Hello again.

I have an extensive regular CD collection, an inherited vinyl collection and a tape collection from my youth. I am running a topping DX7 Dac for interfacing my laptop to my system, my bt TV box/samsung frame TV - it switches inputs automatically, so really useful.

My current CD player is a Marantz CD 63 mkII which I recently refurbished and play through it’s own DAC chip - it sounds really good, possibly better than the topping. When I auditioned some speakers recently, I got to hear an oppo player, that seemed to handle blueray, sacd etc. It sounded better, or as good as my old marantz.

So what options are there that offer: cd, blu-ray, dvd-audio, dvd-video, sacd ? Is SACD even worth it as a format to get into?

I love my physical media, having spent a lot of time in my teens looking through the photo booklets that came with the ministry of sound ibiza annuals and dreaming of clubbing, while listening to taped radio one essential mixes. I just tend to pull a CD out of the rack and listen to the whole album and I am transported to a time and place.

With CDs being so cheap via ebay, or my local charity shops, I have been buying the albums I stole via napster/LAN sharing in university (some guy wrote a program that linked all the student’s music, so we could swap and discover at a blistering rate for the time). I am just not sure if it is worth ‘upgrading’ to the SACD versions of some of the classics.

Thanks for the input :)

  • TheHelpfulDad@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    You may not hear the difference, but DSD, which is what SACD is recorded in, and PCM with high sample rates and more bits per sample as found on DVDA and some BluRay discs, factually has more data which leads to an analog signal that is more similar to the original analog signal as more data (samples and bits) is recorded.

    Again, you might not hear the difference, but it’s there. The Oppos are really nice and difficult to beat.

    There is a very vocal group of emotional people that trot out pseudoscience that misappropriates actual science who retch when one suggests anything beyond CD sounds better. They like to cite this so-called “scientific proof” video and Nyquist theory but the video is “mock objective” and the application of Nyquist isn’t as straightforward as they want to believe.

    Have a listen to the higher resolution stuff like SACD, >=96khz/24bit PCM and decide for yourself. Make sure its not just upsampled from CD and that it’s a good master. If you don’t think it is better, then don’t bother

    • boofing_evangelist@alien.topOPBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      I approve of this approach as a trained physicist! Can you recommend a place to buy an album for download at >=96khz/24bit? I have a topping DAC which has a USB input, so I could go from laptop to DX7s . I purchased the DAC a long time ago, but I am not sure how much difference there can be in a newer/different model. I do know that I prefer the sound of my Marantz CD 63 mkII, through it’s onboard DAC, rather than going through the Topping and using the marantz as a transport.