SACD/Surround Music Listenings and Impressions

[westcott]

So you think a cd,a DTS Music Disc and a SACD will sound about the same on a good receiver and player?

Yes. It really is more dependant on the quality of the original recording as long as your equipment is up to the task.

[westcott]

I agree with you about exercising some discretion about running full range signals through speakers not capable of handling lower frequencies. But, on the bass management front, you should check up on the more recent models The majority of DVD-A, SACD, and universal players CURRENTLY available have some sort of bass management on board. Nowadays, even the entry level universal and SACD players come with bass management, so I don't think the "hazards" of running a multichannel DVD-A/SACD player through the analog outs are any different than with any HT receiver.

My issue with the bass management on my SACD player is with the choice of crossover point used on that player. Too high for my purposes, but fine for anyone with a set of speakers small enough to be damaged by running signals at full range. Newer universal players have begun setting the SACD crossover point at the same 80 Hz frequency that's been used by DVD-A players (the ones that come with bass management) from the beginning.



Well, I think there are many causal factors at work that affect sound quality. I don't have access to original masters to make comparisons for myself, so I was not trying draw any conclusions as to which factor is more important than another. My examples were more specific to the discs that I was comparing.



While there's a lot of good information in those links, much of it is very outdated (the article actually dates back to 2002). The author clearly has an axe to grind with the RIAA for imposing copy protection restrictions on the digital outputs for SACD and DVD-A. That carries over to his assessment of the formats, which I think balances out the hype that often accompanies the high res formats, but in the end is still biased. While the copy protections on board DVD-A and SACD are an inconvenience to consumers, it does not diminish the tangible improvement in sound quality that most of the high res discs I've heard offer over the previous CD versions.

I would not call his review bias. He clearly states the facts and the pitfalls.

So, if you can not set the crossover point (to a realisitic setting for those with systems that can truley gain from these formats), how can you call it bass managment? Sounds more like a dictated setting. I also think that without the capability to set the speaker distances and dB setting individually, you are also deteriorating the audio quality these formats are capable of and unlike digital connections of most receivers with bass management and the other features I listed, analog outputs do not have this feature on most players. I would be more than happy to change my tune but I have not found any SACD players that provide all of these features necessary to calibrate a speaker system properly except Denon and Meridian.

You also have to look at the limitations of microphones and the 16 bit standard that has been around for a long time. A lot of people think they are going to get 96\24 signals and it just is not going to happen.

As far as his unhappiness with the powers that be, I think we should all share these grievances. We have the technology for better sound but HDCP and digital content protection schemes is making a lot of peoples systems obsolete and they are only a few years old. They have no problem selling hardware and praise its "higher" resolution but how many people have heard or know about the pitfalls listed in this article?

The watermarking issues are not just one persons opinion either. There are several reputable sites that discuss this issue. Imagine, you have to degrade the signal so that we can make sure no one will want to copy it. We have to convert it from digital to analog, you may be sending full range signals to your subwoofer, and you may gain some higher resolution if your system is perfect otherwise and the original recording is also perfect and uses all of the latest recording\editing technology on the original master. (then you wonder why there are so few titles in these formats).

[Woochifer]

Yes. It really is more dependant on the quality of the original recording as long as your equipment is up to the task.

Keep in mind though that the transfer can also vary a lot, even if they use the same original master source. The Gershwin discs that I discussed earlier each used the same original master tape, but the Classic and Mobile Fidelity's transfers sound noticeably different. Classic does their transfers using the original first generation vinyl pressing as a reference, while Mobile Fidelity does not. In addition, Mobile Fidelity uses a highly customized playback rig that has been tested to detect signals over 120 kHz, while Classic uses restored vintage analog players. And we don't know whether any tweaks were done to the EQ and processor settings during the transfer. Add to that the differences in the digital formats used during the transfer, and a lot of variables are in play.

[PAT.P]

[QUOTE=Woochifer]Actually, the SF Symphony's not done with the Mahler cycle yet. To date, they've recorded 8 of the 9 complete Mahler symphonies. Symphony No. 5 was recorded last fall and due out on CD/SACD in the spring. The SFS has not yet recorded Symphony No. 8 ("The Symphony of a Thousand"), and I'm not sure when the recording session will occur. The SFS will perform Symphony No. 8 in June at Davies Hall, and I already have my tickets to one of those performances -- not sure if those concerts will be recorded for CD/SACD.

