Quote Originally Posted by Woochifer
I don't know why you're declaring BR dead as an audio format, when the first batch of audio-only releases has barely trickled out. Neil Young seems to think that Blu-ray's got plenty of promise as a music format because it offers up both high resolution audio and full interactive capability, something that wasn't possible with DVD-A and SACD. His archival boxed sets on Blu-ray start coming out in the fall.
But here's my question: what is "full interactive capability" for an audio-only format? It sounds like what you're describing is video-capability in an audio format, and we've seen that already. Will people shell out more money for BR audio-only disks (over CD, for example), if that same BR could also have had video? I picture a whole line of folks in line at Costco after x-mas returning their Neil Young box sets because it's only half what they paid for, that is, the video is missing! Another way to ask the question: why should it be different from any other BR concert video?

It always strikes me as ironic that for a hi-quality format to succeed commercially it has to appeal to a mass market that doesn't care that much about the high-quality. So there is every attempt by the marketing departments to tout the additional features of said format, when the most important feature, higher-quality, is downplayed. And all these extra features mean very little to those very people (presumably a smaller minority) who actually care about the higher quality format and who would actually pay a premium for it. I'm not saying that BR music is dead, heck I would welcome it now that I have a BR player, but I will say that those people trying to market it are stuck selling a product to the wrong consumer to prove it's marketability.

Then there is the problem with the equipment that a higher-quality audio format would benefit from. Like a few other people have said here as well, their surround sound system that has the BR/SACD/DVD-A player, is typically their lower-end system. That is, if they even have two systems. I'm one of those odd birds that had four different systems (now reduced to two), but how common is that really? No, the fact is that most consumers have mediocre surround sound systems, in actually usable living rooms, that are poorly calibrated to boot. These are hardly ideal setups for experiencing the virtues of the audio formats that BR is capable of. The people here on this board are an exception, to be sure, so let's consider all the people we know with "surround sound" systems and be honest about how good they really are. They might hear a slight difference in a higher sound format, but would they shell out more money for a better system to hear that incremental improvement? I doubt it.

Finally, the single cable argument is rather moot. Both SACD and DVD-A can also be transmitted via HDMI ver 1.2 and above. I agree that not all consumer-level receivers will handle bass management, delay, timing, etc. with the same level of detail, but at least the format is supported. Then again, how many consumers (outside of this board) actually adjust these?

I think, and this is just my guess, that BR audio-only will be more niche than Neil Young or Michael Tilson Thomas would like to admit. I do hope that this new audio medium will augment rather than replace existing formats, althout it seems that the manufacturers are not so concerned about it since I have yet to see a BR player that plays SACD (aside from the PS3).