Wise Words - Audio Fidelity Moves to Selective Multichannel SACD Releases

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I think the labels shoot themselves in the foot, every time they release a surround disc or LP of a live show...just to show off the audience clapping behind you. Just like a certain minority of people who don't believe their givernment works...then once in power, installs a platoon of incompetant, opportunistic executives in key positions to make that fever dream come true, just so they can say, "SEE? SEE?!"

Sony cuts back on SACD production just as interest in their SACD-capable players start to catch fire in their own home country. 3D teevee sets are on the way out (Why? Because they've finally made enough improvements to the sets themselves, that make their 3D discs look terific. Can't have that...). While we're on that, how is it I'm hearing that Blu-Rays are "on their way out", just as they manage to eliminate their market-confusing format competitor, the HD-DVD, presumably because the public is satisfied with DVD...that they can take home and play on their $69...Blu-Ray players. And, one of my favorites: the first SACD release of polyphonic music - you know, where Resphigi actually assigns the orchestra to play from four discrete points in cathedrals and concert halls? - is a stereo release!

And, even if SACD still made traction in the classical arena despite Sony, it's full of groupthinkers who go apoplectic at the notion that recording with more than two mics is "unnatural" (yeah - like "stereo" itself isn't just a hypothetical soundstage gimmick intended to show the illusion of realism*)...because there's nothin' back there but ambience and audience coughing. I say, then put your money where your season tickets are...and remix those stereo SACD's into 3.1...or are you afraid that's just a slippery slope into accepting multichannel witchcraft? Satisfies your insistance that the music comes from the front, so, you shouldn't have a problem with that...hey, have you met my friend Fredrick Fennel? He recorded a crapload of those back before you were even born...!

And so, big deal, AF got their fingers a little burned on giving surround fans an actual excuse to pay for their classic rock favorites one more time...and they had to print up some corrected discs because THEY BLEW IT THE FIRST TIME THEMSELVES. Sorry, no. You don't get out of the technology because it's too hard to center a quad vocal from 4 decades ago (heck, the engineers from the '70s did the hard part for you already)...you get better at it, because this is what successful companies do.



*...because you record from one fixed position with two mics...and then tens of thousands of customers play it back through two speakers spread all the way across the room? No wonder First Flute seems to be sitting all the way over there...

I seriously don't think Audio Fidelity BLEW IT! They did release some fine sounding QUAD albums and if you have the right equipment their Stereo SACDs are pretty top notch. A LOT of the majors even screwed up with their "few and far between" hi res physical discs. NOTHING NEW THERE!

As far as Blu Ray on its way out......well they're still [ironically] manufacturing DVDs so the next big thing will be 4K UHD but without the luxury of 3D....which is patently RIDICULOUS.

As even SONY's entry level 4K UHD player (the X-800) is equipped to play ALL formats and upsample 2K to 4K and even includes DVD~Audio playback, I think we'll see a few more POP/ROCK QUAD SACDs before they decide to pull the plug altogether.

The public has ALWAYS been a fickle lot but with ALL this new technology rapidly cramming the shopping malls and online Megastores, there is a bit of hesitance to take that seismic plunge.

Just when you've finally invested in your new 4K UHD TV, 8K will be right around the corner.

And it won't stop there as obsolescence IS part of OUR culture.
 
I'm not exactly sure what the problem is here for Audio Fidelity.

Seems they released about 30 MC titles in the last couple of years and about half of them have thus far sold out. I have to presume that whatever extra cost is involved to include the MC versions is accounted for in the extra $$ they charge for these titles and/or any extra copies they press/hope to sell. (They penciled-out at least THAT much, I would trust)

So therefore the issue must be that not all of the titles sold out as they hoped they would. Are they then speculating that had they not included the MC layer (and could have sold them for less or otherwise been more attractive to SACD customers who aren't interested in MC) that they would have sold better? Are there some SACD fans that think having the MC layer somehow spoils the product?

