Sony to spin off audio unit

[Ducatista47]

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31523511

Sony may get no audiophile respect, but its audio products are very good, and bulletproof. I hope the unit survives.

[Ed Zeppeli]

Well damn, I just bought a Walkman for the first time in 30 years. lol

[hsosdrum]

In 2003 I bought a Sony professional CD burner and it barely lasted 4 years before it simply would no longer burn CDs (I had burned maybe 60 CDs total on it by the time it gave out). Ditto for the Sony SXRD TV that I bought in 2006: it only lasted 4 years before I had to replace it. Neither of these were disposable commodity-level products; both should have provided far longer service than they rendered

I'm officially done with Sony.

[4343]

In 2003 I bought a Sony professional CD burner and it barely lasted 4 years before it simply would no longer burn CDs (I had burned maybe 60 CDs total on it by the time it gave out). Ditto for the Sony SXRD TV that I bought in 2006: it only lasted 4 years before I had to replace it. Neither of these were disposable commodity-level products; both should have provided far longer service than they rendered

I'm officially done with Sony.

Contrast that with my PVM 25" monitor that I got in 1987, B stock. I finally had to replace last September when the HV resistor pack went out. Put many thousands of hours on that one...

I know I have burned at least 400 DVD's on my Sony DVD recorder, 'cause that's how many VHS tapes I donated to the local library after transferring them. Still going strong. Down to one a week now days.

The Audio group has some of the best people in Sony. Hope they do well on their own.

[allen mueller]

I've had some mixed results with Sony. I had a small Trinitron tv that just would not die, but on the other hand i had a receiver that died after a few years and even when it was working it was quirky. I also had a Sony SACD player that died on me.

[hsosdrum]

Regardless of my personal feelings about the reliability/unreliability of Sony's products, I do agree that spinning off the audio unit is unlikely to be a good thing over all. I'm sure that one of the factors that allowed those talented engineers to thrive (as in invent the CD and SACD, among other things) was that they were backed by the resources of a giant corporation. And while that can be a double-edged sword, the engineers at the new company will likely have to struggle more for funding than they ever did while a part of Sony. I also wish them every success.

[dr_gallup]

I don't own a lot of Sony gear but it has all been very good. I've got 2 of the big 300 disc CD changers that just keep going and going and going. I've also got a nearly 20 year old 32" XBR TV that looks as good as the day it was new. Someday I'm going to replace it but I'll need several strong backs to help me get it out of the house.

The thing that stopped me from buying a lot of other gear is their love of proprietary formats. For instance, I purposely avoided Sony cameras for awhile because they required their memory sticks instead of standard flash memory cards. Sony fought these format battles way too long and often.

[SEAWOLF97]

discussing the past reliability of products has little to do with this story.

they were innovative when there were audio things to innovate, not so much
left to do with current technology today. about all a company can do is improve
on current relevant gear now.

IMHO ..sony's beta was superior to vhs when they competed. but sony lost money on
products that didnt fly -R cassette-. at least it didnt kill them like the divx did to
circuit city.

the audio world regards sony MD as a failure, but i'm still a fan and grab up the gear when available.

Sony seemed best at tape based products, which have generally been killed by digital.

i;d love to see the audio side return to former glory, but i dont think that hawking MP3 accessories
is going to do that. Not for JBL either.

[Ducatista47]

Back when I was more traditionally minded, Sony bothered me in a way that I now admire them for. They are relentless innovators in electronics and software. In the development of the CD, Sony did the software end including the error correction and encoding. (Philips handled the optics, basically the player). Philips wanted a fourteen bit system; Sony insisted on sixteen. Two of the bits are what keep the errors to zero. They don't have the same function as the other bits. Philips, lacking the Japanese insistence on doing everything perfectly, only wanted good enough. Fourteen would have either meant errors or lower audio quality.

I believe Sony also developed every new amplifier class in the last three or more decades. What I used to dislike was Sony always throwing technology at a problem. Now I realize they have been the key player in audio innovation for a long time. Most high end companies pretty much keep reinventing the wheel. Sony had to compete with every company in the mass market.

If the audio divisions of Sony and Philips keep collaborating, the future might be bright, and funded.

