sacd vs redbook cds

[errol van]

I purchased a new blu ray player by sony that is 3d ready and plays sacd's. The player is the bdps470 blu ray player. I'm wanting to purchase some sacd's and but is the difference in sound worth the price of about 30$ each?

[Poultrygeist]

I have a few dozen sacd's but have never paid more than $16 for one. I buy mine from Amazon and ebay. On my dedicated Sony sacd player they sound noticeable better than redbook but I've read that they do not sound as good on some universal players.

If you want to try something inexpensive, "Sax And The City" is a well recorded sacd/hybrid that sells for $10 on Amazon. "Friday Night In San Francisco" is a great sacd disc that makes every acoustic guitar lover's top ten list.

[blackraven]

It depends, some SACD's sound much better than CD's but others sound about the same.
I think that its worth the improvement in sound as long as the SACD player is of good quality and that the rest of the system is good as well. I have a cheap Yamaha 1800 DVD-SACDP and it's just ok. There definetely is a difference in sound with the dynamic range being better on the SACD player but the overall sound from my DAC is better because it cost almost 4 times as much.

My friend has a Marantz SA 8001 and its SACD sound is great!

[rakeford]

I have ELP- Brain Salad Surgery, Deluxe Edition. It has a SACD disc and a separate Redbook CD disc. The SACD disc definitely sound better than the Redbook. The SACD has more dynamic range, the highs are cleaner (I want to say crisper), and is much more pleasant to listen too.

I also Pink Floyd DSOTM on SACD and Redbook, but I haven't compared them side by side yet. I'll let you know.

Some of Bob Dylan's stuff is on SACD for about $8. Those are on my list.

[PDN]

Generally I pay in the $18.00 area for an SACD. I have paid up to $30.00 for a new release and didn't want to wait until it dropped. To me, Multi-Channel SACDs are the ones which sound so much better and superior to standard CDs and to 2 channel SACDs. I love to listen to multi-channel SACDs. I have 4 Spyro Gyra multi-channel SACDs and they are nothing short of fantastic. Have one on right now. The music is everywhere in the room and I love it. To each his own. IMHO, I wouldn't bother buying and SACD player and listening unless it was in multi-channel. Hybrids are also the way to go if you want to be able to play the same disc in a conventional CD player such as in your vehicle.

[Poultrygeist]

I don't care for multi-channel SACD as "music in the round" is not what you hear at a concert unless you're a member of the band.

[JoeE SP9]

I bought an SACD player so I could hear better sound. I don't want to sit on stage with the band or hear instruments coming from the four corners of my room.

Classical and Jazz SACD's that code ambience cues and audience sounds in the surround channels sound very good. I going to by more!

[phileserver39]

Agreed JoeE. Surround sound is for HT.

[pixelthis]

I purchased a new blu ray player by sony that is 3d ready and plays sacd's. The player is the bdps470 blu ray player. I'm wanting to purchase some sacd's and but is the difference in sound worth the price of about 30$ each?

Stay away from SACD, it'll break your heart.

[hifitommy]

<"music in the round" is not what you hear at a concert>

not the way the cowboy mixing engineers do it. IF the surround is used for ambience, then some natural sound can happen in surround. i agree that i dont like the 'bandstand' mix. there was a DTS version of 'hell freezes over' that was mixed that way and used as a demo at one of the stereophile shows in LA with martin logan monoliths in the front and a sea of VTL tube amps of like 400wpc.

i didnt like having guitars coming from behind me. that never happens from the audience perspective.

give me surround but natural sound. i use dynaquad ambience for recovery and it is quite convincing. when sometihing belongs in the rear such as on a tomita record or moody blues album it is placed there by dynaquad and isnt distracting. SOME mc sacd and dvda discs have ambient info in the rears and chesky may be one of the really good ones. i am not sure exactly because i havent activated my 5.1 system (i have the electronics).

[thekid]

As the resident cheap ba*&@rd around here my contribution to this thread will consist of mentioning that I picked a copy of Elton John's "Madman Across The Water" and The Police "Classics" on SACD this week at the local thrifts for about $1.50 each. They sound great on my Oppo DVD/SACD player. Love the fact the general public (or at least those who stock the CD's at the thrifts) have no idea what SACD is........

[Feanor]

I purchased a new blu ray player by sony that is 3d ready and plays sacd's. The player is the bdps470 blu ray player. I'm wanting to purchase some sacd's and but is the difference in sound worth the price of about 30$ each?

It's my 2 cents worth that the principal benefit of SACD is it's multi-channel sound. Most of that music on SACD is classical plus some jazz. So if you like the classical genre in particular and are willing to give m/c music a fair hearing, maybe you should explore SACD. (Most of it is less than $30 a disc, by the way.)

On the other hand as a technical platform I suspect that Blu-ray has a more potential than SACD. For one thing, Blu-ray deliver more channels at higher resolution, but more importantly, (in my not highly informed opinion), good DSP, e.g. Audessey EQ, is easier/cheaper to implement with Blu-ray than SACD, (i.e. DSP format). DSP'ing DSP is virtually impossible on consumer AV receivers and prepros without first converting it to PCM, something supported only by relatively few, high-end units can do.

