Super Audio CD Super Audio CD Super Audio CD (SACD) is a read-only optical disc for audio storage, introduced in 1999. It was developed jointly by Sony and Philips Electronics, and intended to be the successor to their Compact Disc (CD) format. While the SACD format can offer more channels (e.g. surround sound), and a longer playing time than CD, research published in 2007 found no significant difference in audio quality between SACD and standard CD at ordinary volume levels. Having made little impact in the consumer audio market, by 2007, SACD was deemed to be a failure by the press. A small
Philips Classics Records Philips Classics Records Philips Classics Records was started in the 1980s as the new classics record label for Philips Records. It was successful with artists including Alfred Brendel, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Mitsuko Uchida, Julian Lloyd Webber, Sir Colin Davis and André Rieu. A notable product released under the label is the 180-CD "The Complete Mozart Edition", featuring all works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart known at the set's publication in 1990–91 for the bicentenary of the composer's death. It has been re-released as the "Complete Compact Mozart Edition".