[barmar46]

As a format in terms of SQ how good are SACDs? Compared to standard cds? Vinyl? Compare and contrast please.

 

[Golden Monkey]

Didn't we just do this, like three days ago?

 

[barmar46]

And I thought I was such an original.Musta missed it. Thanks for letting me know. I'll go back and check out the prior thread.No sense recreating the wheel.

 

[Golden Monkey]

Sorry, didn't mean to come off as snide, but koppite started a thread, and sacd and dvd-a was covered pretty well. No worries...every topic has probably been covered a hundred times

 

[bigshot]

Short answer: A recent test indicated that CDs and SACDs sound identical. The main advantage of SACD as a medium is multi-channel playback, which CDs can't do.

See ya
Steve

 

[CyberTheo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot /img/forum/go_quote.gif Short answer: A recent test indicated that CDs and SACDs sound identical. The main advantage of SACD as a medium is multi-channel playback, which CDs can't do. See ya Steve

Please provide link to "recent test indicated that CDs and SACDs sound identical". I want to see objective and unbiased views from a credible source.

 

[emmodad]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot /img/forum/go_quote.gif Short answer: A recent test indicated that CDs and SACDs sound identical. The main advantage of SACD as a medium is multi-channel playback, which CDs can't do. See ya Steve

oh thank FSM.... another hi-res thread where one of our Famous Frequent Posters honors us with his presence and an out-of-context post... even beat gregorio to the topic this time.

"A recent test indicated that CDs and SACDs sound identical": and which test is this that you are referring to, bigshot?

if past performance is an indicator, seems odds on the coming reply might just be a trotting out of the "BAS inserted A/D-D/A loop test" paper, without any mention of its' findings, methodology and intent being disputed; as well as no other objective supporting data, or reference to numerous other studies which have had far more scientific rigor concerning audibility wrt hi-res recording and reproduction...


To the OP and others interested in a somewhat more objective path to information: if you search through recent hf, audiogon, gearslutz, hoffman and other fora posts concerning hi-res (SACD, DVD-A, and higher sampling rate / resolution PCM in general), you'll find more than a few folk who provide, anecdotally, indication of their pleasure and perception of differences in listening to 2-channel hi-res sources incl SACD, particularly with CD redbook layer sources known to be derived cleanly from hi-res masters such as DSD or DXD.

You can try some very interesting comparisons yourself, buy a copy of 2L Divertimenti; also interesting is to read some commentary at SA-CD.net - Divertimenti - TrondheimSolistene

And, head on over to gearslutz where there are mature discussions on audibility of differences in hi-res from some of the finest mastering and recording engineers in the business as they are comparing converter implementations of new technologies such as DXD and evolutions of DSD. You can even download files of various pieces all rigorously sourced from the same DXD original recording master and downconverted to various bit depths / sample rates for comparison. Interesting discusion in this and several other threads pertaining to DXD, DSD, and SACD / hi-res in general: DAD AX24 Converter Test - Gearslutz.com

although they can't simply be taken in isolation, posts 26 and 30 are interesting.


in the end, it all comes down to the overall combination of many variables, and your particular perception of the total "system": mastering; quality and form of sample rate conversion and dither in creating a 16/44.1 version for Redbook; equipment chains in recording, mastering, and playback... and to your own sonic preferences.


Posting the dismissive "Short answer:... sound identical" as above is simply disingenuous.


see ya

,
chuck

 

[Golden Monkey]

Quote:

Originally Posted by emmodad /img/forum/go_quote.gif see ya , chuck

LOL

 

[nick_charles]

Quote:

Originally Posted by emmodad /img/forum/go_quote.gif oh thank FSM.... another hi-res thread where one of our Famous Frequent Posters honors us with his presence and an out-of-context post... even beat gregorio to the topic this time. "A recent test indicated that CDs and SACDs sound identical": and which test is this that you are referring to, bigshot? if past performance is an indicator, seems odds on the coming reply might just be a trotting out of the "BAS inserted A/D-D/A loop test" paper, without any mention of its' findings, methodology and intent being disputed; as well as no other objective supporting data, or reference to numerous other studies which have had far more scientific rigor concerning audibility wrt hi-res recording and reproduction...

I have read the Meyer and Moran paper that BigShot alludes to heck I even paid for the privelige, though his characterization of it is a bit reductionist. Meyer and Moran conclude that SACD ( as a subset of High res formats) can be superior , but that this is due to superior care in the mastering process not an artfact of the format per se. I have also read the many many threads on AV/Audio threads deconstructing the paper.

My day job includes a substantial percentage of effort dedicated to peer review of academic (IS/IT/LIS) papers. I feel that I am reasonably skilled at seeing fundamentally flawed design, iffy conclusions, bias, self-deception and obfuscation. As I see it there is only one possible flaw of any consequence in the M&M paper, all the rest is nit-picking. That flaw is that none of their High-res players managed a SNR that was close to the theoretical limits of the format, however NO current High res player actually does this either, a good one might manage 120db or 125db not the 144db theoretically deliverable. Nor do any recordings have a Dynamic range within a mile of the limits of the High res formats.


