in this issue

L E T T E R S
that likewise interests only a few consumers?
Let’s face it: The most reliable
consumer base for hi-res, now and in the
future, consists mainly of people who
know what a Stradivarius or a Martin
Dreadnought actually sounds like and
are willing to pay to hear it in their living
rooms (or, OK, possibly through
their E5c’s, sucking in a high-sample file
from an iPod).
All those iPods have convinced the
majors that ordinary folks, many of
whom have never heard an acoustic
instrument or experienced unamplified
music in a performance space, want
music that’s portable and easy to manipulate,
not “sweet” or “absolute.” Ashlee
Simpson fans are never going to rise up
and demand Blu-ray.
By repeatedly and prematurely
sounding the death knell for SACD and
DVD-A, you are hurting those who actually
care. We’ll probably survive—after
all, we’ve been hearing reports of the
“death” of classical music for years now—
but continued editorial whining from
influential voices like yours will only further
diminish the stream of new domestic
releases on existing hi-res formats. It certainly
won’t pave the way for Blu-ray
audio; as you admit, its chances are slim.
Please consider giving more space
and support in TAS to digital hi-res
that’s here, now, instead of cultivating
false hopes for formats that are far less
likely to emerge, let alone succeed.
LAWRENCE SCHENBECK, DMA
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MUSIC HISTORY
SPELMAN COLLEGE, ATLANTA
For the record, I never said that SACD was
“dead.” Rather, my point was that as a niche
format at best, SACD (and DVD-Audio)
would not satisfy the two essential criteria of
great sound and availability of a significant
percentage of the world’s recorded music. –RH
CD, High-Res Digital, and LP
First of all, I would like to congratulate
you on a magazine which is courageous
enough to tackle new and varied highresolution
types of music reproduction
such as SACD and XRCD. Thank you
for proposing to the reader what you
hear and how you hear it on certain
equipment when most other magazines
are ignoring or barely mentioning such
important changes in the formats of
sound reproduction. In the future, it
will be interesting to see how you tackle
the new high-resolution formats in
the form of Blu-ray and HD DVD, with
what seems to be the relegation of
SACD and DVD-Audio, in particular,
to footnotes of audio history. This
upheaval in high-res digital helps me
appreciate your fallback mode with the
LP. It is already a niche market, and as
such is like an old shoe, always familiar
and comfortable. It is for most of us,
10 THE ABSOLUTE SOUND ■ APRIL/MAY 2006