Thread: SACD Enthusiasts...Are There Enough Of Us?

Posts: 44
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Post by Khorn July 31, 2003 (1 of 44)
I enjoy reading and posting to this forum but, I am beginning to wonder about attracting new users and more discussion to this site. I believe there are about 177 members here at the present time, a great number of us frequent the other couple of discussion groups that include SACD in their topics.

I guess one question is: how many SACDs are sold and listened to in that format, not as a CD in a Hybrid like the "stealth" marketed Stones discs?

Another question is how to promote this site other than "preaching to the converted" so to speak as in the groups referred to above?

This site is a great asset to **US** (dedicated SACD users) but numbers are required to survive and grow and I'm just not sure where these numbers are going to come from.

I'm not too confident in the way I perceive the marketing of SACD is taking shape 'specially in the mass market or critical mass area.

We just might have to be resigned to the possibility that SACD might remain in the realm of the "audiophile" similar to the MFSL, DCC and Classic Gold discs or the JVC XRCD line. I sure hope that isn't the case but, at the present time I tend to wonder.

Anybody have ideas about this?

Post by zeus July 31, 2003 (2 of 44)
Khorn said:

I enjoy reading and posting to this forum but, I am beginning to wonder about attracting new users and more discussion to this site. I believe there are about 177 members here at the present time, a great number of us frequent the other couple of discussion groups that include SACD in their topics.

Some perspective. There's been just under 10,000 unique visitors to this site since I started collecting such stats on May 1 of this year. And looking at the referrals, from a lot more than just "a couple of discussion groups". Most arrive here via Google. As for the number of users, I'd be well pleased if I hit 500 active users in 6 months time, a small percentage of the number of lurkers but this is the way of things.

Stephen

Post by Khorn July 31, 2003 (3 of 44)
zeus said:

Some perspective. There's been just under 10,000 unique visitors to this site since I started collecting such stats on May 1 of this year. And looking at the referrals, from a lot more than just "a couple of discussion groups". Most arrive here via Google. As for the number of users, I'd be well pleased if I hit 500 active users in 6 months time, a small percentage of the number of lurkers but this is the way of things.

Stephen

Good to hear! "Perspective" is a strange thing. I can only see the number of people who are active by becoming registered users, and by recognizing some of the names. As for lurkers, at least they can give you some indication as to the level of interest the more of them the better.

Hi-rez formats are still understood and utilized by relatively few people most people I know wouldn't have a clue as to what SACD was if I asked them. Unfortunately most people don't care about it and that is what concerns me. IMHO the Hybrid SACD/CD is most important to SACD's survival as well as keeping prices to the level that non Hi-rez buyers wouldn't object to.

I guess the real question is: what would be considered the "critical mass" for the survival of SACD over the long term?

Post by soundboy August 1, 2003 (4 of 44)
Khorn said:

Good to hear! "Perspective" is a strange thing. I can only see the number of people who are active by becoming registered users, and by recognizing some of the names. As for lurkers, at least they can give you some indication as to the level of interest the more of them the better.

Hi-rez formats are still understood and utilized by relatively few people most people I know wouldn't have a clue as to what SACD was if I asked them. Unfortunately most people don't care about it and that is what concerns me. IMHO the Hybrid SACD/CD is most important to SACD's survival as well as keeping prices to the level that non Hi-rez buyers wouldn't object to.

I guess the real question is: what would be considered the "critical mass" for the survival of SACD over the long term?

I hate to rain on the parade, but from what I can see, vast majority of the consumers just doesn't care about SACD. Nor do they want to take the effort to learn what it is, especially when they find out they have to purchase another disc of the same title or a "special" player to play SACD. These people are satisfied with internet downloads and rather spend time searching for illegal and free downloads. While I agree hybrids and comparable pricing to redbook CDs are ways to achieve greater acceptance of SACDs within the mainstream, it's very likely that SACD will be just another "audiophile fringe" format. It's hard enough as it is to sell redbook CDs to regular consumers in the face of internet music downloads.

Of the 30 or so SACDs I have, 2/3 of them are Hong Kong pop SACDs (not listed on this site) that cost anywhere between US$25.00 to US$35.00 each here in the States. My friends think I am utterly nuts and laughed themselves silly when they found out how much I paid for these discs. Talk about being alone....like how I feel whenever I am at a store looking at SACD titles.

Post by zeus August 1, 2003 (5 of 44)
soundboy said:

Of the 30 or so SACDs I have, 2/3 of them are Hong Kong pop SACDs (not listed on this site) ...

Danny,

I know that you've provided information on some of these to me in the past, but I'm wondering if you could please itemise what you have with as much detail as possible and either post the information here or email this to stephen@sacdinfo.com. I find it difficult to work these titles out, even sometimes what the label is, consequently these have gravitated to the "too hard" basket. I'd really like to correct this situation.

Stephen

Post by soundboy August 1, 2003 (6 of 44)
zeus said:

Danny,

I know that you've provided information on some of these to me in the past, but I'm wondering if you could please itemise what you have with as much detail as possible and either post the information here or email this to stephen@sacdinfo.com. I find it difficult to work these titles out, even sometimes what the label is, consequently these have gravitated to the "too hard" basket. I'd really like to correct this situation.

