Manufacturing costs cannot get to the lowest level with the small numbers that these titles will sell.
The more titles I see that are not going to be considered by Audio Fidelity not now and not later, the more I agree with you that the way to get "Quad Only" titles issued is by downloads. There is a staggering amount of titles that either are tied up with MFSL, or they are simply not popular enough as artists, or the titles are no longer hot enough for retail reissues, especially with stereo layers.
CTA was a hit, and a sellout for certain. There are others of the same caliber. And AF is going after the best of them no doubt. But then the ones that they cannot go after, Santana, Dylan, etc. Other labels (like AF) are not going to want to risk issuing things that were just reiussued.
So the only way to beat the expenses of lesser commercial titles (Randy Newman, Bette Midler, Andy Williams), and avoid the risk of the recently reissued is quad mastered downloads.
I'll believe that the Rhino Quadio series is coming back when I see it. I don't see it right now do you? I don't see anyone stepping up to the plate to bat for a quad only disc.
Right now, AF has enough top quality titles to keep going for a while in 4.0. But at some point we are going to want Desire, Caravanseria, or They Only Come Out at Night, as examples of top titles not planned because they were out on stereo SACD already. Sure we will also want Argent, Rick Derringer, and other gold but not platinum titles as well.
So unless someone here has some cash to startup a Quadio type label, then we need to start writing emails and letters asking for those titles as downloads. I prefer FLAC myself, as it agrees with more DACs than DSD does.
I wish we had the cash to do a startup label in the spirit of Quadio, and go for those quad masters, the ones that are still there that can't be on SACDs at this time, or maybe never.
Some thoughts to add to the discussion:
1. Downloads do offer some interesting advantages in terms of cost as you point out. There are no discs to make, distribute and warehouse. Once the download is prepared, the record label distributes it to the download sites, the sites prepare the listing (PDF, MP3 song samples, artwork, artist and album info, etc.) and then launch. The sites have hosting costs so they won't post everything. And they do typically share the revenue with record label on a percentage basis (with the record label getting 60% to 70% of the revenues, depending on the site and location). But the economics are different than optical discs as has been discussed earlier.
2. Acoustic Sounds has posted several DSD Downloads that are not available on SACD disc (Alan Parsons, Live Blues Concerts, Grant Farm, etc.) So some of the companies are indeed experimenting with the difference in economics as you suggest. See the Chad Kassem comments on download economics in my article for Positive Feedback at
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue79/dsd_panel.htm
"Kassem also talked about the economics of SACD and DSD Download releases. He noted that music downloads opens up an interesting option. In some cases, a full SACD release may not pencil out, but a release of the music as a DSD Download will. So there are cases where the album comes out that way (as a download) vs. as an SACD."
3. If you are looking at optical discs, a big challenge on the reissues are the guarantee and royalty payments to the original artists plus the costs of remastering and getting the disc ready for market. This is especially the case when you talk about albums and artists that may not sell in volume. Even if you're only looking at 1 reissue and remaster. A new startup label doing reissues would need money in the six or seven figures (i.e. hundreds of thousands of dollars and up) for more than 1 major label + major artist CD or SACD reissue! That explains why all of the companies doing reissues on CD, SACD, etc. are very careful in selecting titles. They are literally betting the company's funds - and some serious $ at that (!) - to make and top these initial costs that are unavoidable.
4. On DACs, these days the trend is for DACs that play all formats - WAV, FLAC, DSD, DXD, etc. Much as we have seen with optical disc players that play all formats. There are now almost 400 DACs that support DSD - most of which also play PCM directly (without the need to upsample to DSD). So there is no need to choose among formats. You can get a Stereo DAC starting at $189 that plays all of the above.
http://www.dsd.sonore.us
5. On reissues, it's worth mentioning that the available titles change over time. So, some titles that are available to license and release today, can suddenly come off the list tomorrow. And vice versa. So that explains why a reissue label like Audio Fidelity - and the others - keep the communication channels open with the record labels.
6. Since there is competition to license key albums, reissue labels generally don't discuss their plans publicly. If they did, the competition would know which albums and artists they are pursuing and that could move an album reissue to another company. I find that the reissue labels would love to talk about what they are working on publicly, but do not for this reason. The good news is there are a number of interesting reissue projects behind the scenes at Audio Fidelity and other reissue companies.
It's truly an interesting corner of the music world. As always, I applaud the reissue labels and the folks behind them. They are the often unsung heroes that bring these fine reissues to our music systems!
