Norman and David Chesky have been carrying the torch of SACD for a long time but their audience is very small and has little or no impact on the future of the format - both very nice guys doing quality work - however, their mostly ambience in the rears, minimalist miking surround titles are hardly what one would call mainstream.
Concord released 3 titles in January '09 (2 samplers and 1 classical title) - clearly these were in production in 2008 and before Michael Bishop and his crew were dismissed. The current new release schedule has new Spyro Grya and a Paavo Jarvi/Cincinatti Orchestra titles on CD only - the entire previous Concord/Telarc/Heads Up catalog of Spyro Gyra and Jarvi are all MC SACD. This would lead me to believe that Concord is moving away from SACD - perhaps parent company Universal has something to do with that? Not sure but I would love nothing more than a steady stream of new Concord SACD titles to add to my collection.
The US music industry is in free fall - annual double digit decreases in sales since 2003 have resulted in almost a 50% decline in physical sales. SACD has decreased at even a more alarming annual rate - 47% decline in sales in 2006 and a 33% decline in sales for 2007 - for a whopping grand total of 200,000 SACD sold in the US in 2007. That trend works out to under 100K units in 2009. Now I'm sure some can dispute that these numbers (courtesy of the RIAA) don't represent imports and such but even if the numbers are off 50% the number represents a format that cannot be sustained - combine that with the fact that there is no US manufacturing available for SACD - Sony is manufacturing theirs in Austria and Sonopress/arvato is getting ready to pull the plug in Guetersloh (if they haven't already). Put a fork in it - its done.