Do all of their non-MC titles sell out? Can't at least some of this be attributed to they titles they choose to release (in any format?) Seems to me there must be a sufficient market for the MC titles if half of them are sold out. Maybe the difference between the EWF titles selling out and America not doing so has more to do with the specific title rather than the format?
 
I think at the end of the day it still comes down to the major failure that the music industry has become for over a decade now. The bullshit line that keeps getting repeated is that no one buys surround sound.

Oh really?

Then how come the movie and TV industries have been able to make surround THE standard?

What people won't buy is niche formats that aren't supported or promoted. The TV and movie industries got behind a standard, pushed it, promoted it, and succeeded at it. The music industry put together a format war, barely put anything out in the formats while holding tightly to stereo as the standard, and completely botched the whole thing, leaving us with the mess that it is now.


But no, the low sales have nothing to do with the lack of standards, promotion, or availability.....no one wants surround sound. Yeah....ok.....show me all the stereo only movies being released these days then.

Movie industry was able to make Surround the standard because you have to sit in one place to watch a movie.

But I still can't help but believe that the labels haven't shot themselves in the foot by selling MC music as a high-end audiophile product with premium prices, limited quantities and that you seemingly have to have some sort of top security clearance to even know where and how to get these things.

Hot classic titles on BluRay or DVD selling for 10 bucks at the checkout line marketed to the customer with the entry level surround systems at home? That would have been a better way to approach it perhaps?
 
I'm not exactly sure what the problem is here for Audio Fidelity.

Seems they released about 30 MC titles in the last couple of years and about half of them have thus far sold out. I have to presume that whatever extra cost is involved to include the MC versions is accounted for in the extra $$ they charge for these titles and/or any extra copies they press/hope to sell. (They penciled-out at least THAT much, I would trust)

So therefore the issue must be that not all of the titles sold out as they hoped they would. Are they then speculating that had they not included the MC layer (and could have sold them for less or otherwise been more attractive to SACD customers who aren't interested in MC) that they would have sold better? Are there some SACD fans that think having the MC layer somehow spoils the product?

Do all of their non-MC titles sell out? Can't at least some of this be attributed to they titles they choose to release (in any format?) Seems to me there must be a sufficient market for the MC titles if half of them are sold out. Maybe the difference between the EWF titles selling out and America not doing so has more to do with the specific title rather than the format?

No, it's not that the titles sold worse then the stereo only titles, it seems they sold about the same as a stereo only title would have been expected to. But the titles that are sold out must not have sold quickly enough and shown demand for a second run.

Rather the problem appears to be that the added expense of licensing and mastering did not result in enough additional sales.

When they choose to do another say EW&F title, or another America title, or even doing three Loggins and Messina titles, this seemed to mean that these discs were selling as we hopped, fairly good to great. What it really meant is that they were selling good to great for stereo only titles, but with added (quad layer) costs, it brought down the net revenue considerably.

So I think selling out of these titles seems like success, they would have preferred to see demand for another pressing run.

Sales must have been strong enough that they could go ahead and release WR and RTF without they quad layer expense, and still feel confident of having successful releases.
 
Because they did not charge extra for the surround SACDs, I would guess that, as stated above by many, the added cost of the work and acquisition of the quad tracks would have to reflect in added sales to the same title being sold without those quad tracks.

This might be very hard to figure. I mean, if you release a stereo SACD of Paul Anka's "The Painter", how many sales would you get. With all due respects to Paul, probably not many. If you went the extra mile and added the discrete quad tracks to the SACD, would you get many more sales? Again, probably not.

So now, does this Paul Anka "The Painter" 4.0 SACD get slammed by the bean counters claiming that it did not sell because it had a 4.0 red circle on the cover, or because buyers thought it would not play on their stereo-only system? The quad track inclusion would be a convenient way to blame the lack of sales on a release, instead of blaming the selection of the title itself as the reason it did not sell.

