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  1. #1
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    Your Opinion on Commercial DVD-Audio CD's

    Have any of you bought or listened to DVD-Audio CD's and if so what was your opinion of them? Were they worth buying, did you like the sound better, do you think it messed up with how the original recording was supposed to sound like,etc. If you have a home theater system can you just play it on the DVD player or do you need another audio device? I've never heard one and am tempted to get the DVD-Audio Cd of Tommy by the Who that was specially mixed by Pete Townshend for $25 and am just curious what you guys think.
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  2. #2
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    Not trying to start another debate on DVD-A vs SACD but my own experience is I like SACD far better than DVD-A. I have a few DVD-A on hand but I only buy SACD these days. I suppose this is a very personal question it is best for you to try it out yourself. You can play DVD-A on regular DVD player but you will only get the DD (or DTS for some) track. To play DVD-A, you need a DVD player that can play DVD-A and a receiver/pro that have multi ch. pre-in (unless you have one of those receiver/pro and DVD player pair that use special link to sent digital over).

  3. #3
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    Forgive my ignorance here but you need a special player to play SACD right? I'm a little confused about what you said about DVD-A. On my system I get 5.1 dolby surround sound through 5 speakers & a sub. If I play a DVD-A on my DVD player, what will I be hearing , 5.1 dolby digital sound or something else and what is the track that you say I'm missing. Would you mind explaining as I admit I'm fully ignorant on the subject. Thanks

    Quote Originally Posted by sy_lu
    Not trying to start another debate on DVD-A vs SACD but my own experience is I like SACD far better than DVD-A. I have a few DVD-A on hand but I only buy SACD these days. I suppose this is a very personal question it is best for you to try it out yourself. You can play DVD-A on regular DVD player but you will only get the DD (or DTS for some) track. To play DVD-A, you need a DVD player that can play DVD-A and a receiver/pro that have multi ch. pre-in (unless you have one of those receiver/pro and DVD player pair that use special link to sent digital over).

  4. #4
    Forum Regular N. Abstentia's Avatar
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    Just a few quick points:

    1) They are not DVD-Audio CD's, DVD-Audio are DVD's!

    2) Both require special players in order to hear the high resolution multi channel tracks. If you play a DVD-Audio disc on a standard DVD player you will hear the multichannel DD/DTS mix and still have access to all the lyrics/videos/photos/bios and all that. If you play an SACD disc on a standard DVD player, all you will get is the standard redbook 2 channel CD layer which is pointless unless you plan to upgrade later. Of course with hybrid players now under $200, this is a moot point. Buy a player that does both.

    3) There really is no debate as to which is better. We might as well debate Pizza Hut vs. KFC. If you want pizza, you go to Pizza Hut. If you want fried chicken, you go to KFC. Neither is really 'better' than the other, they just do different things. In this case, my DVD-A/SACD collection is split about 50/50 right now. DVD-A has Yes, Porcupine Tree, Queensryche, R.E.M, and The Doors. SACD has Pink Floyd, Alison Krauss, Peter Gabriel, and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

    It's insipid to say 'I'm buying only SACD' because if you were to do that you are missing out on those great DVD-A titles that are not on SACD, and vice versa. Don't limit yourself.

    Concerning the quality of the mixes, the internet is your friend. Someone mentioned The Who's Tommy which is available on both DVD-A and SACD. Read the reviews and you'll find that the DVD-A version spanks the SACD version up, down, and sideways. There's no comparison, the DVD-A version is 100 times better. That does not mean DVD-A itself is better, just whoever did the DVD-A version did it a lot better than whoever did the SACD version.

    To me, quality is hit & miss. Case in point, one of my all-time favorite CD's..In Absentia by Porcupine Tree. Love the CD. Couldn't wait for the DVD-A. The CD sounds so full and rich, the drums are so tight and snappy, vocals are perfect, the entire recording has lots of ambiance....imagine my dissapointment with the DVD-A lost ALL of that. It sounds like utter crap. Drums are thin, some instruments are hidden ruining the point of the song, vocals are not even, bass guitar is centered around the 150 hz range with no bottom end. Horrible. I'm about THIS close from throwing it in the garbage. I don't want to sell it and ruin it for anyone else.

    If you want to hear some good DVD-A's, get Yes's Fragile and Magnification. The R.E.M. and Queensryche/Geoff Tate discs are done well also.

    Good SACD's, Pink Floyd Dark Side of The Moon should be a required purchase with any SACD player. The NEWEST Peter Gabriel is great (I think the older Gabriel stuff has no hybrid layer) and Alison Krauss Live is okay..not perfect but not great. They botched the vocals in the mix.

  5. #5
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    N.Abstentia Please clarify a couple of things

    First off, I understand from your post that you will hear Dolby 5.1 surround sound if you play DVD-A DVD's on your standard DVD player. Are you missing some other sounds on the DVD-A by not playing this disc on other equipment and if so what exactly are you missing?

    In regards to the DVD-A's that you have, I'm assuming at one point you may have owned the regular 2 channel CD of that album. How does the sound compare on the 2 channel CD to the DVD-A version? In other words are you hearing something on the DVD-A that improves on it or does it detract with how the 2 channel CD version was meant to be heard in regards to its feel. I understand your apples and oranges remark but that seems to be in regards to DVD-A versus SACD.




