SACDs - Are they worth it?

[jaree]

Are Super Audio CDs (SACD) better than the regular CDs? The answer is of course "yes" if you are selling it!

What I am interested in is an unbiased opinion as to how much better the SACD is, compared to a 'regular' CD. Is it a lot better? Or, just a bit better? Do you need thousands of dollars worth of equipment to notice the difference?

Would love to hear from someone who has compared both SACD and regular CD versions of the same recording and the differences found (if any).

[Slosh]

To my ears SACD sounds exactly like vinyl minus the surface noise, so yes, they are worth it if you can find enough music you like. The discs usually are only a couple of dollars more than the CD versions (if that) and usually hybrids offer the best CD version available so it's often still worth buying them even without a player in many cases.

The only player I've really heard is the one I've owned for the last three years - a Pioneer Elite DV-45A. I don't think you need a pricey player but I doubt a $99 Samsung would showcase what the format can really do. Any player that doesn't convert DSD to PCM should be good enough to hear the improvement over CD I would think.

[BillB]

Honestly, it varies by recording and depends on the quality of your gear. If you have a real-worldr good system you'll easily hear the difference on most recordings. It all depends how well the master sounded to begin with and where the remastering/remixing engineers took it from there.

As Slosh mentioned, they're only a couple of dollars more than the standard CD version in most cases so for the music lover/audio enthusiast it's worth it. If both the SACD and standard CD are available I'll always go for the SACD. Same goes for DVD-Audio.

Bill

[BinFrog]

With the right recording and mixing engineers on board, a SACD (and DVD-A for that matter) can be mind blowing. I am hooked, but I agree the quality really varies by title. I have some that are face melting, and some that sound worse than the CD releases of the same title. It all depends. I have a nice little system for our condo and I can really show it off with the right title.