sorry for the apparent encryption of my post. strange.

my point was that with no competition (as dolby is used to having none, being the 8 million ton gorilla), the state of the art would be worse than it is and would stay that way for a much longer time.

meridian ran to dolby with their lossless packing scheme and suddenly it was adopted as the system to use for dvd-a, despite other available methods that we'll never hear about.

is it back compatable to cd? no. will it play on a dvd player? no. is it being promoted? no. dolby loves status quo. it's lucrative. the only push dvd-a gets is from fear of the competing format.

the only 2 existing patents to do with digital bass management were both patterned around dolby's ancient system that was designed for theaters. how well is it working out? is it adaptable to dvd-a/sacd?

i just think that dolby (who have sewed up digital tv and movies) doesn't care much about audio. it's frustrating to me that the dominant force is the inferior product.

we waited years too long for dvd-a because they couldn't watermark the software with a system that hackers couldn't beat, then they released it with the ridiculous analog out format with no bass management. that was only because of sony's pressure, or we'd still be waiting.

i'm glad for sacd, dts and the outlaw icbm. that's why i support all 3 as much as i can.

thigg: sorry, my friend. i was only being general. there are good mastering engineers, to be sure. especially in the analog days that you mention. you HAD to care. you had to be good at it, too. i don't know what it is with digital. seems like lesser talent can get by through digital machinations (witness hip-hop with samples, no musicians, heck, you don't even have to be able to sing). the fact that the release of dark side of the moon in hi-rez multi-channel is so anticipated... a 30 year old record...and no new material that's been written exclusively for the format instead, says a lot about the situation to me.

sorry for the rant.