I've bought 4 of the Mahler discs so far. Still need to get Nos. 3, 4, and 9. The prices differ because some of them are two-disc sets.
__________________________________________________ ________________________
Woochifer Symphony # 9 Was release Dec 4/2005 cat# 60007 it is a 2 disc .It is $52 CND .The store I went to had most of them but # 8 .

[Woochifer]

I would not call his review bias. He clearly states the facts and the pitfalls.

An article that calls DVD-A and SACD a "Royal Scam" in the title is hardly what I would regard as objective. Like I said, it provided a much needed balance to the other information (or lack thereof) in the market, but the purpose of the article is to provide a point by point case against SACD and DVD-A. And many of those points are no longer applicable.

So, if you can not set the crossover point (to a realisitic setting for those with systems that can truley gain from these formats), how can you call it bass managment? Sounds more like a dictated setting.

So are you saying that all of the receivers/processors with crossovers fixed at the THX standard crossover point of 80 Hz don't have bass management?

I also think that without the capability to set the speaker distances and dB setting individually, you are also deteriorating the audio quality these formats are capable of and unlike digital connections of most receivers with bass management and the other features I listed, analog outputs do not have this feature on most players. I would be more than happy to change my tune but I have not found any SACD players that provide all of these features necessary to calibrate a speaker system properly except Denon and Meridian.

Like I said, I think you need to look at what's currently on the market. The Sony SACD players have had bass management, variable levels, and time alignment for at least the past couple of years. Most of the other universal players I've seen recently provide similar capability.

You also have to look at the limitations of microphones and the 16 bit standard that has been around for a long time. A lot of people think they are going to get 96\24 signals and it just is not going to happen.

If originally recorded or encoded in 96/24, then that is the resolution of the signal (yes, it was sampled at 96 kHz and uses a bitdepth of 24-bits). Whether or not the dynamic range and frequency extension in the content itself make full utilization of the bits is a different question.

As far as his unhappiness with the powers that be, I think we should all share these grievances. We have the technology for better sound but HDCP and digital content protection schemes is making a lot of peoples systems obsolete and they are only a few years old. They have no problem selling hardware and praise its "higher" resolution but how many people have heard or know about the pitfalls listed in this article?

The watermarking issues are not just one persons opinion either. There are several reputable sites that discuss this issue. Imagine, you have to degrade the signal so that we can make sure no one will want to copy it. We have to convert it from digital to analog, you may be sending full range signals to your subwoofer, and you may gain some higher resolution if your system is perfect otherwise and the original recording is also perfect and uses all of the latest recording\editing technology on the original master. (then you wonder why there are so few titles in these formats).

While I see the merits to your points, I think that lot of them are more about behind-the-scenes business politics and technical points than about what the actual DVD-A/SACD discs already provide to consumers. My bottomline is about whether these formats create an opportunity to hear disc versions that improve upon what's already on the market. And with new transfers and multichannel mixes, the answer to that question is affirmative.

Indeed, the situation with the analog restrictions has impeded the formats' potential and created unneeded obstacles for consumers, but to hear potentially improved transfers and multichannel mixes in a noncompressed format, what alternatives are there? My point on this thread has been to note observations on actual listenings. Whether or not the watermarking or analog conversion degrades the signal is irrelevant in that context. So far, I've noted some very high quality listenings compared to previous disc versions, and saying that you need perfect equipment, perfect recordings, and all the latest in order to hear an improvement just isn't true.

[Woochifer]

Woochifer Symphony # 9 Was release Dec 4/2005 cat# 60007 it is a 2 disc .It is $52 CND .The store I went to had most of them but # 8 .

The SFS has put out the CD/SACDs for all of Mahler's complete symphonies except nos. 5 and 8. #5 is due out in the spring, while #8 has not been recorded yet.

$52CDN is a steep price for Symphony #9. I know that Music Direct sells it for $25USD and the SF Symphony's online store sells it for $28USD, but international shipping charges might negate that price advantage.

[shokhead]

Yes. It really is more dependant on the quality of the original recording as long as your equipment is up to the task.

LMAO. There is no way in hell you can sit there in your chair and listen to a cd,dts and sacd and not here the difference. Either you havent or dont have the equipment.

[PAT.P]

The SFS has put out the CD/SACDs for all of Mahler's complete symphonies except nos. 5 and 8. #5 is due out in the spring, while #8 has not been recorded yet.

$52CDN is a steep price for Symphony #9. I know that Music Direct sells it for $25USD and the SF Symphony's online store sells it for $28USD, but international shipping charges might negate that price advantage.

Thanks for info ,will check it out.I do like my Mozart in SACD.Must have at least 100 Red book CD in classical and they sound good when cd upsampling is at 176.4 khz (x4).Yesterday played some Led Zeppelin notice lots more effect in sound(Stairway to heaven) brings me back to my teenage tears

[PAT.P]

LMAO. There is no way in hell you can sit there in your chair and listen to a cd,dts and sacd and not here the difference. Either you havent or dont have the equipment.

Maybe he does'nt have the ears to notice.

[bobsticks]

Woochifer,
Thanks for starting the strong and spirited dialogue on multi-channel/Hi-rez. Up until a couple of years ago I was primarily into the video side of HT. It was by happy accident that I found SACD, through simple curiosity( WTF are all these outputs?!?). Anyway, I agree with your observations, most primarily that the processing of strong source material can be a make-or-break proposition.
That having been said, I find it important to approach each recording as a thing unto itself. You touched on it briefly by mentioning the need to lower your center channel. Most of my friends who are casually becoming aware of these technologies tend to get frustrated when they throw some music on a system set up for HT and the magic isn't there. It has been helpful to me to remain willing to be unconventional in manipulating some my amps settings. Truthfully, I have always had such bad equipment that it wouldn't occur to me not to tweak. If that prevents me from being a purist, so be it, but I'm getting some great sounds.
Thanks for the tip on Borders, I've never really spent any time in their music section. I have only the 5th on SACD, so I'm excited to do some comparison listening between formats

[bobsticks]

Duds, don't get frustrated if The Police and Peter Gabriel don't do it for you. I didn't find that either of the Police SACDs or the Gabriel SACD moved sonic mountains. Nothing bad mind you, but not shining examples of what the format can do.
Last week, for really no good reason, I picked up Silverline Classic's prod of Swan Lake on DVD-A and Keb'Mo's "The Door" on SACD. The latter is so well recorded it's scary. On the Tchaikovsky I really wasn't expecting much. Fortunately, th engineer opted against the instruments-from-every-channel approach and seemed to be using the surrounds to convey spatial information, which to me, seemed like a more realistic presentation. The dynamics of the recording were also superb. The bright side of the sporadic quality of the medium is that often I make unplanned and uniformed purchases, which in turn, leads me to think about and feel music I might otherwise not be exposed to.

[Duds]

Well, i'm thinking they'll have to sound at least somewhat better than the original cds being played on a cheap dvd player.

Anyone have any Clapton sacds?

Duds, don't get frustrated if The Police and Peter Gabriel don't do it for you. I didn't find that either of the Police SACDs or the Gabriel SACD moved sonic mountains. Nothing bad mind you, but not shining examples of what the format can do.
Last week, for really no good reason, I picked up Silverline Classic's prod of Swan Lake on DVD-A and Keb'Mo's "The Door" on SACD. The latter is so well recorded it's scary. On the Tchaikovsky I really wasn't expecting much. Fortunately, th engineer opted against the instruments-from-every-channel approach and seemed to be using the surrounds to convey spatial information, which to me, seemed like a more realistic presentation. The dynamics of the recording were also superb. The bright side of the sporadic quality of the medium is that often I make unplanned and uniformed purchases, which in turn, leads me to think about and feel music I might otherwise not be exposed to.

[PAT.P]

Well, i'm thinking they'll have to sound at least somewhat better than the original cds being played on a cheap dvd player.

Anyone have any Clapton sacds?

Even the Red Book cd sound better when upsampling.I put Clapton "Chronicles" and there is a Difference .

[shokhead]

Well i got my first DualDisc,Van Zant,Brother to Brother. Its sounds pretty good in 5.1,better then the cd side but i have to say,it just doesnt hold a candle to DTS music. Maybe it wasnt fair of me to have been listening to Nightfly before putting on the DualDisc. LOL Now that is right up there with Don Henley as my fav DTS music so far.Nightfly is pretty dang good.

[Woochifer]

That having been said, I find it important to approach each recording as a thing unto itself. You touched on it briefly by mentioning the need to lower your center channel. Most of my friends who are casually becoming aware of these technologies tend to get frustrated when they throw some music on a system set up for HT and the magic isn't there. It has been helpful to me to remain willing to be unconventional in manipulating some my amps settings. Truthfully, I have always had such bad equipment that it wouldn't occur to me not to tweak. If that prevents me from being a purist, so be it, but I'm getting some great sounds.
Thanks for the tip on Borders, I've never really spent any time in their music section. I have only the 5th on SACD, so I'm excited to do some comparison listening between formats

That's why I think these format debates are often so far off-base, because consumers typically have no real basis for judging the merits and dismerits of the various formats, since they typically have never heard what a board feed sounds like and lack access to the original masters. When left with store-bought discs as the basis for comparison, the most conclusive comments can only pertain to individual discs.

For example, I've got a decent sized LP collection, and in plenty of cases the LP version indeed sounds much preferable to the CD, but LPs can also vary a LOT in their sound quality (even different pressings of the same album can have noticeable variations in sound quality) and often sound inferior to a CD version. And without access to the master source, there's no way to tell which version sounds more transparent to the source. In the absence of such access, what sounds "better" or "musical" or "real" is a subjective assessment.

Borders' music section is definitely worth looking through. It doesn't go as deep into the catalog as dedicated music stores such as Tower, but they are easy to find and do a decent job with stocking jazz, classical, and boxed sets.

Well i got my first DualDisc,Van Zant,Brother to Brother. Its sounds pretty good in 5.1,better then the cd side but i have to say,it just doesnt hold a candle to DTS music. Maybe it wasnt fair of me to have been listening to Nightfly before putting on the DualDisc. LOL Now that is right up there with Don Henley as my fav DTS music so far.Nightfly is pretty dang good.

As much as I like that a lot of DualDiscs include 5.1 mixes on the DVD side, most of them are unfortunately in DD which is audibly inferior to the 1.5k bitrate DTS mixes that are included with a lot of DVD-As. Because DualDisc has one side labeled as a "DVD" layer, it's required to have either a PCM or DD audio track. DTS can only be included if enough disc space still remains after accounting for the PCM/DD tracks, and all the video content that's typically included with DualDiscs. The PCM tracks on DualDiscs are typically called "enhanced stereo" mixes, when in actuality they just bump up the sampling rate slightly.

Interesting thing about DualDisc is that the CD audio side is not officially considered a "CD" per se because DualDiscs are thicker than the official redbook specs for the CD allow. That's why DualDiscs jam up on some slot loaded CD players.

[Hawkeye]

Another direct comparison that I did was with DTS 5.1 version of Steely Dan's Gaucho album. This was originally released as a DTS surround disc, and was Eliot Scheiner's first surround mix. (Scheiner has gone on to become the most sought after 5.1 remixer in the business, and his 5.1 mixes of Steely Dan's most recent albums and Donald F@gan's solo albums sound absolutely amazing) This album was jointly re-released in DVD-A and CD/SACD hybrid versions a couple of years ago, and it seems that the SACD version greatly improved upon the original DTS mix.

This same Gaucho in DTS topic came up on another board I frequent here is my response there:


I've heard the DTS release of Gaucho is a FAR inferior surround mix, I'm thinking it may not even be the same surround mix as the DVD-A and SACD versions. Perhaps Scheiner got a re-do on this one as I love my Gaucho DVD-A. A friend of mine writes for Soundstage! magazine, http://www.soundstage.com/ and had this to say about the DTS version. "The Scheiner 5.1 DTS mix of Steely Dan's "Gaucho" was so bad it used to be an in-joke for reviewers I know; we'd hear some really awful surround remix at a show, lean to the person next to us and whisper "They really Gaucho'd this one".

As I mentioned, I really like my DVD-A Gaucho disc. So its doubtful its the same 5.1 mix as the original DTS release.

[Woochifer]

This same Gaucho in DTS topic came up on another board I frequent here is my response there:

I've heard the DTS release of Gaucho is a FAR inferior surround mix, I'm thinking it may not even be the same surround mix as the DVD-A and SACD versions. Perhaps Scheiner got a re-do on this one as I love my Gaucho DVD-A. A friend of mine writes for Soundstage! magazine, http://www.soundstage.com/ and had this to say about the DTS version. "The Scheiner 5.1 DTS mix of Steely Dan's "Gaucho" was so bad it used to be an in-joke for reviewers I know; we'd hear some really awful surround remix at a show, lean to the person next to us and whisper "They really Gaucho'd this one".

As I mentioned, I really like my DVD-A Gaucho disc. So its doubtful its the same 5.1 mix as the original DTS release.

That's a good quote! My original observations about the Gaucho DTS disc were that EliotScheiner segregated the sounds into the different channels to the extent that they sounded like point sources. Scheiner's latter work with Steely Dan's two most recent albums and Donald F@gan's solo albums illustrate how far he progressed with properly balancing and mixing the different channels, and the types of spatial cues he was trying to create. Keep in mind that the Gaucho DTS disc was Scheiner's first 5.1 music mix, and he's obviously improved his technique a lot since then.

I think that the differences between the SACD and the DTS discs were subtle. Aside from general improvements to the sound quality, it seemed that the lead vocals are now better spaced across the front soundstage rather than collapsed into the center speaker, and the sounds don't seem quite as segregated as they did with the DTS disc. But, in general the mix did not sound like it got completely retooled, more like a tweak here and there.

[BinFrog]

Duds, don't get frustrated if The Police and Peter Gabriel don't do it for you. I didn't find that either of the Police SACDs or the Gabriel SACD moved sonic mountains. Nothing bad mind you, but not shining examples of what the format can do.
Last week, for really no good reason, I picked up Silverline Classic's prod of Swan Lake on DVD-A and Keb'Mo's "The Door" on SACD. The latter is so well recorded it's scary. On the Tchaikovsky I really wasn't expecting much. Fortunately, th engineer opted against the instruments-from-every-channel approach and seemed to be using the surrounds to convey spatial information, which to me, seemed like a more realistic presentation. The dynamics of the recording were also superb. The bright side of the sporadic quality of the medium is that often I make unplanned and uniformed purchases, which in turn, leads me to think about and feel music I might otherwise not be exposed to.

I can't comment about the Peter Gabriel discs, but I agree w/ The Police's releases. However, I think Synchronicity w/ the right settings sounds awesome. "Walking In Your Footsteps", even though it is only in stereo, just sounds SO crisp. I don't understand why they didn't at least release the last 2 albums in 5.1.

I have "Every Breath You Take: The Singles" on 5.1 SACD and it sounds pretty cool, but the song selection is just so wrong. No "Synchronicity II"? The 86 remix of "Don't Stand So Close To Me"? Blech.

[shokhead]

That's why I think these format debates are often so far off-base, because consumers typically have no real basis for judging the merits and dismerits of the various formats, since they typically have never heard what a board feed sounds like and lack access to the original masters. When left with store-bought discs as the basis for comparison, the most conclusive comments can only pertain to individual discs.

For example, I've got a decent sized LP collection, and in plenty of cases the LP version indeed sounds much preferable to the CD, but LPs can also vary a LOT in their sound quality (even different pressings of the same album can have noticeable variations in sound quality) and often sound inferior to a CD version. And without access to the master source, there's no way to tell which version sounds more transparent to the source. In the absence of such access, what sounds "better" or "musical" or "real" is a subjective assessment.

Borders' music section is definitely worth looking through. It doesn't go as deep into the catalog as dedicated music stores such as Tower, but they are easy to find and do a decent job with stocking jazz, classical, and boxed sets.



As much as I like that a lot of DualDiscs include 5.1 mixes on the DVD side, most of them are unfortunately in DD which is audibly inferior to the 1.5k bitrate DTS mixes that are included with a lot of DVD-As. Because DualDisc has one side labeled as a "DVD" layer, it's required to have either a PCM or DD audio track. DTS can only be included if enough disc space still remains after accounting for the PCM/DD tracks, and all the video content that's typically included with DualDiscs. The PCM tracks on DualDiscs are typically called "enhanced stereo" mixes, when in actuality they just bump up the sampling rate slightly.

