Looks like Dutton-Vocalion is picking up where Audio-Fidelity gave up. Musicmagic is coming out on D-V SACD along with BOTH Pure Prarie League Quads, a Santana and The Jimmy Castor Bunch. All for around 11 Quid each.
The advantage in the UK is that you can license for a flat fee per title, not song--at least I think that's still how it works. Here, you have to do all sorts of hoop jumping and paying to put out a stereo/quad hybrid. And in the UK, a quad only title might find a small but dedicate number of buyers that just wouldn't work here. That said....
Again, let's not "shoot" at Marshall. That guy did us all a great service getting the titles out that he did. Sure, they may not have all been slam-dunk winners, but that's one great pile of classic quad on SACD that we probably would have never seen without him putting his butt on the line.
True enough. It's worth mentioning that Marshall went through a lot of crap while he had DCC: no matter what great titles he put out, someone would always bitch about the fact that he would often (even if not intentionally) dismiss or scoff at a title he either wasn't interested in, thought (for whatever reasons) unfeasible or unprofitable, or (the best excuse) not able to license, whatever the reasons for that.
The mistake fans sometimes make is that they see the glass as half-empty; and I understand that, because unless he says otherwise, I don't think Marshall's much worse off saleswise doing ST/MC SACD's as opposed to doing the more normal mono or stereo transfer. As someone who has most obvious (or classic) albums at least two times over (vinyl and CD), a title would have to garner psychotically positive buzz somewhere (like SH.tv) to interest me without it being multi-channel. Which is why my recent cash went to the Beatles and D-V. If AF isn't going to satisfy my needs in my (literally) declining years, it's still nice to know there are a few that do.
As for the notion of there being no market for this stuff, well, there may be, but in stateside terms, not enough for anyone to make a habit of it these days. I'm still amazed that the oldies reissue label Eric is still afloat, since most of its buyers must be, like me, members of Mike Callahan's BSN board. Most of their titles seem to me to be stereo/audiophile oriented, not generally something, regardless of content, to attract the average (and more casual) buyer.
ED