[Hoerninger]

Now I realize they have been the key player in audio innovation for a long time.
In the beginning of the seventies Sony had a huge neon sign
" SONY - Wegbereiter der audio visuellen Zukunft"

in the city of Hamburg . Something like "SONY - pathfinder of the audio visual future". I thought to myself BS, we had Grundig, Blaupunkt, Wega, Braun, Telefunken, Siemens and more. Now I show great respect for SONY, although I have never bought any sony gear. I own the mechanics of an old SONY 3motor tape recorder from the pre transistor era for restauration. But this will not be done anymore, time goes by.
___________
Peter

[audiomagnate]

I read somewhere that the only thing making money for Sony is their insurance division.

[Odd]

Pass Labs Pays Tribute to Sony (http://www.stereophile.com/content/pass-labs-pays-tribute-sony)The 40th Anniversary Sony VFET Amplifier from Pass Labs (http://www.audioheritage.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?35384-The-40th-Anniversary-Sony-VFET-Amplifier-from-Pass-Labs)

[fpitas]

Pass Labs Pays Tribute to Sony (http://www.stereophile.com/content/pass-labs-pays-tribute-sony)

The 40th Anniversary Sony VFET Amplifier from Pass Labs (http://www.audioheritage.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?35384-The-40th-Anniversary-Sony-VFET-Amplifier-from-Pass-Labs)

Yeah, Sony used to dabble in high-end, but I guess the money just isn't there. I'm glad there are guys like Mr. Pass that still make boutique electronics.

Francis

[1audiohack]

[QUOTE=Ducatista47;372226] I believe Sony also developed every new amplifier class in the last three or more decades. QUOTE]


Hi Clark;

In all sincerity I don't want this to sound at all like a question asked in hostility. I am truly interested in your basis for this statement. ?

Thank you,
Barry.

[Ducatista47]

[QUOTE=Ducatista47;372226] I believe Sony also developed every new amplifier class in the last three or more decades. QUOTE]


Hi Clark;

In all sincerity I don't want this to sound at all like a question asked in hostility. I am truly interested in your basis for this statement. ?

Thank you,
Barry.

Hi Barry,

I am afraid I can't remember the specific source. I know they didn't invent Class E, but I think I remember that they did develop many others to practicality if not outright think them up. Since I can't remember precisely where I think I found this information, I will gladly retract it. Sony's engineers do have an impressive track record for developing concepts both built and merely fascinating. I will stand by my assertion that Sony has been in the forefront of audio development for some time. There is much representation from the other heavyweights in Japan, Europe and America, but Sony is usually found in the attribution line of the earlier practical designs.

Here is a link to the patents of just one of their engineers. In all these links, the patent titles are hyperlinks.

http://patents.justia.com/inventor/nobuo-hareyama

Perhaps unrelated, this list for another of the team that developed the Compact Disk. I like the first one, about motor control of a tonearm.

http://patents.justia.com/search?q=heitaro+nakajima

Toshitada Doi, another on the CD team. All interesting; catch the "Fluid Flow Control Speaker System" employing fluidics to convert PCM to analogue.

http://patents.justia.com/search?q=Toshitada+Doi

And, for better or worse, Sony's reach is broad.

http://fortune.com/2013/04/30/sony-patent-is-hilarious-terrifying/

Senri Miyaoka, another team member who obviously enjoyed working with light.

http://patents.justia.com/search?q=senri+MIyaoka

To illustrate how everyone jumps on an idea, here is one list of some Class D patents. You will note that the first practical design that wouldn't self destruct its own hardware is a Sony item, one of several in the early chronology of the post theoretical filings. I have attached a PDF of it.

http://www.acutechnology.com/ClassD/Pat_list.html

To illustrate how the CD patent train rolled, attached is a PDF document in progress from the SACD development, showing Sony's contribution to the Sony-Philips arrangement.

[4343]

... Two of the bits are what keep the errors to zero. They don't have the same function as the other bits. Philips, lacking the Japanese insistence on doing everything perfectly, only wanted good enough. Fourteen would have either meant errors or lower audio quality. ...

