Old interview Absolute Sound's Pearson

[bgb]

This is part of an interview conducted by TNT Audio with Absolute Sound's Harry Pearson in 2008.

Has anyone seen it? Note: I'm not taking sides on these issues, or trying to stir animosities, I'm merely putting this out for general comment. (o:

Pearson interview comments about analog/digital, Blu-Ray/HD-DVD, SACD, and so on..

"You are wrong to suppose that the current music champions of vinyl don't care about the sound. Check out Eric Clapton and others who can and do hear the differences between analog and digital. It is a marketing choice to the extent that analog/vinyl is now considered to lend "prestige" to a release, but that is because, the prestige release most usually sounds better, and the young listeners not only know that, but they can hear it. As for SACD, the American companies, for the most part (excluding Telarc, Chesky, and a few boutique labels) are avoiding it like it's infected. You have to go outside the boundaries of the U.S. to find many new issues on SACD. Ironically, Sony, in Japan, is re-issuing a great many discs originally recorded in multi-channel [the Leonard Bernstein Mahler cycle with the New York Philharmonic, for example] but not here. We have to order the expensive imports from Japan if we want to hear such masterpieces as they were originally intended to be heard. One of the problems with SACD issues, particularly those of classical music, is that the engineers haven't yet quite figured out a way to capture a real sense of hall ambiance in the rear channels, a problem compounded by the fact that most listeners don't know how to set up their rear speakers to best effect. Hint: Keep them near your listening position and canted in toward your ears, while keeping any direct instrumental sound toward (but not always at the front). As for Blu-Ray, it is another case where Sony has failed to produce a product that lives up to its technological promise. The Toshiba/HD system was better and much more practicable. The great difference to be seen between the Toshiba and the ordinary Blu-Ray became most apparent when the images were shown on a large screen. Too many Blu-Ray discs show grain, like a blown up 35mm print, a failing that did not afflict most Toshiba/HD issues. Even now, after Sony strong-armed the film companies into singular support for its process, the average Blu-Ray release is still a disappointment. Some may see an ironic justice in the fact that Sony's technically superior Betamax process lost out to the far inferior VHS system, but not this time."