[WindyCityCy]

Maybe a stupid question. I've been purposefully staying away from Audio magazines and forums for a couple of years now, but couldn't last any longer. I have no experience with SACD but as I'm putting together a phone rig I'd like to know how SACDs compare to std CDs for imaging and separation. Does it make a big difference if the SACD is played back in 2-ch vs multi-channel format? Can the SACD even be played back in multi-channel if the amp only supports L-R? I'm under the impression that not all SACDs contain both 2-ch and multi-channel recordings. I've got a HA-1 mkII and a set of DT-880s on the way and am considering adding the 963SA to the phone rig for the SACD capabilities. Maybe I should add it to my 5.1 setup instead and use my existing DVP-S7700 for the phone rig source. Thanks for any input.

 

[kevin gilmore]

Most sacd's contain a 2 channel layer. Some sacd's contain
2 sacd layers, one of which may be multichannel. And some
hybrid disks contain 3 layers, one of which is a cd layer.

Of the 461 disks i have, only one has additional tracks on
the multichannel layer that is not duplicated on the 2 channel
layer.

I don't believe however that anything prevents someone
from making a single or dual layer sacd multichannel only
disk.

One of the police reissue disks contains 130 minutes of
music on 2 layers of 2 channel music.

The Dark side of the moon reissue has 3 layers, and i can
tell you for a fact that the 2 channel sacd and the multichannel
sacd layers sound very different. Whether that was the
intent or not back then, who knows.

 

[Wodgy]

Quote:

Originally posted by kevin gilmore The Dark side of the moon reissue has 3 layers, and i can tell you for a fact that the 2 channel sacd and the multichannel sacd layers sound very different. Whether that was the intent or not back then, who knows.

Just to confirm what you're hearing, the Dark Side of the Moon CD layer is somewhat screwed up compared to the SACD layer. Stereophile has a great article about it here:
http://www.stereophile.com/shownews.cgi?1649

 

[Calanctus]

A few responses:

"Does it make a big difference if the SACD is played back in 2-ch vs multi-channel format?"

In my experience, 2 channel SACD has the potential--realized increasingly often these days--of offering better sound than is attainable by CDs. Obviously, 2 channel won't give you the hall ambience of multichannel recordings, but 2 channel SACD is still a worthwhile improvement over 2 channel CD as long as your system is good enough and you care enough about sound quality (as opposed to just caring about the music).


"Can the SACD even be played back in multi-channel if the amp only supports L-R?"

Nope. Nor can you play back the multichannel SACD layer through headphones--at least not without losing everything that's not L/R.


"I'm under the impression that not all SACDs contain both 2-ch and multi-channel recordings."

True. All or nearly all contain the 2 channel SACD layer (I've never seen one that was multichannel only). Some contain both 2 and multichannel layers. Also, many contain a regular CD layer in addition to the SACD layer(s).


"I've got a HA-1 mkII and a set of DT-880s on the way and am considering adding the 963SA to the phone rig for the SACD capabilities. Maybe I should add it to my 5.1 setup instead and use my existing DVP-S7700 for the phone rig source. Thanks for any input."

Why not run your headphone amp from the stereo outs of the 963, and your multichannel amp and speakers from the multichannel outs?

 

[Born2bwire]

On the note of playing the multichannel track for stereo listening, some players have a separate stereo output and multichannel output. When playing a multichannel track, the stereo output downmixes the channels into a stereo signal. Still, like Gilmore said, sometimes the multichannel mix is different from the stereo for some reason. The one disc that does this for me is a Police SACD in which, I believe it's this track, in Message in a Bottle the vocals are off center in both versions but are on opposite sides for each version (ie: in two channel vocals are slightly to the left while in multichannel slightly to the right).