14 bits would have meant lesser audio quality, yes. Otherwise, the 2 extra bits are exactly the same as the first 14, Audio Data. The error correction system actually comprises 66% of the data on a CD! (588 bits to encode every 192 audio bits.)

It's called Cyclic Redundancy Correction Coding, or CRCC, sometimes Cyclic Redundancy Check Code, or just CRC, as in CRC Errors when talking about a bad disk.

First the 16 bit words are split into into frames, containing twelve 16 bit samples each (six left and six right samples), for a total of 192 bits of audio data per frame. The error correction then adds 64 bits of parity data to each frame. Then, 8 bits of subcode is added for ease in locating the frames. (At this point my Sony training Instructor diverged from the Wikipedia page by saying that the entire process was applied again to the resulting data stream, which he explained was the Cyclic part of Cyclic Redundancy Correction Coding.) All of these 33-byte frames (called "channel-data" frames) get their order scrambled and run through EFM before getting encoded as pits on the disc. The order is mixed up so that scratches don't destroy consecutive audio bits.

EFM means Eight to Fourteen Modulation, which is exactly what it sounds like, an 8-bit word is mapped to a 14-bit word in order to remove as many 1-to-0 or 0-to-1 transitions as possible, basically an LPF for the data. They did that to make the pits on the disk larger and easier to read. A Sony engineer explained that the way they designed EFM in the pre-computer days was by having a room full of women look through lists of 14-bit words to find the ones with the most 1's or 0's strung together, such as 00000001111111, or 11110000011111. The list that they made was then mapped into a lookup table ROM so that they had a unique 14 bit word for every possible 8-bit word.

[Ducatista47]

I don't know what the industry thinks, but it seems to me that Sony is pretty sharp in the software realm. Thank you so much for the correction and for extending my knowledge of this development.

Some people feel Philips did the heavy lifting in the CD development, but I am not so sure. This is impressive work.


All of these 33-byte frames (called "channel-data" frames) get their order scrambled and run through EFM before getting encoded as pits on the disc. The order is mixed up so that scratches don't destroy consecutive audio bits.

I have read a layman's description of the interleaving on the disc. It said the data is laid down out of chronological order so a big surface defect, like a scratch, "would scatter the "bad" data among different sections of "good" data, making it much easier to figure out what was missing." Is that a fair description of what is going on?

[1audiohack]

Hi Clark;

I wasn't at all saying that your statement was BS or that it is something you should back up or retract. I am very interested in the where, when and who in audio and science in general and just wanted to explore your lead, nothing else.

My best,
Barry.

[Ducatista47]

Hi Clark;

I wasn't at all saying that your statement was BS or that it is something you should back up or retract. I am very interested in the where, when and who in audio and science in general and just wanted to explore your lead, nothing else.

My best,
Barry.

Believe me, with my geriatric brain it could well be high in BS content! I have to rely on my memory. Only ill advised individuals would join me in that. Besides, I want to retract anything supposedly objective that I can't prove. I hope you found the patents interesting. Did you see the "Objects and Summary of the Invention" in the Sony patent PDF? Sounds like the earlier designs from other parties had a few fatal design flaws.

[4343]

I don't know what the industry thinks, but it seems to me that Sony is pretty sharp in the software realm. Thank you so much for extending my knowledge of this development.

Some people feel Philips did the heavy lifting in the CD development, but I am not so sure. This is impressive work.



I have read a layman's description of the interleaving on the disc. It said the data is laid down out of chronological order so a big surface defect, like a scratch, "would scatter the "bad" data among different sections of "good" data, making it much easier to figure out what was missing." Is that a fair description of what is going on?

That's it exactly.

One of the reel-to-reel DASH digital tape formats actually recorded two separate tracks of the same data, with the interleaving done in reverse on the second one. That allowed for tape splicing for those dinosaurs that couldn't get the hang of the digital editor. There was enough data in front of the splice that belonged _after_ the splice (and vice-versa) that the machine could do a quick cross-fade of the data, I think it was around 15mS or so.

Software is creative work, and a lot of the creative types in Sony went to the Audio division. Video software was notoriously _not_ as good. They made one VCR with what we called "The Y99 2K bug" back in '98. 2K was the model and it could not accept dates in the range 1-1-1999 to 12-31-1999. Seems they HAD made 2000 work, but had somehow muffed '99...

