Sound & Vision's Ken C. Pohlmann blog on their web page

[surroundophile]

Sound & Vision has been very multichannel/surround-friendly for the past few years or so. Now one of their gerus, Ken C. Pohlmann has started a blog on their web page saying "
Stick a fork in it. Discrete-channel surround music is done and has been done for decades. In fact, it was never really a thing anyway". Most of the response have been anti surround. Maybe we need to comment?

Read more at https://www.soundandvision.com/cont...round-music-dog-wont-hunt#7jRPK4hkvlEkVDVZ.99 .

 

[Pibroch]

I mean, he's not wrong. Surround music has always been just kind of in the background. Too many great titles have been passed over for rights issues or because the masters are unattainable (Aja). Too many of the completed ones have been shelved because slow sales of then-current titles. There WAS a format war, DVD-Audio and SACD battled it out and many mixes were available only on one or the other, making it necessary to have two players if you wanted the best of both worlds. And it is kind of difficult to have a setup where you are able to sit and listen to a full album in one go. Honestly, the car has been the best place for me to consume 5.1 music - I have a decently long commute and I'm in the same spot for the entire thing.

I don't really think 5.1 music would ever have "taken off" and gotten big - it's too much for most folks to wrap their head around. For the longest time I kind of offhandedly wondered why the people I demoed it to didn't get why surround music was so cool. I realized that it's a matter of understanding the technology. Most folks don't even understand stereo -- they don't understand that they are listening to a carefully cultivated mix that lots of thought was put into as to how to position instruments, how to process them, and how to initially record them. To most people, music is just there. Surround folks tend to be technical and inquisitive in nature. There are a few out there that just like music and think it's cool, but for the most part, we have an understanding of what goes into a recording. Take that lack of understanding that the general public has and throw in three more speakers and a sub and you make it a hopeless boondoggle. What does the general public really gain from surround music? Maybe you could get them to admit it sounds pretty cool, but Joe Public really isn't going to care if the horns come from the rears or whatever. It kind of sucks, but that's the reality.

What needs to happen, though, is for record labels to never realize this and continue trying to push it. The moment they realize that surround was an impossible thing to market to the general public in the first place, they'll stop giving a shit at all and the meager output we receive even now will stop. I realize we were lucky to even get Aqualung in 5.1, but the rest of Tull's catalog? My cup runneth over. I can't believe they even bothered with mixing Guns 'n' Roses into surround, but I guess they thought the outliers who still give a shit about surround were worth the payment to Elliot Scheiner to make it happen.

The article is right, but missed the reason for the failure of the format. I'm glad surround music exists, but I don't think it was ever meant to succeed.

 

[MCDave]

There WAS a format war, DVD-Audio and SACD battled it out...

...and both lost to mp3, which was introduced more or less at the same time. So you had extreme convenience (mp3) vs extreme inconvenience (multichannel discs). Add to that the fact that most young people (the bulk of the music-buying public) were rapidly adopting a more mobile lifestyle (thanks to cell phones and the iPod), and it's easy to see why multichannel failed quickly after launch.

But there are some bright spots. First, as we all know, DVD-A enjoyed a short revival a few years ago and thanks to guys like Steven Wilson we started getting more releases on that format and now Blu-ray as well. Second, Ken Pohlman and others keep ignoring the fact that multichannel SACD is alive and well in the classical music world, and has been all along.

My instinct tells me the revival's about to end. Smartphones and mobile connectivity have taken over the lives of the population that buys the most music, and they want to stream their music over headphones and portable players. Multichannel music is as difficult to enjoy in the home as 3D movies are - you have to sit in the sweet spot for it to work. Millenials, if they're lucky enough to have moved out of their parents' basements, can't afford a room full of speakers and much prefer portability and streaming anyway. Some of the hipsters have embraced LPs, but of course that isn't multichannel.

Multichannel music is a tiny audiophile niche and it's pretty remarkable that any company can turn a profit with it.

 

[JonUrban]

I am thinking of a response. I see our member Soundboy is right there taking his predictable shot at DVD-A. He's a great guy with a lot of knowledge, but boy does he bleed SACD. I am surprised he didn't add a tagline about how many freaking SACDs are listed at SACD.net.

Now that we're moving away from formats, I mean, who gives a crap?

 

[mandrix]

People make a living giving OPINIONS. I could care less. I don't read that stuff same reason as I had to make myself all but quit Twitter & Facebook....
But I mean, yeah, none of my friends ever got surround so I'm right there with Pibroch & MCDave, and all the rest of our brilliant selves that can appreciate an art form, for art it is to we who care.

