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 :)
SACD is a superb audiophile format. There are still new discs being released regularly and a healthy used market too. I have 1000+ SACDs in my collection. Of course like any vinyl album/cd a lot depends on the original source mater tapes- you can’t make a silk purse out of a sows ear! The sound quality of the best SACDs is EXCEPTIONAL! If you prefer physical discs then SACD is worth investing in. Marantz have several excellent SACD Players currently in their line up.
As you know, the audio CD was a great success. You can’t play a CD without buying a CD player first so a brand new rapid growing market. Of course once everybody has a CD player, the grows stop and it will become a replacement market.
The wet dream of any manager is of course to repeat this success. You need something different of course forcing the people to buy new hardware. This has become known as the SACD, it contains pulse width modulation instead of pulse code modulation. Indeed you need a new player to play the SACD.
Although dubbed Super Audio CD, it is pretty questionable if DSD64 is better than Red Book PCM. Anyway the consumers simply didn’t buy it so it failed completely. As a consequence the SACD catalogue is rather small.
Although dubbed Super Audio CD, it is pretty questionable if DSD64 is better than Red Book PCM. Anyway the consumers simply didn’t buy it so it failed completely. As a consequence the SACD catalogue is rather small.
There are a couple of companies recording in DSD. You can find them here: https://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/KB/DSD.htm
No idea why you are down voted? You make a lot of sense ! I need to educate myself on ‘REDbook’ as the terminology is new to me. The marketing here reminds me of minidisc; I had about four players, a deck at home and one in my car. They actually sucked, as the floppy disc style enclosure filled with dirt. They were also responsible for my best friend’s worst car accident - I had given him my collection when I moved onto the creative labs ZEN mp3 player, my handwriting was so bad that he drove straight over a roundabout trying to find a metallica album 🤣
Sorry for the jargon. When Sony and Philips developed the optical drive, each standard was published in a booklet with a color cover. Red (as you probably have guessed) is the color for the book with the standards for the audio CD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Books
DSD had a kind of revival in the audiophile community. I think it started around 2010 maybe a bit later. It is claimed to have more air, smoother, more analog sounding, etc. compared with PCM. This might explain the down votes as my comments violate the audiophile faith.
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.
As someone who has been into SACDs since launch I can’t say it’s a good fit for everyone but I continue to add to my library. The good thing is that Analogue Productions and MFSL put out some quality remasters on Hybrid SACD, also Sony/Universal out of Japan & Hong Kong, as well as several Classical & Jazz labels.
The bad is decoding the SACD layer requires using the analog outputs of an SACD compatible player, one of the Sony/Reavon/Magnetar UHD players over HDMI, an I2S SACD transport & compatible DAC, or finding a used unit that has one or more of the aforementioned connectivity options. Ripping an SACD isn’t straightforward, new titles are $25-$50, and limited releases often skyrocket in price secondhand.
If you can put up with the hurdles and aren’t looking for modern pop artists on DSD/SACD, then there could be some motivation to get into SACD.
Thank you for your honest appraisal, I think I might be better to work with my vinyl and standard CD collection.
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
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.
Maybe for classical or for certain audiophile releases… but I prefer to just stream high resolution.
SACD’s are increasingly rare, most new releases are re-issues found exclusively on audiophile labels like Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab and a few others. They’re also $30 and up per title.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of DSD which is the file format for SACD, is now found on hi-rez file download vendors like HD-Tracks and they’re not cheap. Unless you’re a serious collector and are up for spending thousands of gear that plays DSD, most of which is classical, you’re better off sticking to vinyl and redbook CD.
Redbook CD? I wonder if I could buy a normal CD, but download any of my absolute favorites to a home server? I just dislike streaming; I want to own my media. I recently went through a health issue that meant I would go months and months not listening to anything, the whole time I was paying tidal ! Even when I am using tidal, I tend to reach for a record or CD 90 % of the time.
I think it depends on your taste in music. For example the Bob Dylan MFSL SACD releases are phenomenal, better than any other digital source. Classic rock, jazz and classical.
My taste in music is basically “anything that is excellent”. I have pantera sat next to Bach - Fugue in G minor, obscure german techno, lou reed, kate bush, dub side of the moon and a lot of classics. Music was my refuge growing up, so I consumed everything I could get my hands on.
Sony is a cheap way to get into both sacd and DVD-audio these days. Ubp-x800m2 is around $200 new.