I have to admit, I have told Marshall over the last year or so that titles he mentioned to me as possible releases were not worth the extra cost of doing the quad tracks if it meant that the mentioned release might be the eventual reason the quad program got canned. As big a quad-guy as I am, I admit there are/were some shitty titles released in quad and 5.1 over the last 40 or so years. Many un-worthy titles. And bringing them back at the expense of a worthy release, to me, is not a good idea.

If it had no impact on future releases, I would say "Go for it". Who cares? There are always people out there who like something, and those people might have been thrilled with these 4.0 SACD. The rest of you would have gone nuts, proclaiming "I'm not buying that crap" and "Why are they doing that lousy album?"

I've said it before and will again, we are at the END of the physical media era. Check out your local Targets, Best Buys, Walmarts, etc. See how their CD/DVD/BluRay sections are shrinking. My local Sams does not even sell DVD/BluRay movies anymore. And the BJ's and Costco's who once had CDs and large DVD sections now have a token shelf. People are now living with Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Spotify, etc etc. Earbuds don't care about surround.

For companies like AF, the future is tenuous. They can't afford to make many mistakes.

We want a lots of surround SACDs, they want to stay in business.

We can only hope that those two goals merge from time to time.
 
Movie industry was able to make Surround the standard because you have to sit in one place to watch a movie.

But I still can't help but believe that the labels haven't shot themselves in the foot by selling MC music as a high-end audiophile product with premium prices, limited quantities and that you seemingly have to have some sort of top security clearance to even know where and how to get these things.

Hot classic titles on BluRay or DVD selling for 10 bucks at the checkout line marketed to the customer with the entry level surround systems at home? That would have been a better way to approach it perhaps?

A LOT of great points but unfortunately, unlike movies [BD~V/DVD] which I agree are cheap, cheap, CHEAP, the music divisions of those very same conglomerates had no interest in releasing 'limited' amounts of surround music (ONLY) to what they considered a minuscule fan base......if you noticed over the years, disgruntled Amazon customers kept downgrading their star rating when the DVD~Audio they purchased had NO video content .....they really thought they were buying a concert video or such.

When reissue companies have to LICENSE a QUAD or 5.1 master tape from the conglomerates, they [the record companies] really started to sharpen their pencils by charging ridiculous and separate fees for the RBCD/Stereo and multichannel content which the reissue companies could no longer absorb compared to a RBCD/Stereo ONLY SACD. When Rhino/Warner recently released the 9 BD~A Chicago QUADIO boxset, the price was cheap (and with further discounting CHEAPER) compared to if AF or AP attempted to license the tapes from RHINO and do the same. AP, as a point of reference, would've charged at least $30~35 each + $100 for the elaborate box they would've commissioned for the set.....:yikes

Fortunately, Dutton Vocalion in England has a different and more agreeable licensing arrangement with SONY in order to offer two~fer QUAD SACDs for a ridiculously LOW price. They're probably our last hope but the flip side.....D~V has not attempted to offer QUAD or 5.1 titles from Warners or Universal because I'm surmising that those same 'agreeable' licensing arrangements are NOT so agreeable. Hopefully, maybe that could change also.

But Jon Urban's point that we're nearing the end of physical disc replication in deference to streaming, downloads etc. is quite valid. And as I always maintained...perhaps the majors are saving their surround masters for a future downloading strategy in which they control the masters they own and will charge accordingly.
 
Well,Dutton Vocalion has great prices, but the music they put out is of no interest to me.I bought Tower of Power couse I tought I would like it,but I did not.I rather pay £75 for a Jeff Beck Quad that I like and will play often.
 
Well,Dutton Vocalion has great prices, but the music they put out is of no interest to me.I bought Tower of Power couse I tought I would like it,but I did not.I rather pay £75 for a Jeff Beck Quad that I like and will play often.