[Ducatista47]

A click on the title will display the entire patent.

Method and apparatus for adding 1/f fluctuation to an audio signal (http://patents.justia.com/patent/6344940)


Patent number: 6344940
Abstract: The present invention provides a digital signal reproduction apparatus and a digital signal reproduction method which employs fluctuation in a sampling or quantization process, so as to eliminate lack of depth feeling in digital data, increasing the pleasantness. In a case when a switch 19 is OFF and a switching circuit 20 is set to at terminal b, a clock generator 17 generates a master clock MCK having a 1/f fluctuation according to a signal generated by a fluctuation function generating circuit 18. This master clock MCK is supplied to a D/A converter 13, an aperture circuit 14, and a low pass filter 15. The D/A converter 13 converts a digital signal into an analog signal having an amplitude A with an amplitude fluctuation &Dgr;A (A±&Dgr;A). Thus, the D/A converter 13 is capable of adding a 1/f fluctuation in the amplitude direction (power axis direction) of the analog signal.
Type: Grant
Filed: November 28, 1997
Issued: February 5, 2002
Assignee: Sony Corporation
Inventors: Yoichiro Sako, Heitaro Nakajima

[BMWCCA]

Patent number: 6344940
Abstract: The present invention provides a digital signal reproduction apparatus and a digital signal reproduction method which employs fluctuation in a sampling or quantization process, so as to eliminate lack of depth feeling in digital data, increasing the pleasantness.
Since they've held the patent for over 14-years, the question might be "have they used it".

Leading to more debates about if it's more "real" then reality. :dont-know:

Sounds like Kodachrome for music.

[tomt]

IMHO ..sony's beta was superior to vhs when they competed.



maybe sony should have mentioned,

that beta was the standard for tv stations,

for much of these united states.

[BMWCCA]

maybe sony should have mentioned, that beta was the standard for tv stations, for much of these united states.


Maybe Beta S, but not the consumer version. Big difference, including the size of the tape itself and the cassette. The Pro version had several different versions, SP etc., and most referred to the pro-version as Betacam versus the consumer Betamax.

Not that the Betamax wasn't superior to VHS. I had both a Sony and Sanyo beta VCRs and still have plenty of tapes from them, for whatever good that'll do me! :dont-know:

Seawolf, if you've not already reached your Minidisc limit, I could pick these up for you: http://charlottesville.craigslist.org/ele/4902094972.html

[Hoerninger]

Sony was a great competitor in those days. I remember "SONY U-Matic" including some experience (educational tapes).
According to Wikipedia
"Betamax ... similar to the earlier, professional .75 in (19 mm) wide, U-matic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-matic) format. The format is virtually obsolete, having lost the videotape format war (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videotape_format_war) though an updated variant of the format, Betacam (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betacam), is still used by the television industry."
___________
Peter

[SEAWOLF97]

Seawolf, if you've not already reached your Minidisc limit, I could pick these up for you: http://charlottesville.craigslist.org/ele/4902094972.html


videotape format war (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videotape_format_war) though an updated variant of the format, Betacam (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betacam), is still used by the television industry."
___________
Peter

thats a fine deal Phil, tho the 330 is the lowest of the consumer models. also a cheap way to prove SW is full of BS :confused: ;)

I bought 5.5 cases (550 disks) of Premium Gold Sony 80 minute disks SEALED/NEW a couple of months back and now have so many that some are going to CL. Buyers are happy to get them since they are N/A in NA ,unless you want to get them shipped from HongKong. The re-record cycle is estimated by Sony at 100,000 per disk.

Peter , at times I used my S-BetaMax for recording just audio. Great results*, but not very portable .:o:

*because of the interlacing of (est) 80 degree tracks, it gave a virtual tape speed of 120 ips. (AFAIR)

[Ducatista47]

Here is a more in depth feature about the plans Sony has for the near future. As of now the "video and sound" unit(s) will be wholly owned by Sony. From this text it is not clear whether the sound unit is audio products; video is not the TV unit. This text is from a page no longer available directly; I found it through a search link. Sorry for the probably illegal copy & paste.


