Show me the dough and sure! Just be prepared to lose some. What is a price point that would sell more and recover more funds than the price point AF has? I believe the list is too expensive to get a serious fan base.
Well you're the pro with first hand experience I just buy the stuff so I don't have the foggiest about how it works at all but I kinda struggle with the notion that its
purely a price point issue that deters the surround crowd.. and why?
1.) the astronomical sums that can change hands for certain Quad titles on old 8-tracks, records and reel to reel tapes, etc..
2.) the excessive amounts spent on box sets stuffed full of mostly unwanted items just to get the surround release that's part of the package..
3.) the crazy after market for out of print Surround SACD/DVD-A/DTS titles, once these things are all gone at retail they can rapidly become unattainable unless you fork out for them..
If money was such a big issue, how comes that all goes on to this day in this surround/Quad hobby?
A big part of it surely has to be the titles themselves, no?
Any label wanting to do a Quad reissue programme properly must have to try and secure the top tier stuff at first (if possible, if they cannot do that, it may just be a non-starter altogether).. and once you've made a few quid out of some of those bigger name artists, you can then more comfortably afford to take a hit on any lesser rung albums and artists down the line, if the programme gets that far.. maybe?
I do also feel a little creativity and thinking outside the box with regards promotion, social networking, crowdfunding, etc as Cookie Marenco suggested on QQ the other day ought to be factored into any strategy at this point, with the music biz the way it is said to be now.
Audio Fidelity have an established market, high quality Stereo remasters essentially.. so in a way one can see it may be tough for them to sell a title purely on the basis of it including the Quad/5.1 surround, nigh-on impossible I'd say unless they produced titles specifically targeted at a group such as this and designed from the ground-up to be for a surround audience as opposed to being for the stereo customers with a little added incentive of an old Quad or 5.1 for the much smaller surround customer base.
If all the permissions etc could be worked out, a 1,000 copy print run of a Hi-Res Surround 4.0 reissue of Aerosmith's Rocks Quad from the master tapes (don't include the Stereo) for the same price as one of the Audio Fidelity SACDs, would surely sell out, or I'll eat my hat!
The question is would £25,000 gross cover all the licensing, manufacturing, promotion overhead etc for that one title..? I may be completely wide of the mark but no I believe it would not.
So, what do do? You could make em £50 each, they will still sell if the product is properly handled I reckon.. there is a demand for surround, the market is very small but the pockets of the people who comprise it are deep, for the right product.
As I've also touched on here before, a number of the 'bigger' Quad titles are already done and dusted, AF has done some recently (Doors Best, Bread, etc).. do they require another release purely from a surround perspective? Probably not.. maybe fresh transfers of the Quads that already made it out to DTS & SACD and fetch tidy sums to this day (Wings, Isleys, O'Jays) might warrant a rehash but put those to one side for a moment, I feel there are enough mainstream popular (rock/pop/jazz/soul/r&b) titles to sustain a programme, a "4-channel Top 40" range, 2 titles a month with an extra 1 or 2 at Christmas or other important selling periods in the year, should keep you going for a few years before you start having to even consider less desirable titles & artists. Maybe