Quote:

You can even download files of various pieces all rigorously sourced from the same DXD original recording master and downconverted to various bit depths / sample rates for comparison. Interesting discusion in this and several other threads pertaining to DXD, DSD, and SACD / hi-res in general: DAD AX24 Converter Test - Gearslutz.com

I was interested by this link so I downloaded the 10 samples, I was going to do some Blind tests but after loading the first 2 samples in Audacity is was painfully apparent that the samples were not properly aligned or the same length and one variant had a blip on the start. I concluded that I could not do a rigorous blind test without serious editing. It also seemed that one converter created artifacts such as the opening spike on one variant. B,C,D,G,H and J had this spike A,E,F and I did not.

 

[bigshot]

Thanks, Nick.

As you said, I was referring to the medium itself... not the software.

See ya
Steve

 

[emmodad]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nick_charles /img/forum/go_quote.gif I have read the Meyer and Moran paper that BigShot alludes to...

perhaps we should first have bigshot confirm that Meyer/Moran is indeed the particular test he is using as basis for his "sound identical" declaration?


Quote:

Originally Posted by nick_charles /img/forum/go_quote.gif ...though his characterization of it is a bit reductionist.

a polite and gentlemanly choice of wording..... certainly befitting of your avatar!

 

[BIG POPPA]

They smoke regular CD's, They are not Vinyl. Two different things. Vinyl is still King.

 

[Kilane]

Depends what you're into. I happened across a SACD Copy of The Who's Tommy, and for the most part I prefer the original.

That being said, they're different experiences... and from what it sounds like significantly different in mastering. I don't know if I'd say that I heard whatever extra tracks were promised.

 

[nick_charles]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot /img/forum/go_quote.gif Thanks, Nick. As you said, I was referring to the medium itself... not the software. See ya Steve

Despite the torrid time that M & M got I would like them to do a replication study with different players, specifically with players that have better specs. Whether this would make a difference is an open question but it would be interesting.

 

[HiFi FOR METAL]

I think many of you need to actually talk to some people in the industry about this subject, because I also had a similar discussion about this a few months back. First there are players that do have above 120db SNR, I know esoteric has several in their line up that are. In fact many of those players allow for a play area mode and you can switch between an SACD and CD layer of the same disc. That would probably be the best comparison one could do.

However there are other factors as well. Part of the issue is that SACD is very good, However it has some issues that not all audio equipment can resolve. because of the dithering technique it uses it can cause oscillation in some amps that don't have the stable high bandwidth required to portray the frequency range of the format. why does this matter you ask? Well many SACD players actually filter the 100k bandwidth to about 40k or low as 30k at the most. Many on this forum would say, well what does that matter, we cannot hear that high anyway?

While this is true we can still hear amplitude and time domain changes from sharp filtering that occur in this range because in engineering terms a few things happen when you lower bandwidth. First, is that when you narrow bandwidth noise goes up in a system, EE's don't fully understand why this occurs, but it is observable. Second due the Gibbs phenomenon Gibbs phenomenon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, When this sharp filtering occurs you cause several artifacts in propogation, amplitude, and phase distortion to occur in the audible range. Meaning it sounds less real and less alive you loose your sense of air and dynamics. Any bandwidth filtering in any part of a system can cause this. CD is notorious for this problem with it's 20k brick wall filter. dCS has several Good white papers about this as well and those are worth checking out on their website. Here is an article that explains sharp filtering effects.

http://www.dcsltd.co.uk/technical_papers/aes97ny.pdf

If one has a system that is limited in bandwidth, current, overall resolution, and oscillates when it receives a full bandwidth SACD signal and it has to be narrowed down to receive that signal, not to mention has issues with jitter because of cheap transports or DACs, then yes you might not notice a difference. But to those that actually have a truly resolving system SACD is a very great thing, I have talked to people in the AES and pro audio about DSD and they have said it does track analog very very close to tape. The only issue is that many of the DAW's that edited DSD used or converted back to PCM in some of it's aux buses, Multi Tracks, and Plug ins. However if you can ever listen to a pure DSD recording on a truly resolving system it is a thing to behold.

I think bringing up these AES DBT is as valid as saying some amateur video people were watching HDTV on a crappy SD LCD and through double testing couldn't see that HDTV was better or had less aliasing artifacts then interlaced TV. Most of these people are too ignorant about sound to know or be aware of the difference because there only reference point is an inaccurate one. Scientifically speaking it is better there is no doubt, but there are people who think that MP3 is just as good as CD, I would argue that since there point of reference isn't a good one they cannot tell the audible differences because they have usually never experienced them, I think the same can be said for SACD.