    Quote Originally Posted by N. Abstentia
    Just a few quick points:

    1) They are not DVD-Audio CD's, DVD-Audio are DVD's!

    2) Both require special players in order to hear the high resolution multi channel tracks. If you play a DVD-Audio disc on a standard DVD player you will hear the multichannel DD/DTS mix and still have access to all the lyrics/videos/photos/bios and all that. If you play an SACD disc on a standard DVD player, all you will get is the standard redbook 2 channel CD layer which is pointless unless you plan to upgrade later. Of course with hybrid players now under $200, this is a moot point. Buy a player that does both.

    3) There really is no debate as to which is better. We might as well debate Pizza Hut vs. KFC. If you want pizza, you go to Pizza Hut. If you want fried chicken, you go to KFC. Neither is really 'better' than the other, they just do different things. In this case, my DVD-A/SACD collection is split about 50/50 right now. DVD-A has Yes, Porcupine Tree, Queensryche, R.E.M, and The Doors. SACD has Pink Floyd, Alison Krauss, Peter Gabriel, and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

    It's insipid to say 'I'm buying only SACD' because if you were to do that you are missing out on those great DVD-A titles that are not on SACD, and vice versa. Don't limit yourself.

    Concerning the quality of the mixes, the internet is your friend. Someone mentioned The Who's Tommy which is available on both DVD-A and SACD. Read the reviews and you'll find that the DVD-A version spanks the SACD version up, down, and sideways. There's no comparison, the DVD-A version is 100 times better. That does not mean DVD-A itself is better, just whoever did the DVD-A version did it a lot better than whoever did the SACD version.

    To me, quality is hit & miss. Case in point, one of my all-time favorite CD's..In Absentia by Porcupine Tree. Love the CD. Couldn't wait for the DVD-A. The CD sounds so full and rich, the drums are so tight and snappy, vocals are perfect, the entire recording has lots of ambiance....imagine my dissapointment with the DVD-A lost ALL of that. It sounds like utter crap. Drums are thin, some instruments are hidden ruining the point of the song, vocals are not even, bass guitar is centered around the 150 hz range with no bottom end. Horrible. I'm about THIS close from throwing it in the garbage. I don't want to sell it and ruin it for anyone else.

    If you want to hear some good DVD-A's, get Yes's Fragile and Magnification. The R.E.M. and Queensryche/Geoff Tate discs are done well also.

    Good SACD's, Pink Floyd Dark Side of The Moon should be a required purchase with any SACD player. The NEWEST Peter Gabriel is great (I think the older Gabriel stuff has no hybrid layer) and Alison Krauss Live is okay..not perfect but not great. They botched the vocals in the mix.

  6. #6
    Forum Regular N. Abstentia's Avatar
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    By playing a DVD-A disc on a standard DVD player with the 5.1 DD/DTS track, you're not getting the high resolution MLP track. You're still using the standard low resolution lossy DD/DTS track which does not sound as good as the DVD-A MLP track. Is it a night and day difference? No, but it's definitely noticeable. And it's not a deal breaker, as I was happy with the DD/DTS tracks and I also enjoyed DTS CD's.

    Here's a track content of a DVD-Audio disc:
    MUSIC: Dolby Digital 5.1
    MUSIC: DTS 5.1
    MUSIC: MLP Surround
    MUSIC: MLP Stereo

    Without a DVD-Audio player, you can only hear the first two in the list. MLP is Meridian Lossless Processing which is the codec used to get the higher resolution and lossless compression.

    As far as CD vs. DVD-Audio, that's hard to answer. You're talking 2 channel vs. multi channel. But given the choice, give me the multi channel DONE CORRECTLY any day. But as far as the Porcupine Tree goes, give me the 2 channel CD. Too much depends on the person doing the mix right now. In the case of Yes's Fragile, the DVD-A sounds like it could have been recorded in 2004 instead of 1971. It brings that much life to it. Same with Pink Floyd's Dark Side SACD. I can now toss out my old CD, vinyl, and MFSL versions of that album (although I won't!).

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by hershon
    Forgive my ignorance here but you need a special player to play SACD right? I'm a little confused about what you said about DVD-A. On my system I get 5.1 dolby surround sound through 5 speakers & a sub. If I play a DVD-A on my DVD player, what will I be hearing , 5.1 dolby digital sound or something else and what is the track that you say I'm missing. Would you mind explaining as I admit I'm fully ignorant on the subject. Thanks
    DD or DTS are lossy compression and DVD-A is lossless. DVD-A disc has both DD (or DTS) and DVD-A sound track on it. This is one of the selling point for DVD-A that you don't need to go out to buy a DVD-A player to play DVD-A disc. You can play them on regular DVD player with DD or DTS. You can defer the new player upgrade. If you have a good DVD-A player with a good recording, you can hear the difference. A not so good DVD-A player on the other hand , may not produce much better sound from the DVD-A sound track. If the DAC section of the DVD-A player is not so good, it will loose most of the gain from DVD-A track.

    BTW, to complicate things a little bit more, there are DVD-A disc with additional DTS 24/96 sound track on it. You can play these with regular DVD player that can output DTS data stream (almost all the players can these days) and your recever/pro can decode DTS 24/96, you will get a better sound than DD if the recording itself is up to it.

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