Given his history, Mark Levinson lecturing on ethics is rich.
Thanks Myles. That was a good read. I actually met him and this interview was much more coherent than my personal experience with him . While I agree with a lot of what he has to say, he does miss some things. An example is this: "What Sony really wanted to do is stop piracy." That is not true although it may appear to be the story from outside. Sony has/had two distinct divisions: the electronics arm in Japan and the Sony Music in US. Sony electronics designed SACD, not Sony Music. The motivation for Sony electronics was not stopping piracy -- that was forced on them by their Sony Music division. What motivated them, and Philips, was that their joint patents for CD were expiring and with it, huge source of easy revenue. Patents have a useful life of ~19 years. The CD format was introduced in 1982 so the patents predated that a bit. Assuming a general date of 1980, by year 2000 the rights to them would expire. So the SACD was introduced in 1999, hoping to cement it by the time those patents ran out.
Thanks Myles. That was a good read. I actually met him and this interview was much more coherent than my personal experience with him . While I agree with a lot of what he has to say, he does miss some things. An example is this: "What Sony really wanted to do is stop piracy." That is not true although it may appear to be the story from outside. Sony has/had two distinct divisions: the electronics arm in Japan and the Sony Music in US. Sony electronics designed SACD, not Sony Music. The motivation for Sony electronics was not stopping piracy -- that was forced on them by their Sony Music division. What motivated them, and Philips, was that their joint patents for CD were expiring and with it, huge source of easy revenue. Patents have a useful life of ~19 years. The CD format was introduced in 1982 so the patents predated that a bit. Assuming a general date of 1980, by year 2000 the rights to them would expire. So the SACD was introduced in 1999, hoping to cement it by the time those patents ran out.
I believe that was the concern of the all the content owners, not just Sony Music. Encrypted outputs are supported as a result.But I also think that Sony shot itself in the foot, when they wouldn't allow manufacturers to include a digital out with their SACD players, because of the piracy concern.
I believe that was the concern of the all the content owners, not just Sony Music. Encrypted outputs are supported as a result.
interesting quote:
"In my opinion, the high-end audio-cable business is mostly a farce, and in some respects it's based on deception and fraud. The definition of fraud is willfully misleading the public for financial gain, and that's exactly what I believe many of these cable companies are doing. They know it's not real, but they do it anyway. It's unethical, and I deplore it."
It really wasn't. As I mentioned, it was all about patents. What else it did was almost beside the point . Again, I am talking about the Sony mothership. Sony music liked other things about it as I mentioned.Amir,
Don't you think that the surround sound capability of SACD was a major point to Sony?
It was a clear case of wrong feature for the targeted customer. The target customer who cared about > CD performance was a 2-channel guy. The audience, especially at the time, thought that surround sound was a low-fidelity solution designed for average Joe to watch movies. It did not have a reputation of being the next step beyond 2-channel because of how it was marketed (i.e. movie sound).I always considered it one of the most significant features - unhappily only a few quality recordings in surround have shown, the audio market did not embrace it.
Content makers agreed to "legacy" quality for unencrypted outputs. 44.1/48 kHz, 16-bit. But I was referring to native DSD output.That wouldn't allow >24/44.1 IIRC.
You had an outboard DSD DAC? What was the input connector?I remember buying my SCD-1 with the hope of eventually sending it to someone unnamed to have them bypass that feature
You had an outboard DSD DAC? What was the input connector?
interesting quote:
"In my opinion, the high-end audio-cable business is mostly a farce, and in some respects it's based on deception and fraud. The definition of fraud is willfully misleading the public for financial gain, and that's exactly what I believe many of these cable companies are doing. They know it's not real, but they do it anyway. It's unethical, and I deplore it."
I
I agree and everyone can see it differently. But I also think that Sony shot itself in the foot, when they wouldn't allow manufacturers to include a digital out with their SACD players, because of the piracy concern. And not having enough units out their to allow for editing (sounds like the same thing that happened with HDTV too!) was also ridiculous.
But I also posted it because some people aren't aware that many so-called SACD discs are really nothing than repackaged PCM.
interesting quote:
"In my opinion, the high-end audio-cable business is mostly a farce, and in some respects it's based on deception and fraud. The definition of fraud is willfully misleading the public for financial gain, and that's exactly what I believe many of these cable companies are doing. They know it's not real, but they do it anyway. It's unethical, and I deplore it."
While there were SACDs that were up sampled PCM, the vast majority are
not. And certainly not any of the Steve Hoffman, Gus Skinas, Mofi, or Doug Sax titles.
There are just as many $50 "audiophile" LPs cut from digital masters..even some from from 44.1. Oh, like the Beatles for instance lol.
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