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> I think that's very likely true now, but in Sony's defense (yes, I hate myself for saying that!), SACD was, at its introduction, at least in part a reaction to Napster and badly-extracted/encoded MP3s and crummy portables and all the other junk on the legitimate and illegitimate market at the time. My aging memory says there was a pretty significant time lag between when Those Darn Kids started trading their MP3s and the more serious listeners started using Squeezeboxes and other genuinely good devices.
Even at its introduction, SACD was not going to win over people happily trading 128kbps MP3s over Napster. SACD wouldn’t play on their portables, in their cars, in their computers, on their home CD player, or even on their home DVD player. If they were going to rip music to make MP3s, they sure weren’t going to pay a premium to start with SACD as the source.
If you recall, Apple started out with DRM in iTunes. But as times changed, Apple pressured the labels to permit non-DRM sales, making it easy for consumers to listen to their purchased music on whatever device they chose. Sony, on the other hand, continues to exert pressure on manufacturers of hardware to prevent any kind of ripping or playback SACD and Blu-raywithout original physical media in place. For example, Oppo was forced to remove SACD-R support as well as support for Blu-Ray iso image files. They did this via a firmware update, degrading players that consumers had paid handsomely to own — sometimes specifically for those features.
You will note that iTunes is thriving. SACD and Blu-ray? Not so much.
Regards,
Fred Maxwell
Moderator, Exact Audio Copy Yahoogroup