Interesting thing about DualDisc is that the CD audio side is not officially considered a "CD" per se because DualDiscs are thicker than the official redbook specs for the CD allow. That's why DualDiscs jam up on some slot loaded CD players.

Doesnt matter what the master sounded like,we dont listen to that. We judge on what we listen to,not what we never get to here.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Doesnt matter what the master sounded like,we dont listen to that. We judge on what we listen to,not what we never get to here.

This perspective is a slippery slope Shokhead. Whithout the master to compare to you have absolutely no perspective on what it SHOULD sound like. If you are comparing two fromats against each other, you need a reference to gauge how close each format holds up to the master from which it was struck. You cannot compare Dts against DD without the uncompressed master tapes. How would you know which sounds closer?

I think the best way to hear SACD is without any post processing whatsoever. All post processing(i.e bass management, delay) is optimized for PCM based signals. So post processing tools favor DVD-A and hamper the sound of SACD. I am very lucky that all of my speakers are exactly 9ft from me(equidistant), and all can be run on large. I can adjust the level of each channel of my multichannel input after D/A conversion, so I don't really need any post processing.

I have leaned from experience that it is a matter of taste which sounds better between SACD and DVD-A. SACD has a softer top end(not rolled off, not less detailed) than DVD-A, but DVD-A always has the digital haze(I suspect from dither added)

Dualdisc just doesn't cut it for me. Dolby Digital at 448kbps is incapable of transparency when compared to the original master tapes. Soldre already documented this in his AES paper. Dts is capable of being transparent at its highest current bitrate(1509 Kbps) but is often not used because of space issues on discs. Higher sampled two channel lacks the spatial benefits of multichannel even though it offers better fidelity. IMO DVD is not a music friendly platform because of its limited data rate, and small disc capacity.

[shokhead]

No No. You compare to whatevewr you are going to be listening to day in and day out. This disc in my hand sounds better then this other one in my hand. You have to compare to what you use,not whats that over there that i'll never hear. Hell,if thats the case,you need to here the recording as its being recorded and then go home and listen.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

No No. You compare to whatevewr you are going to be listening to day in and day out. This disc in my hand sounds better then this other one in my hand. You have to compare to what you use,not whats that over there that i'll never hear. Hell,if thats the case,you need to here the recording as its being recorded and then go home and listen.

How do you make a fair comparison based on apples and oranges. One disc may have been created in the studio, the other in a live concert. One could be sampled at 88.2khz, the other at 192khz. One in 16bit the other at 24bits. One could be recorded using all analog equipment, the other all digital. One sould be recorded using the Decca tree setup, the other close miked. You cannot compare anything with this many variables.

[bobsticks]

I can't comment about the Peter Gabriel discs, but I agree w/ The Police's releases. However, I think Synchronicity w/ the right settings sounds awesome. "Walking In Your Footsteps", even though it is only in stereo, just sounds SO crisp. I don't understand why they didn't at least release the last 2 albums in 5.1.

I have "Every Breath You Take: The Singles" on 5.1 SACD and it sounds pretty cool, but the song selection is just so wrong. No "Synchronicity II"? The 86 remix of "Don't Stand So Close To Me"? Blech.

check out Sting's "Nothing Like The Sun" on DTS. Sort of the opposite of what I was saying about the Tchaikovsky, instrumentation is spread around. Great clarity as well.

[shokhead]

How do you make a fair comparison based on apples and oranges. One disc may have been created in the studio, the other in a live concert. One could be sampled at 88.2khz, the other at 192khz. One in 16bit the other at 24bits. One could be recorded using all analog equipment, the other all digital. One sould be recorded using the Decca tree setup, the other close miked. You cannot compare anything with this many variables.

You can only make a fair comparison with what you got or can listen to. I cant compare anything to the org master as i havent and will never here it. I can compare what i can listen to no matter how its recorded or format. I'll compare anything thats in my player.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

You can only make a fair comparison with what you got or can listen to. I cant compare anything to the org master as i havent and will never here it. I can compare what i can listen to no matter how its recorded or format. I'll compare anything thats in my player.

Perhaps a change of wording is in order. Compare is more like stacking one product against another, taking differences into account. Just listening and deciding if something sounds good is just an opinion not a comparison