sacd superior to rbcd

[hifitommy]

"The brain doesn't need to interpolate for anything that is missing. Nothing is missing"

plenty is missing. otherwise, why develop a higher rez recording format? rbcd can reproduce the FREQUENCIES up to 21k but not the complex WAVEFORM SHAPE at that frequency level. also, sound doesnt stop suddenly at 20k.

[DMK]

[QUOTE=hifitommy
plenty is missing. .[/QUOTE]

Actually, that brings up a question: Do RBCD's sound wrong because something is missing or because of additive distortions, in your opinion?

BTW, I picked up the Sony SACD player you recommended. While I can't comment on RBCD sound differences, the diffs between RB and SACD is pronounced! I just bought a dozen new SACD's to go with the player and it's by far the finest digital sound I've heard. It rivals good vinyl and, in some key areas, it bests good vinyl. Too early for me to tell if it will surpass the LP. Thanks for the tip, bro!

[hifitommy]

glad you finally got the opportunity to hear real digital. i am slowly building my sacd inventory and even have a dts and dvda or two. they will play on the new player and they dont sound horrible.

havent you compared the rbcd section with your old rbcd? Admittedly i didn't have an aggressive rbc d player before but it was respectable (philips cdr/alchemy ditb). i find the sony to be head and shoulders above any ive had in the house.

there is much more software becoming available all the time for sacd and buy the current rolling stone for mag, theres a sacd sampler and big article in it about hi rez. PLUS, you take the disc to a cc store and if theres a 10th track, you win 3 sacds or a sony dream system (worth about $500). i guess theyre getting serious about the format now.

as would be expected, the cc personnel didnt know a damn thing about the promo when i went in. i won the 3 sacds but intend to buy another copy or two of the mag to up my chances for a nice bedroom system.

check out the hi rez asylum at AA, its pretty active and informative.

[pctower]

That last post entitled "Balony" wasn't mine. I don't know what's going on, but either someone has pre-empted by moniker or there's a bug in the software.

This has never happened to me before.

[pctower]

Which Sony SACD player is it. I've had a Marantz 8260 which I bought used about a year ago, and have only started to seriously listen to SACD, and the more I listen the more impressed I am. For the first time this morning, I played around with some different ICs and PCs (nothing special, just some old RCAs I had gathering dust - everything else in my system is XLR) and it really opened up with the right combination.

Even on redbook it is not embarrased in comparison to my mega-buck CEC TL-1X (with Richard Kern installed Reference Audio Mods modification package) and AudioLogic DAC (with the new output transformer replacement for the output tubes). But the SACD performance takes it to another level.

A while back, Richard Greene asked if I had comparred the redbook layer of any hybrid disk with the SACD layer. This morning was the first chance I had to do that. I played one of the Stones SACD discs on my redbook front end and then switched it to the Marantz for an SACD comparison. The SACD layer played on the 8260 blew away the same disk played on my dedicated redbook front end.

Of course, this comparison was all sighted so most here will demanding "proof", but I'm sure if you have been listening a lot to an SACD source, you know what I'm talking about. I'll leave the proof to those who have the patience for such stuff.

[DMK]

[QUOTE=pctower]Which Sony SACD player is it.

It's the DVP-NS755V which I bought for $225. It looks like a typical low priced Sony CDP, all plastic. But it sounds wonderful. I'm sure it's not the last word in SACD playback but it certainly gives me a healthy insight into what the high rez digital fuss is all about. I've compared the hybrid discs myself, redbook to SACD and I amazingly find the redbook layer to sound pretty durn good! But not up to the level of the SACD level. No, it doesn't constitute proof, as you said, but let me tell you something about acquiring this proof.

I started posting on A/R about 3 years ago. A few years before that I participated in some blind testing of solid state preamps. We used 3 different brands that cost about the same (around $3-400, as I recall), the preamp out on a cheap Japanese receiver and a megabuck unit, all SS and all measured the same. We found sonic differences in all 5 of these units, as proven by our scores. To do so, we went through something like 18 trials per test and did 3 tests per comparison. Testing all 5 took a lot of time, effort, sweat and it merely proved something that we knew all along, that measurements, while important, are only part of the sonic picture. It was a WASTE of time.

