

"dave weil" wrote in message

they designed by "some bloke with a
moustache"?

The designer almost certainly sported a moustache.

And apparently left some of it on the CD cleaner.

I always thought they were miniatures of Dolly parton's stick-on eyelashes
....


geoff

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003 13:44:31 -0400, George M. Middius
wrote:

Stewart Pinkerton said:

Sounds dreadful. Were they designed by "some bloke with a
moustache"?

The designer almost certainly sported a moustache.

And apparently left some of it on the CD cleaner.

LOL! :-)

Any joke at the expense of the wogs sends Pinkie over the edge.

What, you think that only 'wogs' have moustaches? You really are
losing it, Gorge.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003 13:43:51 -0400, George M. Middius
wrote:

Paul Dormer said:

Sounds dreadful. Were they designed by "some bloke with a
moustache"?

The designer almost certainly sported a moustache.

And apparently left some of it on the CD cleaner.

Exactly!

And I thought you were trolling .... somebody, who knows.... with
your apparent adoption of racialism.

That's 'racism', you cretin. And WTF does it have to do with
moustaches? Was Teddy Roosevelt a 'wog'?
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering