Well, I really don't want to get bugged down with the discussion of "philosophy" of human nature and how that relate to audio experience. We will end up running around the circle until the cow come home. So I prefer sticking to the issues

Quote Originally Posted by pctower
If you don't believe me just spend some time at the HiRez board or the Vinyl board over at AA - there's all kinds of arguments on just that issue.
Yes, I did see that thread about Vinyl vs SACD/DVD-A over in AA. They had the same problem-which is not looking at the whole picture. We can argue all day [subjectively] about superiority of Vinyl over CD or SACD, but we can not get away from the facts that each format (especially LP and CD) have its shortcomings.

How can you say that LP is truer to the master recording when master recording have dynamic range of way over 50 dB and extremely low noise, while LP's Dynamic rage is below 50 dB and high S/N (sound to noise) ratio. I know you don't like to get bugged down with the science and numbers, but the knowledge of each formats, their advantage and shortcomings is essentials in evaluating each format correctly.

I can tell you that both my dedicated redbook front end AND my vinyl front end run circles around the 2-channel SACD performance of my Marantz 8260 SACD player.
I own over 500 Lps and been listening to them over last 20 years, and I don't buy that statement for a second (for the reason mentioned above). Although my system is not consider high end (or medium end ) and don't have a SACD/DVD-A player, but I belive with the right recording that can take advantage of the new formats, they will definitely blow LP and CDs out of water.

I think that SACD is driven primarily by economic and patent considerations. But off course, because its specs are better, the placebo effect has led many "scientists" to conclude that it sounds better; just as the numbers comparison between redbook and vinyl has led countless number-cruchers to believe they hear improvement in redbook over vinyl.
I hope you don't raise that argument with record or audio engineers. They will tell you that SACD or DVD-A are the only format that comes close to true master recording. Why do you think record industry still prevent digital output for above two formats? And the reason is because it is extremely high resolution and so close to master recording that they are afraid it might be used with wrong intention of distributing.

I don't see anybody raisin any eye brow over digital out from CD player (or LP player if it had one), because they are low resolution formats