Unfortunately, your same philosophy applies to a lot of QUAD/5.1 reissues........why that one and NOT this one. Dutton Vocalion is basically an easy listening, light jazz and pop reissue company. Tower of Power and Main Ingredient were basically against their grain and while I do like Tower of Power and Main Ingredient some of their easy listening choices are meh, IMO. I did buy ALL of them to support their cause but find myself playing them when I'm writing out checks or such.

If you've followed the various threads from AF and AP over the years, you'll note that there are always groans or cheers whenever a surround reissue title was announced. You cannot please everyone and apparently a lot of QQ members abstained from buying a lot of these reissued Surround titles because they just didn't like the artists.

While I, personally, don't like paying $70 for QUAD/5.1 titles and particularly despise 'investing' in elaborate box sets just for the 5.1 remix, I'm afraid this trend is here to stay until they pull the plug altogether on physical disc replication. And that "limited edition" status applied to almost ALL of these surround titles makes it imperative to pull the trigger upon their release or risk paying 'gouging' future prices on eBay or from third party Amazon vendors. Ever hear of that game "GOTCHA?"
 
It really comes down to the act more than any other factor, IMO. The Doors SACD was such a no-brainer it's surprising no one went for it far earlier, given the act and the unique mixes on the album. Whether some consumers do or don't understand it as a key quad title, in this case, would have been beside the point, the Doors audience is still built in and guaranteed (enough) to purchase such things.

Every company releases titles that leave you scratching your head, and gosh knows Marshall has put out some curiosities over the years. Still, when he scores it's usually a solid hit. But if he's going to be selective about multichannel, then it's logical to do it where you know there will be a reasonable return. That is, at this time there would be more profit in Bob Dylan's NASHVILLE SKYLINE in quad than, say, Mickey Newbury's FRISCO MABEL JOY....which, come to think of it, was true when those titles were issued on vinyl and Q8 back in the '70s.

The only thing I disagree with Jon about is the inevitable end of physical media. Tosh I say, and although retailers have greatly reduced what they have in stock, that has as much to do with Amazon and eBay as it does streaming. The Criterion Collection seems to be doing just fine, and vinyl Lp's are holding their own with new releases--truly new, and reissues--at this time as well.

In the event, if Marshall puts out a MC title, odds are I'd buy it.

On Dutton Vocalion: like the concept, but as noted, on the main these titles are by acts not likely to draw much sales, regardless of any other consideration, though it's good some of it's getting a second look.

ED :)
 
Because they did not charge extra for the surround SACDs, I would guess that, as stated above by many, the added cost of the work and acquisition of the quad tracks would have to reflect in added sales to the same title being sold without those quad tracks.

Depends on the title to some degree. Some of their SACDs sell for $24.99 on their website. Some for $29.99. ALL the MC SACDs sell for $29.99. So I would presume that, at least in some cases, they are charging more for those with the MC layer.

This might be very hard to figure. I mean, if you release a stereo SACD of Paul Anka's "The Painter", how many sales would you get. With all due respects to Paul, probably not many. If you went the extra mile and added the discrete quad tracks to the SACD, would you get many more sales? Again, probably not.

Well, yeah. They gotta be smart enough to figure out which titles will sell and which ones will not. But frankly, with titles that are, on average 40 years old, it's not really rocket science.

So now, does this Paul Anka "The Painter" 4.0 SACD get slammed by the bean counters claiming that it did not sell because it had a 4.0 red circle on the cover, or because buyers thought it would not play on their stereo-only system? The quad track inclusion would be a convenient way to blame the lack of sales on a release, instead of blaming the selection of the title itself as the reason it did not sell.

Yes. They have to have 'bean counters' that are at least smart enough to understand the business they are in. If they can't figure out the degree to which the title itself figures into the equation, then why are they even in the music business at this point? Geez. If THIS is the problem with re-releasing decades old music? No wonder the business is in the craphole.

