[mikeg]

I just picked up five Sony SACDs at $15.29 each, during a special sale at Best Buy. As it turned out, a composition on one of the SACDs duplicated what I already had on a regular CD in my collection, and this gave me a chance to compare the two formats. WOW, what an amazing improvement SACD is over regular CD. The composition that I compared is Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G Minor. The CD that I compared to the
Sony SACD is a digital recording by EMI, with Sir Neville Marriner conducting (CDC 7 49073 2). The SACD sound has an amazingly broad, spacious, and open sound stage. Sounds of all solo instruments are clear, and extremely well focused. As a listener I feel exactly as if I'm sitting in a large concert hall, enjoying the sound of a wonderful orchestra, as modified and influenced by hall acoustics. By comparison to SACD, the regular CD sounds cold and artificial. It lacks the openness and spaciousness of sound stage of the SACD, and sounds like the sterile product of a sound studio. I guess this is what I've heard audiophiles refer to as the cold sound of CDs versus the warmer sound of LPs. It's a real surprise to me, since I've previously not done this sort of comparison. As for the equipment that I use, it's as follows: AKG K1000 headphone; Maratz SA8260 SACD; ASL AQ-1005DT power amp.; ASL Passive TIDT preamp.; and high quality interconnect cables.

 

[markl]

Yes, it is! Good for you mikeg, and thanks for posting your thoughts.

Please click on the link at the bottom of my signature for more details, if you are unfamiliar with the new formats (SACD and DVD-A).

Mark

 

[Calanctus]

mikeg, I agree. Last night I listened to an SACD reissue of an old Dvorak recording. What really struck me was the faithfulness of the timbre, above all else--strings really sounded like strings, rich and resonant.

 

[mikeg]

Calanctus - Thanks for your comment.
markl - Sorry, but the link does not work. Got "page unknown."

 

[Cap'n Dan]

SACD is Digital 5.1, right? That's cool. I'd like to try that. I'll definitely make it part of my future home theater/hi-fi system!

 

[Born2bwire]

It'll do as high as 5.1, yes. However, there are some SACD's that are stereo only and then some are 4.1 or 4.0. However, they usually don't say on the box if they are do or do not make use of the center, but they will make the point of differentiating whether or not it is a stereo or multichannel mix.

 

[JaZZ]

I'd hate to be patronized that way...

Who needs a center speaker! With my stereo rig, a voice in the center or a mono signal comes exactly from the middle, as if there was a speaker. But I don't care about multichannel anyway...

 

[yage]

Does the SACD have a CD layer? I'd be interested in a 3-way comparison between PCM mastered/PCM playback, DSD mastered/PCM playback, and DSD mastered/DSD playback.

Frankly, I heard Monk's 'Straight, No Chaser' on SACD at the last Chicago meet on the Fisher/AKG K1000/Sony NS-500 setup and couldn't really detect a significant difference between SACD and redbook (the operative word being 'significant'). I haven't given DVD-A a spin, though...

 

[Born2bwire]

They can be made with a CD layer, they're called hybrids. But, the PCM may have been taken off of the DSD master and some wonder if that is a fair comparison. Now one CD that I believe was originally a PCM master that I have was Journey's Greatest Hits that was reissued on CD in 2000 or so. Sony did put out a SACD single layer disc of this as well, so that would be my pick for a PCM master/PCM vs PCM master/DSD comparison.

 

[MacDEF]

Quote:

Originally posted by yage Frankly, I heard Monk's 'Straight, No Chaser' on SACD at the last Chicago meet on the Fisher/AKG K1000/Sony NS-500 setup and couldn't really detect a significant difference between SACD and redbook (the operative word being 'significant').

Really? That's one of my favorite SACDs, and I hear a major difference between it and the redbook version, especially in the area of detail. Perhaps it was because you were listening using the K1000, which are a bit more open -- weren't there a lot of people in the room?

 

[mikeg]

Perhaps some Redbook CDs can sound almost as good as SACDs. Right now I'm listening to Reference Recordings' ShoWcase Eiji Oue recording, which is a HDCD 24-bit recording. Without having done a critical A/B comparison, I think that it may approximate the sound of an SACD recording. But, the point is that it takes an exceptional demo Redbook recording to match the sound quality of a regular run of the mill SACD recording.

 

[CaptBubba]

SACDs at Best Buy? What? They aren't at my local Best Buy, they don't even sell SACD players (not even dvd players w/ SACD capibilities).

RIght now the only SACDs I have are the two discs in the remastered version of Hot Rocks. I don't know weather to attribute it to the SACD of the remaster, but the strings in "You can't allways get what you want" really caught my attention. I can't read the discs in my cd-rw drive so I can't compair though. (or can you configure the ns500v to play the redbook and not the SACD layer?)

 

[mikeg]

Quote:

Originally posted by CaptBubba SACDs at Best Buy? What? They aren't at my local Best Buy, they don't even sell SACD players (not even dvd players w/ SACD capibilities).

I also thought that my local Best Buy did not sell SACDs, and most of the sales staff could not point me to them. The problem is that their SACD display is not in their regular CD section. They have a small SACD display next to their SACD player/s in the back of the store; i.e., in their audio equipment section. Good luck.

 

[Calanctus]

Quote:

Originally posted by mikeg Perhaps some Redbook CDs can sound almost as good as SACDs. Right now I'm listening to Reference Recordings' ShoWcase Eiji Oue recording, which is a HDCD 24-bit recording. Without having done a critical A/B comparison, I think that it may approximate the sound of an SACD recording. But, the point is that it takes an exceptional demo Redbook recording to match the sound quality of a regular run of the mill SACD recording.

I bought a few of Harry Pearson's recommended top 100 CDs, including the Gladiator soundtrack and Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony on Naxos. These are really exceptional CDs--they sound absolutely excellent--better than many of my SACDs. If you want a CD with WOW factor for demo'ing your system, you could do a lot worse than Gladiator.

 

[mikeg]

Quote:

Originally posted by Calanctus I bought a few of Harry Pearson's recommended top 100 CDs, including the Gladiator soundtrack and Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony on Naxos. These are really exceptional CDs--they sound absolutely excellent--better than many of my SACDs. If you want a CD with WOW factor for demo'ing your system, you could do a lot worse than Gladiator.

I'll follow up on the Harry pearson recommendations. Thanks. As for demo'ing my system, unfortunately only to myself. Others think that I'm nuts when I rave about headphones.