CD vs. DVD-A vs. SACD

[Mandrake2011]

A very fascinating read! SACD gets trashed pretty badly.
http://sound.westhost.com/cd-sacd-dvda.htm

 

[kap'n krunch]

Well, Neil Wilkes said it!..and proved it!! I believe him...

 

[Bob Squires Jr]

An excellent read, however, I find it amusing that they talk about watermarking with respect to SACD and not DVD-A!
I don't know of any SACDs that are watermarked. But many DVD-As are.
DVD-As are they way to go, but other than the KC stuff, I doubt we'll see much of it.
Blu-Ray Audio has promise though.
It's funny that Warner japan is re-issuing stuff that was on DVD-A originally to SACD.
Why not just re-issue the DVD-As?
Wouldn't it be nice to have brand new copies of all the stuff?
What the hell are they thinking? Who runs this show here?
Hang 'em!

 

[Almen]

Yeah, that article's almost ten years ago. Not much has changed since, though...

 

[Disclord]

I've reposted the AES paper about why 1-bit is a bad idea on my files website;http://issuu.com/disclord/docs/sacd-is-bad?viewMode=magazine There are some other papers on SACD posted there too in the SACD folder.

 

[flavio81]

A very fascinating read! SACD gets trashed pretty badly.
http://sound.westhost.com/cd-sacd-dvda.htm

That webpage is very good. I heartily recommend it.
PS: AFAIK, there are some listening tests that show no audible difference between hi-res and cd-quality audio.

Anyway, i will keep listening to my LPs for now!!

 

[fredblue]

Here's a damning assessment of SA-CD (and glowing praise for DVD-Audio) I stumbled upon the other night..

http://www.iar-80.com/page17.html

An easy read it is not.. but (depressingly) worthwhile!

SA-CD..
- is seriously compromised with treble frequencies above 8khz,
- is a 6-bit format,
- has a quarter of the resolution of redbook CD at certain frequencies,
- has severely reduced dynamic range compared to even redbook CD..

just horribly précis'd soundbites, the whole lot of articles is incredibly detailed.

for those of you on QQ who, like myself, have wondered why their SA-CDs of the same albums & masterings sound inferior to their DVD-A counterparts, now you know why.

please don't shoot the messenger, just I found an amazingly in-depth set of findings online (while looking for something different!) that conclude SA-CD is fundamentally flawed as both an archive & playback Hi-Rez format.

Happy reading! @:

 

[leevitalone1]

I never said I was a recording expert, in fact far from it. I had a real bad time understanding this stuff at first. But, in like 05 or so, I discovered HR and went out and like many just bought. Then after buying all there was, you start to understand the format and seek more konwledge. This is where I found out about sacd.
Reading the desription of dvd audio, I can grasp the whiole concept, in my terma I suppose, but I sort of understand it. Forget it with sacd. I got a headache trying to sort it out. The information I had at the time mentiond noise to relace missing freq. that could not be dealt with. And the reduced dynamic range. I had thought it was my player, just a cheapo Sony. Well, I have since sold off most of my sacd.s, have no use for them. They did have the titles, and after dvd a I got all excited. Thought the two were close. Big dissapointment. The only one's I kept were a few rare. Won't buy any more. But, I do like the conversions from sacd to dvd a.
The whole thing just lent confusion to the attempts at making HR music.All this left a real bad taste in my mouth for Sony. The sob's knew of the errors and it seems they did this puposly to kill the whole thing.

 

[DuncanS]

I remember being shocked when I discovered that SACD wasn't as high resolution as it was marketed as. On my early Pioneer 565AV, DVD-A was much better than SACD, I then got a Denon DVD-A/SACD/CD and the difference was less marked, and on my new Denon Universal player the difference is about the same. Some SACDs seem to be good (good mastering techniques I think), and from an ease of use in the early days they were better than some of the DVD-A disks. But now the Denon automatically finds the highest resolution stream so that advantage has gone. Overall I prefer LPCM (the higher the sampling frequency the better) to SACD. Noise shaping for SACD is complex and if not quite right - the article says it all!!