I have to admit, I have told Marshall over the last year or so that titles he mentioned to me as possible releases were not worth the extra cost of doing the quad tracks if it meant that the mentioned release might be the eventual reason the quad program got canned. As big a quad-guy as I am, I admit there are/were some shitty titles released in quad and 5.1 over the last 40 or so years. Many un-worthy titles. And bringing them back at the expense of a worthy release, to me, is not a good idea.

If it had no impact on future releases, I would say "Go for it". Who cares? There are always people out there who like something, and those people might have been thrilled with these 4.0 SACD. The rest of you would have gone nuts, proclaiming "I'm not buying that crap" and "Why are they doing that lousy album?"

Can't agree with you more here. But all I can say is if that if they had 15 quad titles that sold as well as expect and 15 that did not? Don't blame the buyers. I didn't buy every AF quad title. I wouldn't expect you could find 30 titles that EVERYONE would buy, of course. But you can't hit the sweet spot in the middle? Better to have released 10 killer titles than 30 with half of them misses.

I've said it before and will again, we are at the END of the physical media era. Check out your local Targets, Best Buys, Walmarts, etc. See how their CD/DVD/BluRay sections are shrinking. My local Sams does not even sell DVD/BluRay movies anymore. And the BJ's and Costco's who once had CDs and large DVD sections now have a token shelf. People are now living with Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Spotify, etc etc. Earbuds don't care about surround.

For companies like AF, the future is tenuous. They can't afford to make many mistakes.

We want a lots of surround SACDs, they want to stay in business.

We can only hope that those two goals merge from time to time.

So maybe the future isn't physical media. Do these companies need to be SO tied to physical product? I love the convenience of just buying a disc and putting it in the player. But if the difference between having great music to listen to or not is me having to download it and burning it myself or playing the files from a thumb drive, etc? I'll take having the music available.
 
The Doors was a great hit I'm sure, and surround/quad fans showed up i line for for it too. Then they had the Sly & the Family Stone flaw ordeal to deal with which might have sapped their total profits on that title.

Personally, I would be thrilled with 10 more top rock titles from AF in 4.0, and then that is it. Three RCAs and seven more Columbia/Epics, and the mission will have been basically accomplished. Well maybe 15 total. But really, I think they dug in and pulled out some stunners, the format works, there are tapes that survive, the music and the mixes still sound fine. They nearly went full circle, but the work feels unfinished.

I am budgeting $125 for grabbing doubles of my very favorite 4.0 AF discs at the end of this month. I can't help it I want more.
 
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A LOT of great points but unfortunately, unlike movies [BD~V/DVD] which I agree are cheap, cheap, CHEAP, the music divisions of those very same conglomerates had no interest in releasing 'limited' amounts of surround music (ONLY) to what they considered a minuscule fan base......if you noticed over the years, disgruntled Amazon customers kept downgrading their star rating when the DVD~Audio they purchased had NO video content .....they really thought they were buying a concert video or such.

When reissue companies have to LICENSE a QUAD or 5.1 master tape from the conglomerates, they [the record companies] really started to sharpen their pencils by charging ridiculous and separate fees for the RBCD/Stereo and multichannel content which the reissue companies could no longer absorb compared to a RBCD/Stereo ONLY SACD. When Rhino/Warner recently released the 9 BD~A Chicago QUADIO boxset, the price was cheap (and with further discounting CHEAPER) compared to if AF or AP attempted to license the tapes from RHINO and do the same. AP, as a point of reference, would've charged at least $30~35 each + $100 for the elaborate box they would've commissioned for the set.....:yikes

Fortunately, Dutton Vocalion in England has a different and more agreeable licensing arrangement with SONY in order to offer two~fer QUAD SACDs for a ridiculously LOW price. They're probably our last hope but the flip side.....D~V has not attempted to offer QUAD or 5.1 titles from Warners or Universal because I'm surmising that those same 'agreeable' licensing arrangements are NOT so agreeable. Hopefully, maybe that could change also.

