Naxos, which bills itself as world's largest classical music distributor, has already made its decision. In the December 2007 issue of Stereophile, Klaus Heymann of Naxos revealed that the company, which has ceased releasing multichannel recordings in both SACD and DVD-A formats, has been awaiting the triumph of either Blu-ray or HD DVD before again releasing multichannel recordings. On February 18, Heymann announced that it will begin releasing multi-channel recordings on Blu-ray later this year. :yikes:If other record companies follow Naxos' lead, expect a host of new high-end Blu-ray players designed to deliver audiophile quality sound from Blu-ray.


Saw this in Stereophile online.

From what I understand, the audio quality from current bluray players is already very good.

A "universal" disc format is long overdue.

Considering that Naxos has only released 43 SACD's since SACD has been on the market, I'd have to say whatever they do really doesn't matter in the scheme of things.

Personally, PCM based Blu-Ray doesn't do anything for me.

Blue Ray is not an audio/video format, it is a storage platform witch can hold any kind of sound (or data) as long as it does not exceed 50GB of data. Look at it as a small harddrive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc

Bluray is the last physical media based format. Many high end manufacturers are skipping it just like SACD & DVD-A. They are going right to high resolution downloads or high resolution music as data files on DVD (Reference Recordings).

I think Bluray is pretty irrelevant in the high end audio world. I'm not opposed to it. If something has great sound I'll embrace whatever it is. But a better competing product is already available (high resolution downloads) so I won't spend much time on Bluray.

Bluray is the last physical media based format. Many high end manufacturers are skipping it just like SACD & DVD-A. They are going right to high resolution downloads or high resolution music as data files on DVD (Reference Recordings).

I think Bluray is pretty irrelevant in the high end audio world. I'm not opposed to it. If something has great sound I'll embrace whatever it is. But a better competing product is already available (high resolution downloads) so I won't spend much time on Bluray.Not everyone is a computer audiophile, so I am not sure that hi-rez downloads are any more popular than SACDs at this point. There was a recent article in one of the audio mags that discussed how the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra was now offering downloads (I do not think they were hirez, though) and they were not nearly as popular as the SACD hybrid releases.

Whether the audiophile labels will adopt Blu-ray is still yet to be seen. Personally, I would prefer something like Hybrid SACDs so I can burn a copy of the CD layer to my computer for portability and distribution, so I doubt that I will be buying tons of BluRay audio discs unless they find a way to make that happen.

I will say that the multi-channel sound quality from Blu-ray releases can be outstanding. As one example, the Dave Mathews/Tim Reynolds "Live at Radio City Music Hall" concert disc is nothing short of amazing.

I'd rather have a physical copy of something that I own versus trusting a computer to keep it since it's not a matter of IF the drive is going to fail, it's when. If it ever makes it to that being my only choice for buying music or movies, I'll just watch my old collection. Just my $.02 you understand...

Hey guys I certainly understand where you are coming from. In addition to computer based audio I love vinyl and the great physical piece of artwork etc...

Hi resolution downloads are not more popular than SACD right now, but SACD has been around for nearly 10 years. I think the downloads are fabulous because you can always burn them to physical media if you want, or just backup your disks on your computer.

Based on what I saw at CES everyone is moving toward computer based music servers.

I'd rather have a physical copy of something that I own versus trusting a computer to keep it since it's not a matter of IF the drive is going to fail, it's when. If it ever makes it to that being my only choice for buying music or movies, I'll just watch my old collection. Just my $.02 you understand...
To me, this is the central issue confronting music consumers. The music industry is focused on copy protection, but consumers are focused on collection protection. I would very much like to be able to get hi-res downloads instead of any physical product, but the idea of any kind of failure wiping out one's entire collection is a deal-killer.

MusicGiants is addressing this by their drive-reload concept, where if your music server drive fails you send it to them and they'll reload you a new one, with everything you've ever downloaded from them. Others have different approaches, but until at least one approach sticks, consumers are still stalled.

