Hi-Rez Highway New high resolution SACD releases, players and technology.

---

[ Follow Ups ] Thread: [ Display  All  Email ] [ Hi-Rez Highway ]

---

[ Alert Moderator ]

---

Well, Dave . . .

Posted by Bruce from DC (B) on March 15, 2007 at 07:00:51

In Reply to: Apparent death of the entire classical recording industry posted by Dave Billinge on March 15, 2007 at 03:14:48:

there are some of us who would agree with your statement "I think he's living on another planet" but . . . uhm . . . for different reasons than you, no doubt. ;-) (No doubt, for the same reasons, there are some of you on your side of the Atlantic who have the same feelings about us!)

On a more serious note, even in the Philistine U.S., there does not seem to be a lack of interest in live performances of classical music. For example, its nearly impossible to get anything but a standing room single ticket to the Washington Opera here in The Capital of the Free World. The great bulk of the house is sold out to season ticket holders.

Of course what is happening is that the economics of the major record houses (collapsing because of the rise of Internet distribution) no longer permit recording contracts with the big symphony orchestras around the world that once was the norm, primarily because the scale required for a profitable recording under that old, inefficient distribution system gets higher and higher. On the other hand, as you undoubtedly know, Internet distribution has allowed these orchestras to self-publish their work (I have several by the LSO). By combining the recording session with a live performance, the volume requirements for a profitable sale are greatly reduced, so the business lives. Not to mention the smaller labels, like Pentatone that continue to record less expensive orchestras from Russia and Eastern Europe and "audiophile" labels like Telarc that continue to record some orchestras in the United States. If anything, from what I read on these boards, such activity is greater on the eastern side of the Atlantic than on the Western side.

And, the increasing penetration of high-capacity Internet connnections raises at least the possiblity of Internet distribution of high-quality audio, rather than low-quality, lossy-compressed audio that is the norm right now -- with the potential to realize savings resulting from the neeed to distribute the recording on a physical medium that must be transported to the end user.

In the U.S. at least, the bigger issue for concern IMHO is the reduction of the number of avenues by which people are introduced to classical music, with the death of mass audience broadcast radio and the curtailment of children's exposure to classical music performances in the public schools. When I was a kid growing up here in Washington in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the National Symphony Orchestra came to schools and played; and school children were bussed to Constitution Hall to hear National Symphony Orchestra concerts. I don't think that happens any more.

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Analog Engineering Associates

---

[ Top of Page ] [ Contact Us ] [ Support/Wish List ] [ Copyright © 2024, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]

---

[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]

---