Zurg
Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jul 9, 2002
- Posts
- 82
- Likes
- 11
So I bought an SACD player about a month ago and I have since been buying up a fair collection of SACDs. Most of them are hybrids so I don't have a problem ripping redbook CD version for listening to in my car. A few, however, are not hybrids. This leaves me in the position of wanting to make digital recordings of the stereo analog outputs of my SACD player. I figured as long as I am going to all this trouble, I might as well make a high resolution (24/96) recording for playback on the computer. I am using a Sony VAIO ultralight laptop running XP pro and I am using an M-Audio Transit as my sound device. I tried poking around on the web to see if I could find a low cost or free utilitiy that would support hires recording. I didn't really have much luck. The only thing I found was "Sonic Foundry 7" which cost $400 and seemed like serious overkill for my purposes. So searched through the software that came with my VAIO and I found this application called "SonicStage Mastering Studio". It actually seems to be a useful bit of software. It allows me to record 24bit/96khz audio from the transit, and it will allow me to save the sound to a wav file or burn it to a CD. Burning to a CD converts it to 16/44 BUT it can also use Sony's "Super Bit Mapping" (SBM) to help preserve some of the hires detail.
I got everything hooked up last night and made a test recording. I played back the 24/96 wav file through Foobar2000 and the Transit and it sounded good. I want to record some SACDs this weekend and do some critical listening and evaluation. Here are the questions I want to answer for myself:
1. Can I reliably distinguish a 24/96 recording/playback from a 16/44 recording/playback?
2. Can I reliably distinguish a 24/96 converted to a 16/44 SBM from a straight 16/44 recording/playback?
3. I would like to compare 24/96->16/44 SBM analog recording of the hires layer to a digital rip of the redbook layer, for some hybrid SACDs.
Have any of you head-fiers done these kinds of comparisons before? Any advice? Also, can hires audio be directly encoded into mp3? I would guess that it is unlikely, I was wondering if anyone out there knows for sure.
Thanks, -Z
P.S. All of the SACDs I am recording I have bought and paid for. Therefore converting them to CD or MP3, for my personal use, I believe falls under "fair use" and is therefore legal.
I got everything hooked up last night and made a test recording. I played back the 24/96 wav file through Foobar2000 and the Transit and it sounded good. I want to record some SACDs this weekend and do some critical listening and evaluation. Here are the questions I want to answer for myself:
1. Can I reliably distinguish a 24/96 recording/playback from a 16/44 recording/playback?
2. Can I reliably distinguish a 24/96 converted to a 16/44 SBM from a straight 16/44 recording/playback?
3. I would like to compare 24/96->16/44 SBM analog recording of the hires layer to a digital rip of the redbook layer, for some hybrid SACDs.
Have any of you head-fiers done these kinds of comparisons before? Any advice? Also, can hires audio be directly encoded into mp3? I would guess that it is unlikely, I was wondering if anyone out there knows for sure.
Thanks, -Z
P.S. All of the SACDs I am recording I have bought and paid for. Therefore converting them to CD or MP3, for my personal use, I believe falls under "fair use" and is therefore legal.