Stephen

Stephen,

You will have the itemized info by end of this weekend.

soundboy

Post by Tom August 5, 2003 (7 of 44)
Khorn said:

I enjoy reading and posting to this forum but, I am beginning to wonder about attracting new users and more discussion to this site. I believe there are about 177 members here at the present time, a great number of us frequent the other couple of discussion groups that include SACD in their topics.

I guess one question is: how many SACDs are sold and listened to in that format, not as a CD in a Hybrid like the "stealth" marketed Stones discs?

Another question is how to promote this site other than "preaching to the converted" so to speak as in the groups referred to above?

This site is a great asset to **US** (dedicated SACD users) but numbers are required to survive and grow and I'm just not sure where these numbers are going to come from.

I'm not too confident in the way I perceive the marketing of SACD is taking shape 'specially in the mass market or critical mass area.

We just might have to be resigned to the possibility that SACD might remain in the realm of the "audiophile" similar to the MFSL, DCC and Classic Gold discs or the JVC XRCD line. I sure hope that isn't the case but, at the present time I tend to wonder.

Anybody have ideas about this?

For me the number of SACD owners and SACDs have reached a critical mass. There's already more SACDs available than I'm willing to buy. Don't worry about the number of users. Just enjoy your SACDs and participation on the Forum.

Post by jnd28 August 11, 2003 (8 of 44)
soundboy said:

I hate to rain on the parade, but from what I can see, vast majority of the consumers just doesn't care about SACD. Nor do they want to take the effort to learn what it is, especially when they find out they have to purchase another disc of the same title or a "special" player to play SACD. These people are satisfied with internet downloads and rather spend time searching for illegal and free downloads. While I agree hybrids and comparable pricing to redbook CDs are ways to achieve greater acceptance of SACDs within the mainstream, it's very likely that SACD will be just another "audiophile fringe" format. It's hard enough as it is to sell redbook CDs to regular consumers in the face of internet music downloads.

Of the 30 or so SACDs I have, 2/3 of them are Hong Kong pop SACDs (not listed on this site) that cost anywhere between US$25.00 to US$35.00 each here in the States. My friends think I am utterly nuts and laughed themselves silly when they found out how much I paid for these discs. Talk about being alone....like how I feel whenever I am at a store looking at SACD titles.

I do not think its a matter of consumers not caring about SACDs. Ii think it is because they do not know about them. I am appalled at the lack of effort put into the marketing of SACDs. I am a relatively savy consumer and I had never even heard of SACDs until an associate told me about them. I am now hooked. I believe that the great majority would care if they only knew!

josh

Post by nucaleena August 12, 2003 (9 of 44)
jnd28 said:

I do not think its a matter of consumers not caring about SACDs. Ii think it is because they do not know about them. I am appalled at the lack of effort put into the marketing of SACDs. I am a relatively savy consumer and I had never even heard of SACDs until an associate told me about them. I am now hooked. I believe that the great majority would care if they only knew!

josh

dear josh,
I agree about the marketing: please ref. a comment i left today about Linn's marketing and pricing of SACDs (a thread started by zeus and headed "Nigel North, lute".)

A thing that annoys apart from Linn's strange pricing policies and hit and miss marketing thing is the reluctance of several record company and retail sites to list SACDs as a category. Amazon.com is one of the worst offenders. About 118 sacd titles come up on search "SACD" (classical music) at the moment, which is LESS than three months ago, yet when you do a specific-item search (which means you have to know what's been released) the SACD title will then appear. Amazon.uk is far better, listing more than twice as many classical titles as .com, - so why the difference. Please join me in writing to amazon.com asking for better presentation/marketing of SACDs. You could do the same with HMV as well, who just suck compared to MVC.

Even companies that produce excellent SACDs, like Hyperion, make it hard to find them on their websites without a search. And although Telarc are a top producer, their marketing is so bad that superb SACD's like Ensemble Galilei's "From the Isles to the Courts" have to rely almost entitely on reader's reviews on amazon.com for any marketing at all. As for Delos, words fail: seven emails requesting sacd and V(irtual)R(eality) and Dolby surround recordings have failed to elicit a single sensible reply. At least Telarc are courteous, friendly and helpful with emails, - it's just their upfront marketing that's inadequate.

As to an earlier comment from Khnorn about site-users, I've watched the numbers of identifiable users of sacdinfo grow by 30% over the last two months alone, - which proves that sometimes a great product can win out over lousy marketing (either that or that there are an awful lot of us middle-aged audio-technophile nerds in the world).

Post by Dinko August 12, 2003 (10 of 44)
What's really weird about HMV is how different the Canadian and UK versions were.
The Canadian version - hmv.com - does not exist anymore, it was merged with Amazon.ca this spring and is basically a store to avoid: miserably poor selection, extremely high prices on many discs. But whatever the case now, when HMV.com was still around, they put much greater emphasis on SACD than on any of the other surround or high-resolution formats. All SACDs were conveniently listed, and could be browsed by category. Upon entering the Classical section, one could see a feature article on the newest SACD releases. HMV.co.uk is even worse than amazon.

The strange part about amazon: they don't list SACDs which are SACDs, but they do list as SACDs titles which are not SACDs.

I was recently directed towards this item:
http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000ALWE1/402-7785594-3654532

Which is supposedly an SACD. Even though there is no word of it being an SACD at the record label's own website:
http://www.varesesarabande.com/details.asp?pid=302%2D066%2D492%2D2

It doesn't mean that it's not an SACD, but I wouldn't trust Amazon on it.

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