Studio Monitor

SATISFACTION!: The Home Entertainment Expo, held May 30-June 2 at the Hilton New York, illustrated broad strides in the development of consumer playback equipment, bringing the listening experience ever closer to that of the content creators in the recording studio.

Between suite after suite of sleek, elegant hardware bearing impressive specifications and the major software announcement of May 30 —ABKCO's Aug. 20 release of 22 Rolling Stones titles (Billboard, June 8) on hybrid Super Audio CD (SACD) enabling playback on advanced-resolution SACD players, as well as standard CD players—the event, featuring more than 200 exhibitors, demonstrated the convincing extent of home entertainment's evolution.

The Rolling Stones Remastered SACD presentation had attendees lingering in the SACD listening room, many in seeming disbelief at the realism delivered on a demonstration disc featuring selections ranging from the band's early recordings in London, Chicago, and Hollywood through its late-'60s peak of Beggar's Banquet and Let It Bleed. More than 35 years later, very few have heard such detail and nuance of Charlie Watt's propulsive drums, the complete scope of Bill Wyman's elastic basslines, or the full tone and power of Keith Richards' guitars. When everything is uncovered, the Stones' marvelous production is revealed along with the clarity of their original masters, most of which were transferred from original master recordings at New York's Magic Shop studios.

With the announcement at the Home Entertainment Expo, The Rolling Stones Remastered dovetails with the availability of new models of next-generation players—such as SACD—at increasingly lower cost.

"The format is pretty well-embraced in the high-end market," says David Kawakami, director of Sony's Super Audio Project. "But in any new technology, there are the early adopters, then this large chasm, on the other side of which is the mass market. Many don't break through and get a bridge across to really make it take hold in the mass market. We started last fall by dramatically increasing our distribution, the price point of the players came down to $299, and Sony Electronics expanded the line. Now we're under $200 for some players. In conjunction with the line expansion, Sony Electronics expanded from its ES dealership—the top-tier, audio specialty dealers—to the mass merchants, like Circuit City and Best Buy. That put us into something like 1,500 storefronts. But the fuel to make this rocket get off the launching pad is software, and the right kind of software."

The Rolling Stones Remastered, Kawakami says, is just that kind. "It only has been issued on CD once [in 1986], so there's going to be a huge step forward, perception-wise, for the consumer and the Rolling Stones fan. The hybrid SACD allows [ABKCO] to address the existing market, plus put a next-generation format in consumer hands, which they can listen to on the same disc."

The Sony/ABKCO announcement comes at a time when the convergence offered by DVD is supplemented by the emergence of the "universal player." Pioneer's DV-47A, from the Elite line, is amassing considerable attention for its capabilities and cost. A DVD-Audio/DVD-Video/SACD player that also handles DVD-R, CD-R/RW, and MP3 (on CD-R discs), the DV-47A allows playback of all current formats; as such, it should remain an up-to-date piece of equipment longer than most new technology. At $1,200, it is available to far more consumers than Pioneer's earlier DV-AX10.

The Home Entertainment Expo also featured a wealth of flat-screen, high-definition TVs. The experience of a live concert in one's home—audio captured at 24/96 resolution and delivered in a 5.1 mix on DVD-Audio, viewed on a plasma high-definition monitor, for example—has never felt so authentic.

Likewise, The Rolling Stones Remastered on hybrid SACD offers a far closer reproduction of the raw, gritty, fantastic energy the Stones committed to tape than any previous format could convey.