The only physical formats I trust at this point are vanilla CDs and analog. In the case of CDs, I tend to purchase them used. It's a much better deal.

I do some digital, but I don't purchase a whole lot. Me and my friends pirate quite a bit between ourselves over local networks/external hard drives etc. Apple's Time Machine backup software takes away most of my worries about hard drive crashes and so on.

At the end of the day, I don't trust the music companies at all. I'm not about to make a big investment in their latest-greatest new format that's laden with DRM and costs more to boot.

I think Bluray is pretty irrelevant in the high end audio world.
Hi resolution downloads are not more popular than SACD right now, but SACD has been around for nearly 10 years. I think the downloads are fabulous because you can always burn them to physical media if you want, or just backup your disks on your computer.Well, I think that Bluray has just won the "High Def War", so it is way too early to say that it is irrelevant in any sense right now. In other words, downloading has been around for many more years than Bluray and Hirez downloading is still trying to get off the ground. I think we should give BluRay a litte more time before having in real idea of how successful it will be.

Personally, I have all my albums in Flac format and I have them backed up on separate drives, so I am not opposed to using a computer as a source. However, hirez is such a niche product, that I wonder how many audiophiles will agree that they get the best sound quality that way as opposed to a stand-alone player.

The main issue with today's technology is that a great deal of it will become tomorrow's obsolescence.

People that are 'latest and greatest' addicts generally jump at the chance to scrap last month's 'high-tech' off the bottom of their shoe, and quickly move on to the next format.

However, while that new technology is being released, R&D designers have already conceptualized, presented, tooled, and tested two or three new formats. One of those will most likely soon hit the market.

There are simply too many choices that are proprietary in nature for the market to head in the same direction. We are the ones that pay for this diversification in the long run.

CD is still one of the main staples for standard digital audio. It's widely available, can be used in the home, in the car, and in the workplace. You can burn a CD-R which serves as a playable archival copy of standard definition digital downloads.

Of course, you're always going to have those individuals that simply can't live without listening to 192kHz 7.1 recordings while going out for a run in the morning.

. . Falcon

Blu-ray as a medium for music? It's a non-starter. In my opinion, SACD/DVD-A were the last music-oriented physical mediums....and SACD is coming away as the winner. Blu-ray has quite a way to go before catching up to SACD's 5,100+ (and still growing) catalog.

Blu-ray will be good for hi-rez concert video, but for studio albums? Why even bother?

Blu-ray as a medium for music? It's a non-starter. In my opinion, SACD/DVD-A were the last music-oriented physical mediums....and SACD is coming away as the winner. Blu-ray has quite a way to go before catching up to SACD's 5,100+ (and still growing) catalog.

Blu-ray will be good for hi-rez concert video, but for studio albums? Why even bother?
The reason they would bother is because they have the capacity on Bluray discs for the material and the fact that Bluray players will be in a lot of homes in the future thanks to HDTV. The problem with SACD and DVD-A is that people needed a special player to play them. Only audiophiles were going out and replacing their DVD players with universal players. I think they could offer music videos or concerts on the same discs since they have the capacity to do so.

There are simply too many choices that are proprietary in nature for the market to head in the same direction. We are the ones that pay for this diversification in the long run.

CD is still one of the main staples for standard digital audio. It's widely available, can be used in the home, in the car, and in the workplace. You can burn a CD-R which serves as a playable archival copy of standard definition digital downloads.This is the reason I like hybrid SACDs. You get the CD side that will do all of the above and on the same disc you can get two channel and multi-channel hirez sound quality.

I agree that some formats have come and gone (Dual Disc anyone?). However, BluRay will be around for quite a while and is just beginning to get a foothold. While I could just get by with a sony clock/CD radio or iTunes downloads, I want better quality music and or video and I will buy new technologies (like universal DVD players) for that reason.

With the storage capacity of Blue-Ray there is the potential to really have awesome sound. I'll take a wait and see approach for the time being... I would love to see it though....

If you can not play it in a car I don't think it will become as popular as CD.People have to have car music.