 

[JonUrban]

I posted a pragmatic reply!

Surround sound is and forever will be a niche. Just like "Gold Discs" and "SHM-CD" and other ideas that the public never will or could truly embrace, it is there for those that have the inclination to go the extra mile. Buy the extra equipment, spend the extra money for the premium content, create the space, deal with the lack of software, etc. The Quadraphonic era of the '70s failed because the technology was sub par upon release and only got good enough when the record companies and the public bailed. Too many early formats that really did little. The best quad was on eight track and reel to reel. One format the public battled with and the other it could not afford. In the late '90s when DVD-A was born it was derailed out of the gate by the copy protection being defeated (which kept DVD-A out of every DVD player made at launch), and Sony being Sony leaving the group and forcing multichannel onto its already released SACD product - creating a format war when one should have been avoided. The biggest issue was that by the time DVD-A and SACD began to feed the marketplace, the iPod came along and music was now in your pocket, a LOT of music was in your pocket. Headphones replaced the living room stereo, and today a Bluetooth Speaker IS the "stereo" in a huge percentage of homes. Walk into a home or apartment and you will probably not see a receiver, CD/BluRay player and speakers, a mainstay of homes for decades. This is a fact of the time. Just as the quad years, the labels pretty much stopped their output of surround product. Sony remarkably abandoned their mainstream SACD release program for the horrible "DualDisc", and WEA shifted from DVD-A to DualDisc as well, and then MVI and DVD-V for their enhanced releases, and the niche became a mouse hole. However, there have been remarkable releases since then from artists like The Beatles, Yes, Tom Petty, Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, King Crimson, Steven Wilson, Coldplay, Love and Rockets, Pixies, Bob Marley, The Doors, Kraftwerk, Alan Parsons Project, Guns N' Roses and many more. Surround Music is a niche and requires product for people to support it and purchase it. The funny thing is the surround marketplace minority is very willing to spend money on physical product - something the download majority no longer feels is required. There is a message there somewhere.

 

[fredblue]

oh this old chestnut again.. hasn't the death of surround been predicted about as long as surrounds been around!?

even if there isn't any kind of drive on now to get it into homes on a physical format like there was in the early 00's SACD Vs DVD-A format war its still going in some form, despite the shift in how people generally consume music these days.

seems a shame these guys couldn't write an article on the postives and to promote surround, if they see it in the doldrums and they're not anti surround and liked it all along, etc., why fire the bullet to its brain, as if its some lame animal to be put out of its misery! why not let it continue to co-exist with other survivors as a tiny niche.. and as for people who are so virulently anti surround, well they can take their prejudice and stick it where the sun don't shine!

 

[Clint Eastwood]

If anyone can truly speak of a niche industry....it would be Sound & Vision...the same statements said about surround sound also apply to the magazine "empire"...the fork has been stuck in it too...over and over and it's on life support...this article reminds me of other attempts in the media to "get attention"...or the way radio personalities used to get attention(viewers)by being "shock talk" DJ's...there is nothing in that article that hasn't been said thousands of times...but the hope is that people will respond...they could care less what the response is...they are just trying to drum up interest...I used to subscribe to Sound and Vision magazine and it gradually looked like an advertising flyer with so many ads in it...magazines are so desperate to just meet the payroll...I recently didn't renew my subscription to Rolling Stone magazine...and it was only costing me $2 a year!...just got bored with it and was tired of all the political crap...but there are tons of deals out there on magazines that are just trying to stay afloat....and another dying cause is the newspaper industry....I got a deal thru Groupon on my local newspaper 5 years ago and the local paper still lets me have it...for a measly $10 I get a year's worth of the Sunday papers and each holiday paper..so 52 weekly copies plus holidays delivered to my door for $10...

I wouldn't get upset over the article...Ken Pohlmann is just trying to put food on the table...a man's gotta eat..after all the education...the books he has written...and now he's relegated to a "blog"....probably not what he had in mind to wind down his career

 

[fredblue]

there's a thread on this over at the SHF (RIP! )
to wit I remarked along these lines; this is the year the Grammy's pulled the plug on a surround award? the year Appetite For Destruction is released in 5.1...!?
..now you're pulling my pisser..!!

