[littlej0e]

Free files for testing right from the professional recording studio:
http://www.2l.no/hires/DXD-DSD/index.html

Great store for buying DSD/DXD albums:
https://www.nativedsd.com/

You rule! Many thanks.

 

[jlbrach]

I buy most of my flac albums. 1) because I think it sounds better locally and 2) I fear streaming services will delete the album (which has happened more than I’d like) or the services will close down and all will be lost

I am exactly the same way...first off I like to own my music,I think my own downloads sound better and also my local files are much snappier to respond, I like to have the music if I am somewhere that I cant access the internet or a decent connection and last but not least I also worry that one day we wake up and the streaming services for whatever reason will no longer be available...also I ripped tons of albums I had over the years that arent available to stream...

 

[normie610]

It is with great sadness that I report this is proving to be 100% true.

I've been testing normal CDs and SACDs for the past couple of days using my old Wadia CD player from 1998, along with a friend's 18k Esoteric SACD stack. The results aren't even close; SACDs, and in some cases regular CDs, seem to destroy streamed and locally stored digital files quite handily. The staging and imaging in particular are so much better and things tend to sound a bit "tighter" overall. Streamed files especially felt quite "flat" and 2-dimensional by comparison.

The obvious problems are that SACD seems to be a dead/dying format, while streaming is quite the opposite. Streaming is also infinitely more convenient. Are there any SACD lovers out there that can speak to sourcing and availability of modern releases? Do labels still make SACDs? Buying into SACD as a format seems more than a bit foolish at this point, but the bump in both quality and performance is undeniable.

Needless to say, I'm going to stay far away from vinyl. CDs seem to be a better "middle ground" choice.

SACD’s file format is actually DSD. As someone else has mentioned, great source for DSD downloads is Native DSD. But not all recordings sound great, it will depend on the mastering quality, which in my opinion much more important than the file format itself. In general, newly recorded albums meant for audiophile consumption tend to have really good mastering quality. I usually only buy albums from Sound Liaison (DXD format), TRPTK (used to be available in DSD but now all converted to DXD format), 2L (DXD), Chesky (the binaural albums are incredible), HD Tracks for more mainstream music/genre and Native DSD (again most are great but not all).

 

[jlbrach]

There aren't many people, myself included, saying that you "need" a speaker amp to enjoy the Susvara. However, I believe the clear majority of posters to this thread who have tried a speaker amp have noted distinct improvements in resolution, soundstaging, and bass response. If you don't hear it that way, no problem. But why continuously campaign against people even trying it for themselves? It's not a particularly expensive proposition, especially compared to what some headphone amps cost these days.

he is a one trick pony, he seems to have a bit of an obsessive compulsive thing going on

 

[EMINENT]

SACD’s file format is actually DSD. As someone else has mentioned, great source for DSD downloads is Native DSD. But not all recordings sound great, it will depend on the mastering quality, which in my opinion much more important than the file format itself. In general, newly recorded albums meant for audiophile consumption tend to have really good mastering quality. I usually only buy albums from Sound Liaison (DXD format), TRPTK (used to be available in DSD but now all converted to DXD format), 2L (DXD), Chesky (the binaural albums are incredible), HD Tracks for more mainstream music/genre and Native DSD (again most are great but not all).

Then there's the debacle of learning that some sacd's were sourced from Redbook and in the end you're just listening to upsampled pcm to begin with.

See if your faves are on this list. http://archimago.blogspot.com/2013/07/list-suspected-44-or-48khz-pcm.html

 

[normie610]

Then there's the debacle of learning that some sacd's were sourced from Redbook and in the end you're just listening to upsampled pcm to begin with.

See if your faves are on this list. http://archimago.blogspot.com/2013/07/list-suspected-44-or-48khz-pcm.html

Yes I’m familiar with that. That’s why in my opinion, the mastering quality is the key. Some older Chesky albums in 44khz sound much better than DSD albums with poor mastering quality. That’s why for hi-res formats, I tend to buy newly recorded albums as a lot of them are carefully mastered for audiophile consumption.

 

[littlej0e]

I am exactly the same way...first off I like to own my music,I think my own downloads sound better and also my local files are much snappier to respond, I like to have the music if I am somewhere that I cant access the internet or a decent connection and last but not least I also worry that one day we wake up and the streaming services for whatever reason will no longer be available...also I ripped tons of albums I had over the years that arent available to stream...

SACD’s file format is actually DSD. As someone else has mentioned, great source for DSD downloads is Native DSD. But not all recordings sound great, it will depend on the mastering quality, which in my opinion much more important than the file format itself. In general, newly recorded albums meant for audiophile consumption tend to have really good mastering quality. I usually only buy albums from Sound Liaison (DXD format), TRPTK (used to be available in DSD but now all converted to DXD format), 2L (DXD), Chesky (the binaural albums are incredible), HD Tracks for more mainstream music/genre and Native DSD (again most are great but not all).

I buy most of my flac albums. 1) because I think it sounds better locally and 2) I fear streaming services will delete the album (which has happened more than I’d like) or the services will close down and all will be lost

Appreciate the info. Sincerely. Guess it's time to go full nerd and implement backups for all digital files. I never considered this, but definitely should have.

As for SACD, I'm going to dip a toe, but try to focus on obtaining rips/DSD as opposed to a TOTL SACD set up. Guessing there are pretty good deals to be had on the used market, so we'll see.

 

[number1sixerfan]

It's not that it is offtopic. It's that you incessantly harp on the exact same thing repeatedly for months on end in multiple threads, are not open to other people (not yourself) having different ways of doing things and opinions, and actively deride anyone with other views opposed to yours with cheap, snide, passive aggressive remarks, similar to the one above.

You may have super hearing to hear all of your signal chain and transport chain modifications, but you are entirely tone deaf when it comes to reading a room and co-existing with others.

I mean it only took over a year to see the truth...the truth being one doesn't need a speaker amp or anything more than 2w ( and that 2w has lottts of headroom)...and that's not coming from me, it's from the speaker amp crew.

You read all of that carefully articulated feedback and still simply reverted back to the exact same cyclical trolling said post called out. Just unbelievable.

At this point, it's everyone's fault for the derailment of this thread that continues engaging with this person. Myself included. Back on mute you go.

 

[Ragnar-BY]

This whole battle between DSD and PCM is very exaggerated. Some DACs work slightly better with DSD and some with PCM, but if the album is recorded and mastered well, then it will be great anyway. I just stopped comparing at some point and decided to always buy the original format. It was recorded in DSD - I buy DSD, recorded in PCM - I buy PCM.

 

[Polygonhell]

his whole battle between DSD and PCM is very exaggerated.

As is everything else in audio.
I was a huge SACD fan, when they were still relevant, I switched to the opinion that hires 96/24 PCM had largely closed the gap, but more recently I'm back in the generally DSD is superior. Some of that is that many of the SACD masters were just better, but some of it I think is the encoding. I have maybe 100 or so DSD albums, and I can't think very few case where I prefer the PCM version over the DSD.
It was originally designed as an archival format for analog masters, and it was probably always doomed to be irrelevant as a format, it's just too hard to do any real postprocessing in the format, so there was always going to resistance to it in studios.

Some DACs work slightly better with DSD and some with PCM

If you have an R2R DAC, it very likely will not do a great job with DSD, they either digitally convert them to PCM, or in some cases have a separate conversion process for DSD which is quite often something of an afterthought.

 

[MacedonianHero]

I'm listening to my Susvara tonight with my Enleum AMP-23R and Chord DAVE...Red Hot Chili Pepper's newest album (Return to the Dream Canteen) and holy moly! Talk about taught and tight bass with incredible kick & punch. It's literally having your cake and eating it too. Flea has never sounded better! Throw in the incredible transparency/clarity and I can tell this is gonna be a long night!!!

 

[IanB52]

Then there's the debacle of learning that some sacd's were sourced from Redbook and in the end you're just listening to upsampled pcm to begin with.

See if your faves are on this list. http://archimago.blogspot.com/2013/07/list-suspected-44-or-48khz-pcm.html

I hear this a lot, but it is IMO quite heavily overstated. There were quite a few upsampled titles in the very early days of SACD (from various PCM sample rates) because Sony envisioned SACD as an output format that had the advantage of avoiding PCM filtering/processing. It still does have that advantage, unless your dac already does DSD upsampling. For whatever reason, some of those still sound great.

And what was the case more often were recordings done at 44.1khz or 48khz, mixed to tape, then mastered via analog to DSD.

There were also recordings I believe by MoFi that were converted to PCM to do Plangent Process (a dsp that corrects tape flutter).

Most SACD and DSD titles come from tape masters.

 

[BillinSF]

That’s why in my opinion, the mastering quality is the key. Some older Chesky albums in 44khz sound much better than DSD albums with poor mastering quality. That’s why for hi-res formats, I tend to buy newly recorded albums as a lot of them are carefully mastered for audiophile consumption.

BAM. The recording quality is the key. IMHO if you search around for particularly popular jazz albums and soul (my faves) you can find certain recordings that are awesome. Also the audio engineering.

Learning that the great Herbert Von Kajaran signed off on the 44HZ standard for CD's informs so much. He set the standard. Would not let his Berlin Symphony deutsche grammophon recordings be burned onto CD's except in 44.1 kHZ, thereby setting the standard for CD's in the 1980's. All CD's. Set the standard. That's what shifted the recording industry from vinyl albums to CD's. Analog to Digital. History informs so much.

We all enjoy our hobby. But homage must be paid to the history of how it originated. And the incredible shifts that occurred because of the influences of a few great people.

It all starts with understanding the abolute war between Edison and Westinghouse in the 1880's.

There are origins in each shift of technology. As I get older, I understand more and more the shifts in these technologies which helps one understand the real advances vs. the BS.

My humble holdiay statement .

 

[UntilThen]

Eric of McChanson amps let me have this amp to listen for the holidays with a bunch of power tubes 6L6, 6CB5, EL34, KT150, KT170, etc

I'm listening with 6CB5 tubes now. This tube is featured by VinylSavor - http://vinylsavor.blogspot.com/2011/01/tube-of-month-6cb5a.html

Drives Susvara with ease and I'm very impressed by what I am hearing. Reminds me of 300b ! It's a speaker amp so I am using speaker tap cables.

 

[Lumithium]

Most SACD and DSD titles come from tape masters.

This is definitely not true. A lot of SACD/DSD nowadays like the a lot of the ones from 2L uses DXD as original source and only converts to DSD before publishing. Which is 24/352.8 PCM, not tapes.