I've posted this before. Once a poster told me I "owed" it to the world of science to repeat these tests. I told him "fuggedaboudit"! There is no reason for ME to do it again when ANYBODY with normal hearing can do it for themselves and prove it for themselves. I proved it to the person I need to prove it to - ME!

The points are 1) do all SS preamps that measure the same sound the same? Not on your life. 2) Have I tested this? Yes, I have 3) Do I want to test again? Sure, right after I test the time it takes for a car to rust. 4) If they measured the same, is it likely that we either don't measure everything there is to measure or we're not measuring properly? Well, if myself and my three cronies scored as well as we did (nearly perfectly in all cases), it's more than likely - it's pretty much a sure thing in my book. 5) Do I care if anyone believes what I'm saying about these tests? Not a whit. They can call me a liar all they want. They can stay in their temple and worship measurements or they can get out and test for themselves. But it should be extensive testing, not a few trials and then give up. And the folks under test need to have some good listening and interpretive skills as well as a knowledge of what music should sound like. Are the differences profound? Not really, but they are musically significant to me. But I ain't gonna go through those tests again! Yikes!

Now...maybe if they paid me 5 years of my salary, I'd do it again! Wait, you're an attorney - I'll do it for 5 years of YOUR salary! Hell, if I'm going to change the world, they're going to have to change MY world! Seriously though, I can't imagine why it would be all that earth shattering. Audiophiles have been telling people for years that things sound different, despite the specs.

P.S I wouldn't care to try this with SS power amps or CD players

[DMK]

[QUOTE=hifitommy]
havent you compared the rbcd section with your old rbcd? QUOTE]

No, I haven't but I'd bet that I'd have trouble discerning any diffs. I've always had trouble with CDP's which I guess turned out to be a good thing. I still use the Sony XA20-ES simply because it can navigate discs that most other players can't. I do hear a diff between it and my old Pioneer CD recorder but I have to plug directly into the headphone sockets and use my Senn HD-600's and even then, it's nothing to write home about. It's not worth the trouble, IMO.

Thinking of buying the 15 disc Dylan SACD set from Music Direct for $200. I haven't really bought all that many SACD's because I don't really want to repurchase what I already own. But as newer titles become available, I'll be out there snapping up as many as I can afford.

Gotta go, Cecil Taylor is on the stereo....

[Pat D]

[QUOTE=DMK]

Which Sony SACD player is it.

It's the DVP-NS755V which I bought for $225. It looks like a typical low priced Sony CDP, all plastic. But it sounds wonderful. I'm sure it's not the last word in SACD playback but it certainly gives me a healthy insight into what the high rez digital fuss is all about. I've compared the hybrid discs myself, redbook to SACD and I amazingly find the redbook layer to sound pretty durn good! But not up to the level of the SACD level. No, it doesn't constitute proof, as you said, but let me tell you something about acquiring this proof.

In the December 2003 Stereophile, John Atkinson measured the outputs of an expensive Sony CD/SACD player and found, the maximum output was different for multichannel and 2 channel and CD and SACD:

"The Sony SCD-XA9000ES 's maximum output level is specified as 2V, conforming to the CD standard, but it met this only from the multichannel outputs playing the SACD. From the two channel outputs playing the CD, the output was and auible 0.57 dB lower, at 1.875 V; playing SACD, the output was 0.31 dB lower, at 1.93 V. These differences will be just audible, in favor of SACD in direct comparisons."

I am not saying these are in any sense bad figures, but they do point out a difficulty in comparing CD and SACD recordings, even on the same player. Of course, there is no guarantee that the CD and SACD layers of the same disc are recorded exactly the same, either, whether at the same level or with different FR shaping or synamic compression, etc. But it does show the difficulty in making proper comparisons between SACD and CD.

A larger difference is found in the Linn Unidisk 1.1, also in favor of the SACD, but apparently not in the Krell SACD Standard multichannel SACD/CD player, as Atkinson doesn't mention any differences.

[DMK]

[QUOTE=Pat D] These differences will be just audible, in favor of SACD in direct comparisons."

Thanks for the tip. I would imagine my player does something similar. I'd better check it out with a level meter before commenting again.