But Jon Urban's point that we're nearing the end of physical disc replication in deference to streaming, downloads etc. is quite valid. And as I always maintained...perhaps the majors are saving their surround masters for a future downloading strategy in which they control the masters they own and will charge accordingly.

Well, the majors are stupid then. (Always a possibility, of course.) Their market for this stuff is not getting any younger. If they are going to wait 20 years to sell to their 70s quad masters? Most of the market will be dead by then.

Hopefully the Chicago Quadio box will spark someone's brain to understand that even a small profit is better than no profit at all. The old quad and 5.1 masters lying in the vaults are only taking up space and making NO money for anyone right now. That they can't figure out how to monetize the product they have? I dunno. I get the market for MC is small. But still. That stuff was all bought and paid for long ago. No one is asking them to go back and remix anything (although that would be nice too.)
 
Well,Dutton Vocalion has great prices, but the music they put out is of no interest to me.I bought Tower of Power couse I tought I would like it,but I did not.I rather pay £75 for a Jeff Beck Quad that I like and will play often.

Yeah. I'm not really seeing the market for Danny Davis and the Nashville Brass. They weren't a huge act back when the stuff was new, and how many of their fans are even still living in 2017, let alone hankering for a reissue of their albums in quad so they can play them on either vintage or modern surround systems?

Great if they can get that stuff cheap enough (as well they should) so that even selling a couple dozen copies means making a profit. But it's hardly a business model for the future of MC releases going forward.
 
No, it's not that the titles sold worse then the stereo only titles, it seems they sold about the same as a stereo only title would have been expected to. But the titles that are sold out must not have sold quickly enough and shown demand for a second run.

Rather the problem appears to be that the added expense of licensing and mastering did not result in enough additional sales.

When they choose to do another say EW&F title, or another America title, or even doing three Loggins and Messina titles, this seemed to mean that these discs were selling as we hopped, fairly good to great. What it really meant is that they were selling good to great for stereo only titles, but with added (quad layer) costs, it brought down the net revenue considerably.

So I think selling out of these titles seems like success, they would have preferred to see demand for another pressing run.

Sales must have been strong enough that they could go ahead and release WR and RTF without they quad layer expense, and still feel confident of having successful releases.

Do they ever do a "second run"? Seems like most of their titles sell out and then that's that. How often have they done a second run? And if their business model is dependent on something selling so well and so fast that they need to do a second run to make a respectable profit on a title?

Then they've got even bigger problems that I thought. That can't be how it is working over there.
 
Well, the majors are stupid then. (Always a possibility, of course.) Their market for this stuff is not getting any younger. If they are going to wait 20 years to sell to their 70s quad masters? Most of the market will be dead by then.

Hopefully the Chicago Quadio box will spark someone's brain to understand that even a small profit is better than no profit at all. The old quad and 5.1 masters lying in the vaults are only taking up space and making NO money for anyone right now. That they can't figure out how to monetize the product they have? I dunno. I get the market for MC is small. But still. That stuff was all bought and paid for long ago. No one is asking them to go back and remix anything (although that would be nice too.)

The majors have always been stupid and GREEDY. But what you're forgetting to mention is that those musty QUAD masters don't have an indefinite shelf life and unless they've been 'carefully' transferred to a digital medium, they may be unusable down the road....as some of them already are. If they'd ONLY cut through the red tape involved in licensing agreements and just say to the reissue companies: Go Ahead....knock yourselves out.....we'll give you an incredible deal ....take your pick..........the flow of Multichannel reissues would be awesome. But, unfortunately, it doesn't work that way as some artists are even opposed to releasing these multis [the Doobies, for instance] and remixing albums into 5.1 from scratch is expensive and would only add to the overflated cost.

