Conference hips::uk_audioo

    If your main source is CD or LP, with tape only for casual/mobile
    listening, DCC is hardly worthwhile. A good analogue cassette machine
    with Dolby HX-Pro or - if you can justify it - Dolby S, would be a far
    better gamble.
    
    If you use tape in a semi-professional role, DAT is your best bet.
    
    It's still not clear if DCC will become the dominant recordable medium for
    prerecorded material, or if Sony's Minidisc will win. I can't
    understand why anyone would want either; there is no reason why the
    music industry should favour one format over the other, and by the time
    Joe Public has voted one way or the other recordable CD (CD-R) will be
    affordable.
    
    A personal view.
    
    Dave

    Just to put another spanner in the (your!) works, Pioneer will release
    a super DAT soon (96kHz sampling).........the firt reports show DCC
    being ok for digital to digital recordings buy fair for analogue
    playback cassettes or analogue(you didn't use the digital input)
    recordings.
    
    I'm with Dave, hang out for R-CD, it makes more sense. The whole idea
    of cassettes is that they should be a cheap backup or source......the
    advanced publicity places DCC cassettes at a similar price to
    CDs.....they are mad!.....just my humble opinion mind you.
    
    cheers fjeff

Trouble is, the hardware manufacturers are getting into bed with the 
software (ie music) publishers - or even buying them outright (eg Sony & 
Columbia).  Consider how much money has been made on the back of standard 
CDs (ie new hardware to sell and re-selling (at huge margins!) the same 
music in a different format) and you can see the attraction, for the 
industry, of inventing yet another format.  

You'll have to throw away all your existing CD investment and spend 
thousands on new hardware and software !  Who cares if DCC or mini-disc 
wins - the consumer will be the loser.  Just look how quickly vinyl has 
declined.

I'm with the last note.  Resist DCC and mini-disc and force the industry 
to support the existing CD standard and release CD-R at last - the 
technology has been around for a while now.

Fat chance.

Mike

    DCC and MD are just red herrings, used by the industry to divert our
    attention away from CD-R. Up to recently, the blank CDs were to
    expensive to make the CD-R format a viable retail product - �25 each.
    
    Now we have Kodak's Photo-CD that uses the same blank discs. Kodak are
    selling these at about a fiver, bought in. In an interview, a Kodak
    spokesperson stated that if they couldn't get the price down to around
    50p a disc, they'd make their own and swamp the market. Then watch CD-R
    transport prices come down. SCMS may make cloning a little difficvult,
    but it won't stop it.
    
    The Japanese majors who have interests in the music industry aren't
    there out of altruism. They want to ensure their hardware won't fail to
    sell due to lack of software (as per Betamax). When they realise it's
    in their interests to sell low cost CD-R machines, they'll do it.
    
    The music companies need to get out of technology, it's just moving too
    fast. They should licence the master tapes to the audio manufacturers
    who would then have to put their money where their mouths are, and
    manufacture, promote and distribute recorded music in their own
    equipments' formats.
    
    Dave

    .4, you made a funny!  "Kodak will fix them...."  Develope them first 
    in D76, then "FIX" them in HYPO.  Good show Dave.
    
    Bill
    

    Hey, Bill! Well spotted, but it wasn't intentional. Also you forgot the
    Photoflo to finish the job - it would probably work very well for
    cleaning CDs, I know it does on records.
    
    Or am I being negative?
    
    Dave

    Should I keep my old vinyl then???
    
    I agree that the likes of SONY are well into owning the complete market
    from top to bottom, and will wish to preserve their profits wherever
    they can. I suppose with the ROM chips they'll have no problems with
    'reading' the data.
    How long will it be before CD-R is available, and won't they
    'jump' in car mechanism anyway like ordinary car cd players..?
    
    tim      

    
>     How long will it be before CD-R is available, and won't they
>     'jump' in car mechanism anyway like ordinary car cd players..?
    
    CD-R is already available, but expensive. The machines are 1-2K pounds,
    Dave said the blank discs are about �25 each. However, recordable Mini
    Disc uses similar technology, so the price certainly could come down.
    
    They will behave exactly like CDs in cars. Personally, I am dubious
    about the merits of expensive in-car Hi-Fi, so I don't think you need
    anything more than a decent cassette deck in a car anyway.
    
    I don't see much point in buying any of this new stuff in the first few
    years, unless you're one of the so-called "early-uptakers" who like
    buying new toys for the sake of it.
    
    For the vast majority of people who might buy DCC or MD, CD already
    works as a high quality medium for home, and compact cassette as a
    cheaper medium for portable use. If you consider the environments most
    people listen to their Walkmen (or car systems) in, what's the point of
    having "CD quality" sound ?
    
    Trevor

    re .7...
    "Should I keep my old vinyl then???"
    
    Taking your question at face value for a minute, the answer is an
    emphatic but qualified "yes". The qualification is around how much you
    have, how much you use it, its condition, and so on.
    
    On the other hand, taking your question to mean "Are you saying I
    shouldn't move forward at all?", again the answer is a qualified "yes".
    Unless your records are clapped out and you have a below par record
    player, moving to new technology doesn't necessarily improve anything.
    It may, but only may, give you more choice, but the assumption many
    make that the latest is the best is false, and is usually grounded in
    the subtle selling messages that come from the industry. I would never
    encourage someone to upgrade for its own sake.
    
    Apply the Ivor Tiefenbrun principle: how many more tunes will the
    proposed upgrade enable me to hear from my current music collection, or
    how many more will it encourage me to access that I don't currently 
    have in my collection?
    
    Unless you have a really low end system, for DCC the answer has to be
    "not a lot".
    
    It's your brass, of course; but just think of the CDs, records, blank
    tapes you'd have money left over for if you just go a simple upgrade to
    what you have - if you *must* upgrade at all.
    
    Millions of hifi owners will have that choice to make, and they will
    get lots of persuasion from the majors to start all over again. Just
    how many copies of Raintown or With The Beatles, or any other album,
    are worth having in multiple formats?
    
    Like I say, it's your money and my advice would be to keep it, or spend
    it in a way that improves your quality of life. If that equates to a
    DCC machine, then that's your choice. I wouldn't touch one with a big
    stick.
    
    Dave

    ref.9
    
    Thanks Dave...a lot of common sense there.
    
    I already have a CD player...and I think it was worth it...but I kept
    the vinyl too....any old discs that are worn/damaged that i
    particularly like, I'm trying to re-source on CD.
    
    However, having said that, I've been listening to records a lot more
    recently, and if it's a good pressing, then the sound is very good,
    and, I believe, less clinical than a CD.
    
    Tim