Super Audio CD Update From Sony

9-Jun-03

The Super Audio CD format continues to gain significant momentum in 2003. Additional hardware manufacturers, including such high-end companies as Bel Canto, Krell, MSB Technology, and Musical Fidelity, recently introduced players to the market. And music companies, like EMI, Sony Music Entertainment (SME) and Universal Music Group continue to offer a variety of noteworthy stereo and multichannel surround titles. Pink Floyd's ""The Dark Side of the Moon"", for example, reached #1 on the Billboard catalog chart and is rapidly approaching 100,000 unit sales in the U.S. since its release on March 25, 2003. In addition to reissuing a broad range of titles from Peter Gabriel and The Police, Universal Music Group will release a number of other Super Audio CDs during the second half of this year. These include recordings from such stellar artists as Shania Twain, The Who, and Steely Dan, whose classic recording ""Gaucho"" will be available as a hybrid multichannel release this summer. Blue Note Records, EMI's venerable jazz label, will also issue its first five Super Audio CD titles in 5.1 surround in June, including Norah Jones' ""Come Away With Me"", last year's Album of the Year and the recipient of eight Grammy awards. And following its landmark Rolling Stones ""Remastered"" series, ABKCO Records will reissue five hybrid titles by the legendary Sam Cooke on June 17, including a 5.1 surround version of the ""Sam Cooke at The Copa"" live recording. Sony Music is also planning an aggressive release schedule. It features a number of multichannel titles later this summer from such artists as Aerosmith, The Byrds, Macy Gray, Yo-Yo Ma, and Heart, whose new two-disc hybrid set ""Alive in Seattle"" will be in stores this month. SME's release schedule will be highlighted by the release of 15 classic Bob Dylan titles on hybrid Super Audio CD, six of them in multichannel surround also later this summer. These major label releases will be complemented by a variety of other new titles from such audiophile and independent labels including Chesky, Concord, Domo, Groove Note, Harmonia Mundi, FIM, Fantasy, Mobile Fidelity, Sugar Hill, Vanguard, Rounder, and Telarc. There are more than 800 titles currently available in the U.S; almost half of which are multichannel surround titles. In addition to the latest Super Audio CD players from Sony and Philips, and the manufacturers noted above, there are now almost two dozen companies offering Super Audio CD hardware. Currently, Super Audio CD replication is available from the Sonopress facility in Gutersloh, Germany, Viva Magnetics in Hong Kong, Crest National in the U.S. and Sony Disc Manufacturing in the U.S., Japan, and Austria. Recently, new SACD production equipment has been introduced by several professional companies including dCS, EMM Labs, Genex, SADiE, Sonic Studios and Tascam.

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