[rakeford]

As the resident cheap ba*&@rd around here my contribution to this thread will conist of mentioning that I picked a copy of Elton John's "Madman Across The Water" and The Police "Classics" on SACD this week at the local thrifts for about $1.50 each. They sound great on my Oppo DVD/SACD player. Love the fact the general public (or at least those who stock the CD's at the thrifts) have no idea what SACD is........

Great find. I woulda picked those up in a heartbeat.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

It's my 2 cents worth that the principal benefit of SACD is it's multi-channel sound. Most of that music on SACD is classical plus some jazz. So if you like the classical genre in particular and are willing to give m/c music a fair hearing, maybe you should explore SACD. (Most of it is less than $30 a disc, by the way.)

I have to totally agree with this, but would like to add this. If you listen to the stereo DSD versus CD, you will find a subtle enhancement in the form of a slighting wider sound field, slightly airer highs, and better delineation between instruments with classical music mostly. This is on the titles I have that I could make that comparison. Everything depends on how DSD is handled through the signal chain. Any conversion to PCM, and it degrades the sound a bit.

On the other hand as a technical platform I suspect that Blu-ray has a more potential than SACD. For one thing, Blu-ray deliver more channels at higher resolution, but more importantly, (in my not highly informed opinion), good DSP, e.g. Audessey EQ, is easier/cheaper to implement with Blu-ray than SACD, (i.e. DSP format). DSP'ing DSP is virtually impossible on consumer AV receivers and prepros without first converting it to PCM, something supported only by relatively few, high-end units can do.

I have to agree with this statement as well. I however would come from a different angle. First, Audessey even on PCM is pretty much limited to 24/96kHz processing, and will down sample from any higher resolution than that. With some of the best sounding classical music on the Blu ray format at 24/ 192kHz, one has to decide if the room correction provides a better improvement over the higher sampling rate in this case. I am speaking strictly about the most common implementation of Audessey, on a chip in receivers and pre-pro's. When you trade up to the separate box implementation of Audessey(i.e. Audessey sound equalizer, and separate sub equalizer), then you don't have to make that choice, as they operate all the way up to floating point 32bit at 192kHz with the better software implementation.

My angle would be conversion to PCM for bass management, delay settings for speaker alignment, and speaker size. All of these function require conversion to PCM for implementation, which negates any benefit from using the DSD stream in the first place. The conversion from DSD to PCM if not well done(i.e. at a very high bit and sample rate) is not transparent, and would definitely be audible when compared to a non converted DSD stream. If post processing is handled at 24/192kHz, the conversion would have far less degradation as a result of being implemented at a higher resolution than the theoretical PCM equivalent of the DSD stream (that would be 24/96kHz resolution). Receivers and pre-pro's capable of handling Blu ray audio, must do all conversion at 24/192kHz, or it will also down sample to 24/96kHz to process post processing.

After all of these years, there is still no DSD based tools for post processing in receivers and pre-pro's, and that is a damn shame. It sure would have helped to get the best out of the SACD format. Getting the best from SACD is very difficult, as you would have to have an audio chain that would remain DSD from the disc to the D/A conversion. Not many have that chain. However PCM is the most widely used form of digital audio, and it has no extraneous requirements to handle PCM audio. This is one of the reasons SACD has not caught on with most folks, and PCM is still the dominate digital delivery system.

[pixelthis]

All of which adds up to the fact that SACD is dead.
I heard that SONY is converting all of their music to SACD for archival purposes,
but that might just be publicity.
SACD in general is going the way of DVD-audio, 1.50 discs at the thrift store proves that

[hifitommy]

well pixie,

your late to the movies on that one. youre partly right, sony uses DSD (the root technology for sacd) for their archives and has been doing so for quite a while.

also, new sacd titles are being released but very few dvda ones. AIX records releases in dvda but now makes available hi rez downloads.

also, i dont think there is an antique tecnics tt. antique usually implies that something is 50 years old or more (which certainly includes ME).

[pixelthis]

well pixie,

your late to the movies on that one. youre partly right, sony uses DSD (the root technology for sacd) for their archives and has been doing so for quite a while.

also, new sacd titles are being released but very few dvda ones. AIX records releases in dvda but now makes available hi rez downloads.

also, i dont think there is an antique tecnics tt. antique usually implies that something is 50 years old or more (which certainly includes ME).

Well, like Talkys girlfriends, its all relative.
ONE turntable is belt, one direct drive, one 1982, one 1988.
22 and 28 years old!!! Thats plenty antique, trust me.

[JoeE SP9]

C'mon Pixel. Those TT's are "vintage".

[pixelthis]

C'mon Pixel. Those TT's are "vintage".

Since the format is obsolete, any TT is an "antique".
I THINK YOU'RE SPLITTING HARES.

[hifitommy]

try looking in the DICTIONARY.

[pixelthis]

try looking in the DICTIONARY.

CAN'T, its under a tableleg at the lunchroom at work.