By Eric Pfanner

TOKYO-- Sony Corp. Chief Executive Kazuo Hirai's comeback plan, dubbed One Sony, is starting to look more like Several Sonys.
The Japanese electronics and entertainment company said Wednesday that it would spin off its video and sound segment into a separate wholly owned subsidiary, following a similar move last year for its long-troubled television business. The goal is to get them more focused on profits while the Sony parent looks for growth in businesses such as movies, music, videogames and image sensors, said Mr. Hirai.

After years of losses, Sony now aims to lift operating profit to Yen500 billion ($4.2 billion) in three years. It expects to eke out an operating profit in the year ending in March, with the TV business turning to the black for the first time in a decade.

Mr. Hirai said Wednesday that he envisioned spinoffs of other units. He also said the company would consider a sale of the TV unit or the company's struggling smartphone business, though he said nothing was currently in the works.

"I think we have to keep those possibilities in mind," he said.
Mr. Hirai said making units more autonomous would spur managers to focus on profitability and make it easier to pursue business alliances.

Under the new structure, "each business unit will be more flexible and speedy in making business decisions and will be asked to be more responsible for what they do," said Atsushi Osanai, an associate professor at Waseda Business School in Tokyo who used to work at Sony. "A challenge for Mr. Hirai is to make sure these spun-off segments remain coherent as one Sony group."
Mr. Hirai introduced the slogan One Sony in 2012 as a way to draw together the company's disparate holdings, which range from electronics to entertainment to financial services. A year later Mr. Hirai rebuffed a proposal by the New York hedge fund Third Point LLC for a partial spinoff of Sony's entertainment businesses, which the firm said would unlock value that was obscured by the travails of Sony's electronics arm.

Mr. Hirai said Wednesday that Sony wasn't giving up on the One Sony approach. Under the new structure, Mr. Hirai, "there will be a good balance between centrifugal and centripetal forces."
Sony has sharpened its focus on profitability since Mr. Hirai named a new chief financial officer, Kenichiro Yoshida, last year. While Sony expects to post a net loss for the year ending March 31, it recently upgraded the outlook for its operating results, forecasting a profit of Yen20 billion instead of a loss of Yen40 billion. Since Mr. Yoshida took his job last April, Sony shares have risen 58%.
The company has spun off its personal-computer unit and recently said it would pull the plug on its in-house music streaming business. In its place, Spotify AB will provide digital music for Sony devices.

Mr. Hirai, in a briefing on the company's midterm strategy, focused more on profitability goals than grand visions of Sony's future. The company, he said, wants to achieve a 10% return on equity, a broad measure of profitability, up from minus 7.4% for the year ending March 31.
Rather than pursuing sales volume, Mr. Hirai said, Sony will focus on growth in profitable areas such as the PlayStation game business and the image sensor unit, which makes cameras for Apple Inc. and other smartphone providers. It sees growing demand for the sensors in cars because of the spread of autonomous driving technology.

Sony also sees its music division and its movie unit as growth drivers, even though the latter is still recovering from a cyberattack. Mr. Hirai said the company would consider acquisitions of entertainment assets in places such as India.

In addition to a split-off of the video and sound units, which Sony said would take place by Oct. 1, the company said it was organizing its businesses into three categories according to their growth prospects, with content, games and image sensors at the top and smartphones and TVs at the bottom.

The hierarchical arrangement is a "good step," said Yasuo Nakane, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, "though the question would be how much it will actually spend on image sensors and PlayStation, and how much it will not invest in smartphones and TVs to make sure they will be profitable."

Megumi Fujikawa contributed to this article.

Write to Eric Pfanner at [email protected] and Takashi Mochizuki at [email protected]

[Hoerninger]

I found it through a search link. Sorry for the probably illegal copy & paste.


Thank you for sharing.
You are unblameable , Google showed the way using the first paragraph. ;)
____________
Peter

[Dave_72]

Sony has put out some good stuff, and some real crap over the years. It varies with them just like any of the other mass market corps.

[Dave_72]

I'm glad there are guys like Mr. Pass that still make boutique electronics.

Francis

Agreed 100 percent.