I can only speak for what the market is like in the US.
There are audiophile music companies, like Mobile Fidelity, Analogue Productions, Audio Fidelity, etc. But compared to HK, there are relatively fewer audiophile releases. In HK, almost all music companies own the original music recordings, so they can do whatever they want with them. In the US, many singers/bands own the rights to the original music recording and they don't know that there's an audiophile music market. Another reason is that the singer/band don't want to go throught so much trouble (contracts, remastering, etc.) when they can make a lot more money doing concerts. Companies like Sony and Universal don't care because how many people, even in a country with a population of 300 million people, will buy a $30 CD (or SACD, vinyl record) when most people can get their music from iTunes (and be satisfied). To a company like Sony, selling 5,000 copies of a CD is nothing when it can probably sell 1 million songs on iTunes in one day. That's why the big music companies license their music to smaller companies like Mobile Fidelity for audiophile releases. Mobile Fidelity takes all the financial risk....the cost to remaster, to market, to press the CD/SACD/vinyl record, to package, to warehouse, etc.
In the US, I can buy a 2 CD set (new) like "The Best of Dire Straits & Mark Knopfler" for US$8.00....
Will the sound quality of the new Mobile Fidelity SACD of "Brothers In Arms" be 4X better? Of course not.
Will that stop me from buying my 8th version of "Brothers In Arms"? Of course not.
我收藏的經典粵語流行曲CD (now over 1,500,000 views - as of April 9, 2014)
發表於 2013-8-9 22:21
Agree!!
