Will CDs ever go Hi-Res?

[manicm]

Not sure where my comments come into this. Ultimately JEITA didn't define HI Res Audio until March 2014, well after the SACD/DVD/CD-DA war ended. Things may have been so different if a standard was defined before from a physical format standpoint

The different hi-res standards countries/regions are now gravitating to is irrelevant to the format war which started 20 years ago (that's scary).

Whilst the CD is in rapid decline in many regions, whilst declining in Japan the CD still accounts for 70% of all Audio sales. Until they stop offering exclusive content on the formats, and prices of Hi-res online audio decrease, their is still a market for innovating with the format.

On a seperate note, for those looking to buy Hi Res Audio from Japan, the 3 main sales periods to look for are:
- End of Spring (usually March/easter time)
- End of September
- December

‘their is still a market for innovating with the format.’ I don’t understand your statement, what format, the disc? As far as discs that play in standard CD players go, no, there is no innovation. I know Japan have been doing mindfu*k’s on redbook, but I and millions others won’t get to bother.

I agree standard CDs are far from dead, if we have to thank Japan God bless ’em. And I do like the idea of MQA discs, but alas where’s the hardware??

The trouble with the Japanese is that with discs they have soup of the day everyday, but not necessarily tasty.

 

[Friesiansam]

Since my previous Post, replies were about discs. It's myopic to be focusing on physical-media.

The OP sought Hi-Res for its higher (than CD) quality:

The talk about physical media, i.e. discs, is because the OP's question was about discs, as you can see in the quote below, taken from the original post.

could CD's ever go hi-res quality and move up bitrate and sampling levels, and if not why not?

 

[Wil]

The talk about physical media, i.e. discs, is because the OP's question was about discs, as you can see in the quote below, taken from the original post.

What I quoted was more revealing, better:

Sorry for late reply (to all), have been recovering from covid and getting back to work. Thankfully it wasnt too bad, but enough to keep me off work for a couple of weeks (would have taken time off even if hadnt needed to isolate). 95% over it now.....

Yeah, so the benefits I was envisaging were that I can clearly hear the difference on my system from regular bluetooth to Aptx, to was presuming I would hear subtle but significant differences in other digital source upgrades. Was thinking that as people are into Hi-res music, and most people seem to be saying that there is a difference between this and CD quality, so I was thinking could you not then put those Hi-res files straight onto disc, to be played, albeit on an upgraded player. And if there is no difference in quality, then why is Hi-res a thing?

Hi-Res is the end-game. Physical-media becomes a red herring.

 

[ThisIsJimmy]

‘their is still a market for innovating with the format.’ I don’t understand your statement, what format, the disc? As far as discs that play in standard CD players go, no, there is no innovation. I know Japan have been doing mindfu*k’s on redbook, but I and millions others won’t get to bother.

I agree standard CDs are far from dead, if we have to thank Japan God bless ’em. And I do like the idea of MQA discs, but alas where’s the hardware??

The trouble with the Japanese is that with discs they have soup of the day everyday, but not necessarily tasty.

Hey, i'm all for Digital Hi-Res, and that's what I buy when i can. I buy CD only when what i want isn't available as a Hi-Res Digital file.

MQA is lossy ultimately, so for those who want lossless it's another irrelevant gimmick dead end introduced as the latest form of Digital Rights Managment.

It's extremely unlikely at this point a new physical standard will be introduced at this point, hence the only option to achieve what the OP is suggesting is tinkering with existing physical format in such a way that nothing new is required. To that end as Asia still has the biggest market for the CD, it's the best place for them to do this.

 

[iMark]

We can continue to repeat ourselves but the original question (and title of the thread) has been answered many times now. CDs will never go "hi-res".

I'm quite interested in discussing alternatives to CDs but not in this topic.

I still buy new CDs because that way I support the artists and there I never run the risk that music I have bought will be deleted from streaming services. I also like the fact that I can very easily rip CDs and copy music to my iPhone. I also like the extra information in the booklets and the artwork.

 

[Wil]

We can continue to repeat ourselves but the original question (and title of the thread) has been answered many times now. CDs will never go "hi-res".

Correcting your misrepresentation of OP's wishes for I trust the final time, in Post #45 it became clear his use of "CDs" was generic:

I was thinking could you not then put those Hi-res files straight onto disc, to be played, albeit on an upgraded player.

How I then correctly answered, back in Post #69:

Recalling your initial question, regarding the 12cm disc, I notice companies adopting D+M's SACD-M3 transport mechanism e.g. dCS & Playback Designs.