And the flip side......the motion picture companies which basically own the record companies are going out of their way to add multichannel mixes and 4K remasters to their products, OLD and NEW and charging what I consider pennies on the dollar for those remastered BD~Vs and as Jon Urban pointed out....most consumers do not BUY these movies anymore but prefer streaming them via Amazon, Netflix or Vudu. GO FIGURE!
 
The majors have always been stupid and GREEDY. But what you're forgetting to mention is that those musty QUAD masters don't have an indefinite shelf life and unless they've been 'carefully' transferred to a digital medium, they may be unusable down the road....as some of them already are. If they'd ONLY cut through the red tape involved in licensing agreements and just say to the reissue companies: Go Ahead....knock yourselves out.....we'll give you an incredible deal ....take your pick..........the flow of Multichannel reissues would be awesome. But, unfortunately, it doesn't work that way as some artists are even opposed to releasing these multis [the Doobies, for instance] and remixing albums into 5.1 from scratch is expensive and would only add to the overflated cost.

And the flip side......the motion picture companies which basically own the record companies are going out of their way to add multichannel mixes and 4K remasters to their products, OLD and NEW and charging what I consider pennies on the dollar for those remastered BD~Vs and as Jon Urban pointed out....most consumers do not BUY these movies anymore but prefer streaming them via Amazon, Netflix or Vudu. GO FIGURE!
If the artists don't want them released then that's that in those cases, I suppose. Although I suspect this argument gets overblown. Most of these artists don't own their own masters. Do whoever "The Doobie Brothers" might actually be at this point in time actually have any say over any re-releases of, say, "Toulouse Street"?

Seriously? Tom Johnston and Patrick Simmons and whoever else might actually have a say are making the call to "don't re-release this old quad mix we were fine with being released back in 1972?"

Do you REALLY think they care?
 
The real crux of the issue is that while we're all glad that Audio Fidelity got into the business of releasing Multichannel SACDs for about two years and produced some really wonderful releases, in many respects, they waited too long to get into the Multichannel SACD business.
Now no matter when they would have jumped in, they were always going to run into brick walls here and there put up by the artists and record labels. It's to be expected.
However, if they would have started the releases several years sooner, they could have beaten the other reissue labels to the table on several key titles that could have been big sellers if released as Multichannel SACDs.
Titles from the likes of Santana, The Doobie Brothers, Billy Joel, The Allman Brothers Band, Bob Dylan, The Grateful Dead, Carly Simon, Miles Davis, and countless others. [That list encompasses 4.0 and 5.1 mixes]

So what it's come to is that Audio Fidelity have just run into too many brick walls to keep releasing Multichannel SACDs like they did over that two year period. The brick walls put up around certain titles by the artists and owning record labels is one thing, but then you also have other SACD reissue labels (like the surround-haters at MOFI) getting access to certain titles before AF could get ahold of them, and so what are they left with?
A lot of titles that would either be poor sellers for them (no matter how good the music and/or surround mix may be) or titles that have really terrible surround mixes, so much so that it would be a wasted effort to release them again in such a form.

I'm still really glad that Audio Fidelity released what they could, but let's face it. If they manage to get any other amazing Multichannel SACDs out the door, it really will be a miracle...
 
I don't want anyone releasing anything they can't make money on. If AF already released the best of what they could get their hands on regarding MC titles, then so be it.

Yeah I guess MOFI took some titles off the table by already releasing stereo versions recently?

That makes sense.

Hopefully there's still a few nuggets out there. EWF "Spirit" please?
 
Well, they needed to repress the Billion Dollar Babies SACD anyway, it was (long ago) sold out. So grabbing the quad master, and paying the associated fees (only for the quad work) would have been a great way to cap this lovely series with a SACD that has both stereo and quad. The stereo mastering was already done.

This is one of the more important quad masters that has yet to get a modern release.

I wish they would have put out a stunner like this and then gone out with a bang, rather than news of WR and RTF with no quad.
 
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