Editorial for May 2009

by | May 1, 2009 | Editorial | 0 comments






Welcome to Adobe GoLive 6

Our May drawing/giveaway will award to a dozen AUDIOPHILE AUDITION readers the new double-SACD recording by Richard Egarr of the Bach Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 1 thru 6.  Harmonia mundi is the label, and this was our Multichannel Disc of the Month in March. It is a sparkling interpretation in surround sound which could be part of your own collection if you are a reader who registers here on the site this month.

The three lucky winners of last month’s drawing – for the 30-CD Chandos 30th Anniversary Boxed Set – are: Ciprian Bratu, Charente, France; Joshua Renkin, Denver, CO; Eivind Stillingen, Modum, Norway.  Congrats to all three!


 
Guest Editorial for May
 
The Current Situation with SACD, DVD-Audio
and Blu-ray Disc Regarding Surround Sound

 
Dear Music Lover,
 
At TACET, when it comes to new technology and formats we place high importance on good surround sound (TACET Real Surround Sound and Moving Real Surround Sound). TACET has a solid base of satisfied customers who listen to surround sound. Which of the three formats promises to be the most interesting for our customers in the future?
 
SACD (Super Audio CD): Recently, more SACD players have come onto the market playing back only stereo recordings and not multichannel (surround sound) ones. It would seem that many manufacturers do not believe that surround sound SACD has a future. There is good reason to doubt that SACD will become the market leader for surround sound, in view of the high manufacturing costs (two layers to ensure compatibility with the CD) and a low level of SACD player owners amongst surround sound listeners.
 
Blu-ray Disc: It is not compatible with SACD or DVD-Audio. It sounds good, but not any better than the other two. Customers interested in surround sound are (almost) sure to own a DVD player and often an SACD player too. If they wanted to use a new format they would have to invest in both a new player and a new disc collection. In the longer term, in the best case there will be three formats rather than two, all of
which must be playable. That is, if the Blu-ray Disc is to be an alternative to pure audio formats at all, in addition to its function as a movie medium.
 
DVD-Audio: In its original format the sound quality and capacity are ideal. With a minimal reduction in quality (using its Dolby 5.1 option) it is compatible with DVD-Video and will thus in the foreseeable future be playable on any surround equipment in the world.
 
Conclusion:
TACET will continue to offer DVD-Audio and SACD. For the reasons we have stated, we will wait to see what happens with Blu-ray Disc. If Blu-ray should turn out to gain acceptance in the audio sector worldwide, TACET can still bring out Blu-ray discs at short notice. At the moment, however, this would probably be counter-productive and unsettle our satisfied customers. TACET is making a clear
statement: starting from now we are releasing ten new DVD-Audios in tried and tested TACET Real Surround Sound (one per month).
 
Yours sincerely, 
Andreas Spreer
TACET GmbH
 


 
EDITORIAL
 
AUDIOPHILE AUDITION began in 1985 as a weekly national radio series hosted by John Sunier, which aired for 13 1/2 years on up to 200 public radio and commercial stations coast to coast. In September 1998 its site for programming information was expanded to the present Net publication.
 
May 09 is our 123rd issue, and we’re publishing more and more disc reviews each month All of them – over 100 per month – are added throughout the month as they are written and received, usually on a daily basis. We have organized the web site to make it easy to navigate and find content. The most recent reviews appear at the top of each Section Index. The Home Page lists the five latest published reviews, the Section Index lists the past two months of reviews, the Archive goes back to June 1, 2005, and for all reviews by month prior to that you need to click on the Old Archive, which goes back to 2001. The Disc Index lists all past reviews.
 
You probably have some friends who would like to know about Audiophile Audition.  Please pass our URL on to them and help expand our elite group of readers and collectors.  It’s easy to do at the bottom of every review, by just clicking on the "Email this page to a friend" link. Thanks in advance for getting the word out!

We welcome your feedback, and we have a Reader Feedback section. Please send us your comments, and we will review and possibly post them to that section. Check back with us frequently for more reviews and news, and be sure to register for our monthly giveaway! When you do, please give us the few requested facts, and include a working Email and street address – otherwise we can’t send you your winning item!  We don’t ask a lot of financial details, and we don’t share your information with anyone else.


 — The AUDIOPHILE AUDITION staff


 
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STAFF WRITERS:
Dalia
Geffen, Laurence Vittes, Tom Gibbs,
Gary
Lemco, Brian Bloom, Clay Swartz, John Henry, Peter Bates, Ron
Legum, Paul Pelon IV, Calvin Harding Jr.,
Birney Brown, Jeff Krow, Daniel Krow, Hermon Joyner, Bob Moon, Steven Ritter, Randy Haldeman, Max Dudious, Howard Herrnstadt, John Nemaric, Doug Simpson, Peter Joelson, Jan P. Dennis, Michael Birman, John Sunier.


  © John Sunier 2009 


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