From my own player's product description:
"This new mechanism promises exceptional sound quality from conventional CD and SA-CD discs and allows listeners to create their own high-resolution audio compilation discs using a computer DVD burner. The SA-KI Ruby supports FLAC files from 44.1kHz to 192kHz at up to 24-bit resolution, DSD2.8MHz and DSD 5.6MHz, ALAC (Apple Lossless), AIFF and MP3 files. Creating and playing hi-res disc compilations is as simple as it is enjoyable."

 

[Wil]

I've edited this Post because it was making fun of another's non sequitur…

Let's instead plug:

 

[Deleted member 188533]

^ Was commercial spam in the making. In fact they may very well have been about to spam the site that you linked Will. So I'm going to edit your post a bit.

 

[manicm]

Hey, i'm all for Digital Hi-Res, and that's what I buy when i can. I buy CD only when what i want isn't available as a Hi-Res Digital file.

MQA is lossy ultimately, so for those who want lossless it's another irrelevant gimmick dead end introduced as the latest form of Digital Rights Managment.

It's extremely unlikely at this point a new physical standard will be introduced at this point, hence the only option to achieve what the OP is suggesting is tinkering with existing physical format in such a way that nothing new is required. To that end as Asia still has the biggest market for the CD, it's the best place for them to do this.

Technically MQA may be lossy, but less so than MP3 etc. And Bob Stuart would argue that it’s completely irrelevant. I think it’s a worthwhile format. DRM hasn’t played up yet.

 

[Wil]

I've edited away all mention of their article.

Thinking about the replacement, I looked into WHF's own YouTube Channel : )

^ Was commercial spam in the making. In fact they may very well have been about to spam the site that you linked Will. So I'm going to edit your post a bit.

 

[ThisIsJimmy]

I still buy new CDs because that way I support the artists and there I never run the risk that music I have bought will be deleted from streaming services. I also like the fact that I can very easily rip CDs and copy music to my iPhone. I also like the extra information in the booklets and the artwork.

My thoughts' precisely. I buy music so i own it, can make backups of it, and keep it. I love the extras and things you can get with CD issues (especially from Japan) and they still work out cheaper than the Hi-Res audio online. I'm put off by streaming services based on their being no guarantee of how long a back catalogue will survive and the availability of the music online that i listen to.

For the CD to be truly killed off, Hi-Res has to come down in price as I find it hard to justify the extra cost. If music is being stored as FLAC files then file sizes aren't that large either these days. If their is an argument on up keep/DataCentre/Storage costs, then you could argue that it's just as expensive if not more to churn out CDs and their media with often more middle men involved in that process.

 

[ThisIsJimmy]

Technically MQA may be lossy, but less so than MP3 etc. And Bob Stuart would argue that it’s completely irrelevant. I think it’s a worthwhile format. DRM hasn’t played up yet.

Almost anything is better than MP3 . MQA is DRM in it's very inception. A specific audio format needing specific hardware to decrypt encoded files. I know it's based around trying to protect music/artists (and agree something is needed) but unless it's adoption is forced on everyone by the music industry, it has come way to late as their are too many other streaming and music format alternatives now in circulation (including lossless). For those who are in pursuit of lossless files, it's dead to them before it's got off the ground. Why spend £100s on specific hardware to play another lossy format?

 

[iMark]

@Wil
The original question about CDs and "hi-res" has been answered many times in the thread. And so have the other questions about higher than CD bitrates on disc. These technologies already exist. So the following questions have also been answered. "Hi-res" obviously can be distributed by 12cm disc. But it won't be a CDDA and won't play in a CD player.

The fact that you don't like CDs and recordings made at 16/44.1 is actually not very relevant for the thread.

@ThisIsJimmy
There's something about digital files that doesn't make them very collectable.

 

[manicm]

Almost anything is better than MP3 . MQA is DRM in it's very inception. A specific audio format needing specific hardware to decrypt encoded files. I know it's based around trying to protect music/artists (and agree something is needed) but unless it's adoption is forced on everyone by the music industry, it has come way to late as their are too many other streaming and music format alternatives now in circulation (including lossless). For those who are in pursuit of lossless files, it's dead to them before it's got off the ground. Why spend £100s on specific hardware to play another lossy format?

The very same could be said about SACD - remember these cannot be ripped. So I don’t really get your point or singling out MQA.

