AfterDawn: News

Blu-spec standard coming to CD audio

Sony Music Entertainment Japan has announced the launch of a new disc standard today, Blu-spec, in which it hopes to use blue lasers to "cut CDs more accurately than would be possible with red lasers."

The company will also use polymer plastic for the actual discs and the combination will improve the quality of audio CDs while keeping compatibility with current CD players. Incompatibility has been the main weakness for Super Audio CDs and other audio standards.



The first Blu-spec discs will hit Japan on Christmas and will be mainly classical music discs as well as Jazz. Among the 60 titles available at launch will be Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 and Miles Davis' Kind of Blue.

The discs will all be Sony but they are hoping to "foster cross-label support" from the other Big 4 labels.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 5 Nov 2008 21:55

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• 12 comments

• nonoitall

  How exactly is this new technology going to improve quality while remaining compliant with the antiquated specifications of the audio CD?

  5.11.2008 23:05 #1

• Pop_Smith

  Sounds like a marketing ploy to get people's minds on Blu-Ray.
  
  While I don't see how a audio CD-compatible format could have better quality than a CD, I guess we will have to wait and see.
  
  Peace

  6.11.2008 00:10 #2

• plazma247

  The new "Blu-spec CD" is conforms to the standard audio CD (CDDA/Red Book) format and it is compatible with existing CD players.
  
  The new discs are built using polymer polycarbonate materials as well as an optimized Blue Laser Beam cutting technology that improves the quality of the laser beam.
  
  The applied Blu-ray Disc polycarbonate polymer material introduces less jitter (noise) and thus, high-quality audio reproduction. Sony claims that the produced "Blu-spec CD" discs offer a quality similar to the master.

  6.11.2008 06:07 #3

• nonoitall

  I was under the (rather strong) impression that modern hardware and software could already deal with jitter problems. There's no way that 44,100 Hz and 16-bit samples are going to be comparable to a master. Definitely marketing hype over a difference that is either small or non-existent.

  6.11.2008 16:56 #4

• wolf123

  With these new specs will the cd be able too hold more then 700mb or is the the standard it will always be.

  6.11.2008 16:57 #5

• varnull

  the red book standard has been with us for more than 20 years. This is just another sony scam which will go the way of so many other failed sony scams. They love trying to sell a "new" version of an already almost obsolete format in the hope of dragging more money out of the "I must have that.. it's better because they sell it as better" brigade.
  
  You would achieve more by spending your money on better speakers and investigating the acoustic properties of your listening room and making adjustments audio wise. The analog devices.. speakers, rooms and ears are the weak links in the audio chain. Fact. No amount of sony BS can cover up the fact that most people listen to music in a less than ideal over furnished environment with big resonance and absorption peaks at all kinds of odd frequencies.
  

  
  
  Free open source software = made by end users who want an application to work. The flower of carnage-shura no hana..

  6.11.2008 17:05 #6

• atomicxl

  Originally posted by nonoitall: How exactly is this new technology going to improve quality while remaining compliant with the antiquated specifications of the audio CD?Thats what i'd like to know. Most music is recorded at 24-bit, 96kHz or higher. CDs are 16-bit, 44.1kHz. You're talking more than double the disc space required if they use standard PCM.
  
  If they used lossless encoding you could get 24/96 at pretty close to the same file size as CDs (for WMA Lossless at least), but good luck on getting a standard CD player to read that.
  
  I think they'd be better off with the idea of shipping music on Flash drives with a HQ lossless and regular MP3s. PS3s, xbox 360s and computers can read the HQ format and any computer could play it and regular MP3s could be read by portable players.

  6.11.2008 23:08 #7

• locobrown

  Regular CD's are here stay, it will never be replaced. Blu-ray and now this? Forget you Sony, digital downloads is the future. Who would want to change their stereo equipment just for a shinny blue laser? Lets throw a laser light show! Bogus.

  7.11.2008 01:21 #8

• hermes_vb

  Originally posted by plazma247: The applied Blu-ray Disc polycarbonate polymer material introduces less jitter (noise)...Now the question is does it introduce more DRM?

  7.11.2008 13:22 #9

• lostlight

  does anyone know what the bit rate or sampling frequency is

  16.11.2008 14:16 #10

• varnull

  What does that matter.. 44khz is double 99% of the populations hearing top end anyway.. a very lucky few can hear up to 24k as children, but by the time they are 20 they are lucky to get to 18k.. so why sample at 100k or 500k?.. it makes no audible difference whatsoever.
  

  
  
  Free open source software = made by end users who want an application to work. The flower of carnage-shura no hana..

  16.11.2008 14:41 #11

• error5

  Originally posted by varnull: What does that matter.. 44khz is double 99% of the populations hearing top end anyway.. The reason why it's double the high end of the audible range is the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem which states that an analog signal that has been sampled can be perfectly reconstructed if the sampling rate is more than twice the maximum frequency in the original signal.
  
  http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee104/shannonpaper.pdf
  
  Sampling rates higher than 44KHz can relax the low-pass filter design requirements for ADCs and DACs.

  16.11.2008 15:47 #12