 

[Clint Eastwood]

there's a thread on this over at the SHF (RIP! )
to wit I remarked along these lines; this is the year the Grammy's pulled the plug on a surround award? the year Appetite For Destruction is released in 5.1...!?
..now you're pulling my pisser..!!

Are they pulling the Grammy for surround music in 2019?....if that is the case Steven Wilson will never win one

 

[MrSmithers]

Bollocks! (Sorry if this turns into a rant!) I had to skip over half the article because it was getting on my nerves! Why mention DVD-A now? And no mention of SACD? It’s gone but the music isn’t and the principle behind it either.

There’s loads of new titles coming out - HELLO!

It’s a simple test... Does it SOUND better?

YES!!!

I feel sorry for people if they can’t hear that, but there’s a simple test - just listen... I feel that article and a lot of the record industry lack VISION!

I know it might be coming from an ironic point of view but I really don’t see the point. No one ever bought 1m surround albums simply because they didn’t know about it. And they still don’t...

Just been at concert for Roger Waters and over 50k people were digging surround music so I really don’t get that...

Who give’s a shit about the Grammys these days anyway? Drake?! Jay Z? I could do better on my Ukulele

 

[Jeffrey Michael]

It seems to me that Ken C. Pohlmann is out of touch with what is going on with surround. I don’t need to repeat everything that’s already been said here but has he done any research into how much Surround Sound on the different formats that have been released from the past couple of decades alone? I say, not.

Who even needs stereo anymore? We might as well go back to mono again since everything is trending towards one box speakers and Sound Bars. And everything our youth is listening to through headphones is so compressed anyway, it sounds like one big mono blob.

 

[MrSmithers]

And another thing... If there was such a bad uptake why are so many surround titles ‘sold out’, OOP and now going for crazy money?!

 

[bmoura]

His opinion piece actually focuses on DVD Audio. Not Surround Sound - which is alive and well in the Classical world, where we see new Surround Sound releases almost every week!

 

[ar surround]

Yes, we are a niche market; and the labels should charge whatever they believe is worth their while to turn a profit. They are doing so now with these box sets like Guns n' Roses. There are niche markets for many other things and unfortunately one must be willing to pay in order to participate.

 

[Jeffrey Michael]

His opinion piece actually focuses on DVD Audio. Not Surround Sound - which is alive and well in the Classical world, where we see new Surround Sound releases almost every week!

I’ll have to admit, I posted a reply based on what I read in the first few Posts before I read the article. What do I say now? Then, that article should have been written years ago.

 

[MrSmithers]

His opinion piece actually focuses on DVD Audio. Not Surround Sound - which is alive and well in the Classical world, where we see new Surround Sound releases almost every week!

That’s true... But how many surround titles are not available? Sold out/out of print. I love nativedsd but even still quite a few titles not available - LAGQ for example... It's going for quite high prices. Neither the artist or record company will get any money when it's sold on the second hand market... I don't get why they turned their back on something that people are clearly willing to buy - due to the fact that they're sold out?!

 

[bmoura]

That’s true... But how many surround titles are not available? Sold out/out of print. I love nativedsd but even still quite a few titles not available - LAGQ for example... It's going for quite high prices. Neither the artist or record company will get any money when it's sold on the second hand market... I don't get why they turned their back on something that people are clearly willing to buy - due to the fact that they're sold out?!

At the end of the day it's up to the record company and artists. NativeDSD now has over 60 record labels and over 1,000 Surround Sound DSD titles (on sale this month).
With more to come.

 

[steelydave]

Struck me kind of funny that someone from the glass house of print media would throw any kind of 'dead format' stone. What's Sound & Vision's byline these days, "From hell's heart, I stab at thee"?

 

[4-earredwonder]

IMO, it would've been far more constructive if writer Polhmann did some homework/research and wrote a glowing article about Watford UK's Dutton~Vocalion's recent foray into rescuing scores of QUAD masters from multiple labels and reissuing them on highest quality multichannel SACD and how CEO Michael Dutton commissioned custom, authoritative liner notes from [steely] Dave and has seemingly singlehandedly brought about a renaissance of sorts to Surroundophiles worldwide.

Perhaps it's time for QQers [myself included] to start a letter writing/email campaign and alert Mr. Polhmann of D~V's stellar efforts and perhaps spread the word in PRINT that not only is QUAD alive but thriving in Watford, England.

Certainly might help bolster sales and everyone knows what THAT means!

And steelydave, are you ready for your close up? Golly, gee, now I get a play a REAL anchorman!