 

[ThisIsJimmy]

The very same could be said about SACD - remember these cannot be ripped. So I don’t really get your point or singling out MQA.

Think this is going abit far. My initial reference to MQA was a reponse to expressing my interest from a previous poster. MQA wouldn't hold any attraction to me to purchase as it's lossy. In the same breadth though that's not to say i would buy an SACD either as you cannot backup the DSD layer unless you were doing a rip on specific firmware using a PS3 or had a specific chip in pioneer SACD writers/readers. SACD was created during an era where buggy DISC copy protection was on everything from games/movies, you name it. Whilst some manufacturers may have thought that was clever, it's clearly a turn off to consumers, especially on audio CDs.

We've travelled 20 odd years into the future since then, so any new attempt to do so by a new standard isn't going to get far as you'd think they'd have learnt from the past.

Whilst I applaud any attempt to create Hi-Res audio available on a Conventional CD DISC, if that means you'll never be able to rip the contents at Hi-Res/at all, their is little point as the modern Digital Age consumer used to convenience wont be interested and therefore will garner little interest overall.

 

[Wil]

@Wil
The fact that you don't like CDs and recordings made at 16/44.1

You're just not well read, and are misleading to perpetuate-the-lie:

You've been misled by 12th, sow's ear fall under the proverbial "you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."

So when I wrote "Throw money at 16 bits 44.1kHz all we want, Red Book format will still inherently remain a sow's ear." I meant, in terms of formats, as-a-carrier-for-music, present day, 2021, there are High-Res silk purse solutions for the-musical-Muse.

And you're misleading to say "So you don't like CDs." Because, for me, it's not been a matter of liking, it's been a matter about spending.

 

[iMark]

@Wil
There’s always the option to stop hijacking this thread.

I think all questions have been answered. Time to move on. Maybe someone could start a new topic about practical “hi-res” alternatives for the CD.

 

[Wil]

@Wil
There’s always the option to stop hijacking this thread.

I think all questions have been answered. Time to move on.

Says you who ignited the current mess with:

CDs are actually a standard. Remember in the early 2000s audio discs with DRM were produced by some record companies? They couldn't be called CD because they didn't comply with the CD Redbook standard.

A decent explanation of the CD Redbook standard can be found at https://www.travsonic.com/red-book-cd-format/.

The simple answer? CDs will never be produced to a different standard than the Redbook standard. There could be another type of 12cm disc but it can never be called CD.

People seem to have forgotten what a huge step up in sound quality and convenience the CD was compared to the analogue systems of the time.

And let's recall Sony who co-established the-CD (with Philips) spearheaded the Super Audio CD.

@Wil
CDs will never go "hi-res".

CDs went Hi-Res.

 

[iMark]

Nope. I merely tried to answer the question why CDs will never be higher resolution than 16/44.1.

Your opinions about the Redbook CDDA are irrelevant in this topic. You did not answer any of the questions, you’re only confusing everyone.

 

[manicm]

Think this is going abit far. My initial reference to MQA was a reponse to expressing my interest from a previous poster. MQA wouldn't hold any attraction to me to purchase as it's lossy. In the same breadth though that's not to say i would buy an SACD either as you cannot backup the DSD layer unless you were doing a rip on specific firmware using a PS3 or had a specific chip in pioneer SACD writers/readers. SACD was created during an era where buggy DISC copy protection was on everything from games/movies, you name it. Whilst some manufacturers may have thought that was clever, it's clearly a turn off to consumers, especially on audio CDs.

We've travelled 20 odd years into the future since then, so any new attempt to do so by a new standard isn't going to get far as you'd think they'd have learnt from the past.

Whilst I applaud any attempt to create Hi-Res audio available on a Conventional CD DISC, if that means you'll never be able to rip the contents at Hi-Res/at all, their is little point as the modern Digital Age consumer used to convenience wont be interested and therefore will garner little interest overall.

You didn’t grasp my comment. While MQA is technically lossy, Bob Stuart believes that detail is irrelevant within his technology and compression technique, and he believes it is high resolution. Also MQA is much more efficient for streaming.

 

[ThisIsJimmy]

You didn’t grasp my comment. While MQA is technically lossy, Bob Stuart believes that detail is irrelevant within his technology and compression technique, and he believes it is high resolution. Also MQA is much more efficient for streaming.

