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 :)

  • Audioaficianado@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I have a very good CD/SACD player and SACD’s are among the finest sounding recordings I own. I also have a very good vinyl setup and those are some of the finest sounding recordings I own. I have a huge CD collection, all ripped to hard drives and playable via a good streamer/DAC. These are some of the finest sounding recordings I own*. I also have purchased some hi-rez recordings I play through the same system and some of them are exceptional. I also stream via Qobuz/ROON and have listened to some very fine recordings via that service.

    TL:DR - the recording and mastering are way more important than the recording medium itself.

    • I’ve found it’s often better to buy vinyl copies of digitally mastered music because the dynamic range is higher and the experience more enjoyable for me. Apparently the limitations of vinyl don’t allow for the massive dynamic range compression found in digitally mastered content.