In the world of video, there is an empirical difference between DVD, Blu-Ray, and 4K, a demonstrable difference to the human eye achieved with each higher level that earlier formats did not achieve. But eventually there will come a time when a level of video is reached where the human eye cannot detect the difference as it would exist on such a microscopic level, and while be technically “better”, it would not effectively be better.
With CD vs. SACD (and other higher level formats), there are people that argue that the latter are the Blu-Ray and 4Ks of the audio world in that there is a level of detail hearable detail and richness that CD cannot attain, and then there are those that say CD was already the “4K” of the audio world in that it allegedly reaches the highest level of detail the human ear can experience, and that new formats are going beyond what you can hear and are marketing superior remaster quality as higher audio fidelity.
So the question is not “is SACD technically better and more equivalent to something like 4K and Blu-Ray?”, because that’s tangibly true. The question is: can the human ear hear that difference, or are the superior mastering processes used for SACD releases making people think the format is better, when in fact a redbook CD would sound just as good if mastered in the same way?
Have experts weighed in on this? I hope I worded it right. Thanks for any polite answers.
We can argue this forever, but it comes down to: does the playback scheme equal how the music was recorded?
If the two are not equal, then there will always exist the possibility that the playback is missing some elements of the recording; and that some people, with some equipment, with some systems, could possibly here the difference.
But once the playback equals the recording, assuming the speakers are capable of the dynamic range, hen there can be no further argument
Read about the Nyquist Theorum. Basically it comes down to sample rate (which is essentially the same thing as resolution). As long as the same rate is high enough to reproduce the highest frequency you can hear, there is no noticeable benefit to a higher sample rate. So 20khz being the highest freq humans can hear, 40khz sample rate (CD is 44.1khz) is all you need. Audio doesn’t have the same storage and processing challenges that hi-res video does. So we were able to jump right to full quality audio reproduction as opposed to waiting for technology to catch up like with video.
It gets a bit more complicated with SACD format because they use a different type of audio encoding (DSD). So its not directly comparable with CD that uses PCM encoding. But the theory behind digital audio is the same.
It should be noted that DSD is a Sony creation and as such it is heavily marketed as being “better” than other alternatives. That does not mean that it is.
Thank you. So basically if I have a CD and good speakers to play it on, I’m not missing out on too much?
Missing out on nothing. CD format is perfect sound forever, everthing else is features other than sound quality or marketing.
That point can and will be argued for the rest of time among audiophiles lol. But the short answer is no you aren’t missing out on anything with that kind of setup.
The only areas you might miss out on:
- Some older CD players don’t have the best DAC’s in them where a noticeable improvement can be had by improving that. If you bought your CD player in the past 10-15 years you’re probably fine unless you went with an absolute garbage model.
- If a recording, or perhaps a remaster, only comes out on SACD that you wanted to listen to. I don’t know if this is actually a concern. I would guess that everything that comes out on SACD would also come out on CD.
You’d be better off worrying about having the best quality recording/best version of whatever you are listening to.
Not enough to worry about. Once you stop listening to the equipment and tune in to the sound.
Great post, I think that the rule of thumb for sample rates is twice the highest frequency. Which is why we use 44.1khz and not 22.05 or 20.
If I remember my audio engineering classes correctly, I believe 44.1 was chosen for technical reasons. Like ease of transferring between popular equipment at the time or something. It was also Sony who came up with that standard and there was some back and forth on exactly what they would use. 40khz is really all you need. 44.1khz was chosen more for convenience rather than a necessity.
Here’s something to ponder:
The vast majority of readers here think FLAC is a bit-by-bit conversion of a song on a CD. But CD’s 1,411 kbps, which represents 1 bit for ever hertz.
There’s actually 4.5x more bits coming off a cd, which does NOT have a file format, than the best audio Tidal offers.
That being said, when it comes to audiophile quality music in general, as long as you have at least CD quality audio (compressed file or off an actual CD)l, or off a streaming service)…
The equipment it’s being played on plays a much larger role in how good it sounds.
SACD, outside of the sound studio is more about the fidelity of the audio… that is, how close it comes to the original master recording.
For modern music, the song was probably recorded in SACD or comparable other format.
But for Vinyl records or analog tapes as the source material, an SACD copy would at least preserve the audio fidelity to a point it would sound like a perfect copy.
I have a few albums from the early 2000’s that were available on both CD as well as SACD. Think Jamie Cullum, Jennifer Lopez, Groove Armada and Destiny’s child.
I could share a couple of .DSF rips and .FLAC files of the same song if you want so you can do your own ABX comparison.
Video needs *way* more data, which makes it a harder problem.
Let’s go beyond what’s considered high quality.
Uncompressed audio per second:
88200 (samples per second) x 8 (ambisonic surround) x 4 (32-bit per channel) = 3 MB/secUncompressed video per second:
3840 x 2160 (pixels) x 6 (RGB 16-bit) x 120 (frames per second) = 5695 MB/sec.So, video needs 2000x as much bandwidth, storage and processing power at “high+ quality” (and the problem gets worse faster as you go up in resolution). The only way everything video copes is with really clever lossy compression.
We had essentially perfect lossless digital audio 30+ years ago. Video we’re still not there.
16/44 provides more resolution and dynamic range than you can hear. It only falls apart when you start applying affects to multiple channels and mixing them, which is why 24/96 and higher were and are used in upstream recording systems so that you can get a clean mix-down to 16/44.
I can’t explain myself really, but look for TechnologyConnections on youtube. I’m sure he made an incredibly detailed video about this subject