It's extremelly efficient as a form of DRM fast forwarded into the 21st century. Having now read into this, it feels like i'm going back in time 20 years.
https://bobtalks.co.uk/blog/mqaplayback/origami-and-the-last-mile/
- The region of data it protects A & B will mean that you can't rip the music. That already destroys any interest I and others with backed up media libraries will have in this. If I have purchased music on a CD I expect to be able to rip it and back it up to any of my devices. CDs easilly get scratched, and the data on them destroyed.
- 1st unfold (or you could just refer to it as a typical read) on a CD player will allow most people to play it only as a regular CD
- 2nd unfold (with an MQA core decoder - only if you have a 24bit supported device) will allow you to get slightly better again. I can already see Creative applying for licenses for their products issued in driver updates to supported 24bit soundcards for example or Digital Decoders (not DACS).
- 3rd unfold only on an "authenticated DAC" will unfold the final file as it was encoded as the copy during the encoding process and not the master file. It takes you to needing a qualified authenticated DAC to make use of a their folded interpreted Hi-Res file. In essence you are heavilly restricting who can play that back and on what device, and you are restricted (unless i'm reading this wrong) to 24bit 96Khz. This isn't going to change the consumers preferences either as this is the complete opposite of cheap and convenient.

It'll be very "efficient" at streaming by protecting against morons from pressing "record" at the start and "stop" at the end of a song on a soundcard with the relevant capture software. Why you'd even want to do that anyway I have no idea as it will sound alot worse than the true master source!

I'm sorry, but rather than go through all of that with additional expense, i'll just buy my Hi Res audio that I can then backup thanks .

If someone with common sense comes up with a ripable CD hi-res option that i don't need to spend money on proprietary extras for, they'll get my vote, otherwise (from a physical media standpoint) their is no benefit from buying a conventional CD for the overwhelming majority.

Finally their is an argument for MQA not to be considered Hi-Res. Although it falls inside the criteria as defined by JEITA in Spring 2014 from a bit rate perspective it is not a lossless format.

 

[iMark]

The Hybrid SACD is the only format that actually addresses most problems. We own dozens of them.

I can play the SACD stereo layer on our Sony bluray players (we don't have multichannel) and I rip the CD layer to my computer for copying to my phone. Best of both worlds. For most purposes and most people CD is more than good enough.

I really don't need a proprietary system like MQA. The only thing I sometimes worry about is the availability of hardware that can play SACDs if any of our current players would give up. Simply for this purpose I will never get rid of my Pioneer DV565.

 

[Al ears]

The Hybrid SACD is the only format that actually addresses most problems. We own dozens of them.

I can play the SACD stereo layer on our Sony bluray players (we don't have multichannel) and I rip the CD layer to my computer for copying to my phone. Best of both worlds. For most purposes and most people CD is more than good enough.

I really don't need a proprietary system like MQA. The only thing I sometimes worry about is the availability of hardware that can play SACDs if any of our current players would give up. Simply for this purpose I will never get rid of my Pioneer DV565.

I would agree.
Firstly CD can never go hires and secondly Hybrid SACDs should really have taken off.
I can understand why they remain in demand in Japan and one reason my Oppo is going nowhere. It is interesting to see a French company has recently brought out a similar device.

 

[Oldfart]

Especially if their player is connected to the mains with an ultra special power lead.

Confirmation bias is a wonderful thing.

And you accuse others of irrelevant thread creep?

Fwiiw, In my experience, playing SACDs on a dedicated player is considerably more rewarding than using a Blu-ray player Based on marantz ud 7007 vs SA14s1se. Agree, SACDs are my favourite medium and good to see new recordings are being produced by Octave audio/ PS audio in Boulder, Colorado. Not dead yet

 

[ThisIsJimmy]

My only complaint on SACD is the current lack of being able to rip the DSD layer to backup the Hi-Res audio.

Fix that and i'm on board. If I purchase SACD I want to be able to listen to it like an SACD, and rip it as an SACD especially if paying a premium for the format.

Considering the advances in DSD it has got potential if it bends itself to convenience and can be less proprietary than MQA. Afterall if all the work to read the true Hi-Res DSD layer is done at the player, instead of 3 different layers/devices it can only be a win.

We have alot to learn about how media could be marketed in this country which they do so well in Japan in making products exclusive and special.

Do that and it would be the worthwhile CD replacement for those who want physical ownerhip, and wont be on the convenience music subscription streaming bandwagon. That said, the more people turn towards straight digital formats, the market for physical discs is only going to decrease. Afterall, almost everyone has a mobile phone or a portable music player, and the newer digital generation are only going to edge further in that direction.