Onkyo DualDisc advisory....

After Sony and Pioneer comes Onkyo....

http://www.highfidelityreview.com/news/news.asp?newsnumber=16567299

 

Until Onkyo has an opportunity to test the new commercially available hybrid discs, Onkyo does not know whether Onkyo products can safely handle these new hybrid discs, or whether these discs may damage your Onkyo products.


Trying to figure out how a DualDisc could 'damage' a player. If thickness were an issue, we wouldn't be hearing about the CD side not being up to spec, right?

 

Maybe it's the weight of the disc?

Correct me if I'm wrong but from what I've read the CD side is not up to spec: the plastic on that side is supposedly thinner than a regular CD's.

 

Yes, that's what I've read too.

 

I can't remember where I read a comment from a guy at Philips some time ago where he said that they'd do better to go for a CD + DVD combo, which (in his opinion) does not cost more to manufacture.

The double sided disc has in its favor the fact that it can clearly be identified by the regular consumer as something different, which would not be the case if they had gone CD + DVD. But what has been, and will be, the price for Warner (and MLP) of going ahead with this increasingly eschewed format?

 

The CD side on these discs is not up to spec. They are thinner and more susceptible to damage from dust and scratches, regardless of how the consumer handles (or mis-handles) either side. I don't own any DualDiscs, but I do own a 'OneDisc' (Kathleen Edwards Live at the Bowery Ballroom) which is the original hybrid DVD/CD format over which there is a pending lawsuit if I'm not mistaken, against the DualDisc folks. The disc is very heavy compared to standard CD's and DVD's, and the CD side will not play in my Denon 2200 universal. There may be some truth to the numbers quoted by Phillips on the failure rates of these kinds of discs.

 

I have the solution. The record label can simply place a note in the package instructing the user to please make a CD-R copy.

 

Another advisory? I think it's time to ditch dual disc! This is so lame! The record companies won't fully support DVD-A or SACD, but they'll go ape-dukey over a format that won't work! I wonder how much butter it took to grease those palms!

 

I agree! Plus, I would not want a dual sided disc anyway! No room for song titles and such. The amount of space for artwork, and liner notes is small enough as it is, why make it smaller.

Dual layer SACD works perfectly! Plus, I think DSD sounds better anyway. But thats another discussion all together.

 

All the companies have to do is just issue a few more titles that i'm interest in, and I will shell out the $129 for a Sony player...I have nine SACDs...I need more...

 

That is about how many I have. However, the amount of titles has been expanding, slowly, but it is...

 

I recently bought a Denon DVD-3910 Universal SACD/DVD-A. I will not purchase or play any dualdiscs on it. All these warnings have me paranoid about damaging my new player. I'll stick with plain 'ole DVD-A. The convenience of having one disc with two formats does nothing for me. You still have to get up and flip the darn thing over!!

 

Wait until all those crappy (in my opinion of course ) Silverline DDs hit the shelves--those will really help this format take off.

I sure hope that The Cars dvd-audio is sold as a CD+dvd or just a dvd-audio (it's supposedly already been mixed). Same with the Alan Parsons albums......if they ever finally come out in surround form.

 

I've heard that the Nine Inch Nails Downward Spiral Hi-Res releases will in addition to the double-SACD have a DualDisc release. This is one of the few releases that I was going to gladly purchase on both formats, but not if it is DualDisc. DVD-A, yes. DualDisc, no. Thank goodness the Flaming Lips release was a DVD-A+CD release.

 

I feel your pain, but let me ask this - and it is something I have pondered (so I am not sure how I would react either).....

Consider that the DualDisc IS effectively a DVD-Audio disc, when it has a hi-rez component on the DVD side. Since that is the case in most DualDisc releases from Warners (and to an extent Universal - since I know they seemed to have dumbed-down the DVD-A content to 48/24), then one could consider the Nine Inch Nails DualDisc album a DVD-Audio disc! Hence you could really look at the DualDisc as a DVD-Audio disc that merely has a potenially non-playable CD side. So why not just buy it for the DVD-Audio content and forget about the CD layer???

On the other hand, for personal reasons, I really don't want to support DualDisc releases since they are problematic in most of my CD players. I also would prefer straight DVD-Audio or CD+DVD-A to the DualDisc - so my purchase of the DualDisc for the DVD-Audio content might send the wrong message to the record companies. I assume this is your stance also?

 

Should we add DualDisc to our "Flop" thread?

 

Exactly.

 

Backwards compatibility.

Hybrid SACD (or a working dualdisc for that matter) would be so easy to integrate into standard record stores. The record company would just say, today we stop making redbook CD's. We will only produce hybrid SACD's. And the hardware manufactures would do the same, no more dedicated redbook players. No advertisement would even be necessary. People would be buying hires, and they wouldn't even know it. Then when their existing player died, and they purchased a new one, it would be an SACD player, and they would realize the quality of the discs.

 

I've been saying something similar to this for the longest time, probably since two or three years ago, but, alas, it wasn't to be.