SACD vs DVD-A (Business/Marketing reason)

[Feanor]

Philips and Sony are not really trying to make SACD succeed. If they really wanted it to succeed, they should release EVERYTHING they have on SACD disc, so that there would be a decent selection of titles. As it is, they put only a few titles out, so they guarantee that the format will never gain much acceptance.

I doubt it was never specifically intended for the mass market. It suspect Sony/Philips' base scenario was that it would serve a niche, audiophile market. This is, at best, what has come to pass.

The essense of niche marketing is that you serve a small group of consumers with atypical needs and desires and that you charge them a premium for your product. I suspect that Sony/Philips big disappointment is they haven't been able to sustain very high-markups on SACD hardware and software.

So why didn't audiophiles go for it in bigger way? Dunno. But I can think of a couple of things and both pertain to audiophile conservatism:

• Multi-channel never became a big driver; most hard-core audiphiles remained content with 2-channel.
• Vinyl media and tube electronics remained the fixation of a significant portion of audiophiles.

(There is a connect between the two; how practical is a six channel tube amp?)

Personnaly I believe the many audiophiles' stated interest in maximum high fidelity sound quality is not reality. They prefer "musicality" to true hi-fi, and musicality is defined to be what they are getting from the antiquated technology.

[shokhead]

I doubt it was never specifically intended for the mass market. It suspect Sony/Philips' base scenario was that it would serve a niche, audiophile market. This is, at best, what has come to pass.

The essense of niche marketing is that you serve a small group of consumers with atypical needs and desires and that you charge them a premium for your product. I suspect that Sony/Philips big disappointment is they haven't been able to sustain very high-markups on SACD hardware and software.

So why didn't audiophiles go for it in bigger way? Dunno. But I can think of a couple of things and both pertain to audiophile conservatism:

• Multi-channel never became a big driver; most hard-core audiphiles remained content with 2-channel.
• Vinyl media and tube electronics remained the fixation of a significant portion of audiophiles.

(There is a connect between the two; how practical is a six channel tube amp?)

Personnaly I believe the many audiophiles' stated interest in maximum high fidelity sound quality is not reality. They prefer "musicality" to true hi-fi, and musicality is defined to be what they are getting from the antiquated technology.

I dont belive that most audiophiles remain content with 2ch. I think most people that buy music{12-25 or so} would rather have quantity over quality like mp3. Stuff we talk about here are amoung a small group compared to the overall audio buying public. I have a 18 and 20 year old and they could care less about multi-channal but they care about 1000 songs on a mp3 player. They dont sit and listen,they are on the move when they listen.