....and fredblue you were right on an different thread I should have typed 88kHz!

 

[fredblue]

I remember being shocked when I discovered that SACD wasn't as high resolution as it was marketed as. On my early Pioneer 565AV, DVD-A was much better than SACD, I then got a Denon DVD-A/SACD/CD and the difference was less marked, and on my new Denon Universal player the difference is about the same. Some SACDs seem to be good (good mastering techniques I think), and from an ease of use in the early days they were better than some of the DVD-A disks. But now the Denon automatically finds the highest resolution stream so that advantage has gone. Overall I prefer LPCM (the higher the sampling frequency the better) to SACD. Noise shaping for SACD is complex and if not quite right - the article says it all!!

....and fredblue you were right on an different thread I should have typed 88kHz!

I think the 88.2khz is a real-world figure, output from most universal players which stream SA-CDs as 88khz PCM (88 being seen as most akin to 44.1 etc.. is it "best decimation"!? blah! I dunno, I run out of patience! either it's 88k native or its "up-rez'd" Lo-Rez..!? which is it!?).. whereas 100khz was theoretical value reached mostly by Sony bullshit/marketing, you're lucky to get performance out of it approaching 44.1/16, maybe 48/20 at a push, let alone "Hi-Rez" ..!? @:

 

[fredblue]

also Duncan, you make the most important point of all (afai'mc'd!) mastering is the key factor.. you can have a brickwalled SA-CD vs. a well-mastered redbook and the CD wipes the floor with the SA-CD! we've seen/heard it many times!

 

[leevitalone1]

also Duncan, you make the most important point of all (afai'mc'd!) mastering is the key factor.. you can have a brickwalled SA-CD vs. a well-mastered redbook and the CD wipes the floor with the SA-CD! we've seen/heard it many times!

SHIT IN-SHIT OUT

 

[bradman]

Here's a damning assessment of SA-CD (and glowing praise for DVD-Audio) I stumbled upon the other night..

http://www.iar-80.com/page17.html

An easy read it is not.. but (depressingly) worthwhile!



SA-CD..
- is seriously compromised with treble frequencies above 8khz,
- is a 6-bit format,
- has a quarter of the resolution of redbook CD at certain frequencies,
- has severely reduced dynamic range compared to even redbook CD..

just horribly précis'd soundbites, the whole lot of articles is incredibly detailed.

for those of you on QQ who, like myself, have wondered why their SA-CDs of the same albums & masterings sound inferior to their DVD-A counterparts, now you know why.

please don't shoot the messenger, just I found an amazingly in-depth set of findings online (while looking for something different!) that conclude SA-CD is fundamentally flawed as both an archive & playback Hi-Rez format.

Happy reading! @:

No,that is depressingly similar to the long treatises that can be found online about moon-landing hoaxes and 911 "truths".
Or, to sum up in common parlance,a DVD-A fanboy rant.

 

[kap'n krunch]

Troll alert!

 

[horndynamics]

Someone posted a double blind test a while back where many people participating preferred MP3 (can not remember the bitrate) to CD.

Could it be the same with many audiophiles liking SACD... ie there is some "forgiveness" or blunting of resolution that makes it more pleasing to listen to? Steve Hoffman has said SACD does NOT sound like the master tape.

 

[fredblue]

1.)

Someone posted a double blind test a while back where many people participating preferred MP3 (can not remember the bitrate) to CD.

Could it be the same with many audiophiles liking SACD... ie there is some "forgiveness" or blunting of resolution that makes it more pleasing to listen to?

mastering & source are the most important factors in the end product sounding as good as poss far as I'm concerned but I just cannot accept anyone who says that the SA-CD sounds the same (or even "as good as") as the DVD-A of the exact same mastering & source material.. there's a load of Universal albums that got released on both SA-CD & DVD-A, I suggest anyone who is on the fence about it all buys them and checks for themselves (YMMV of course but I'm sticking to my guns on this!).

 

[leevitalone1]

1.)



mastering & source are the most important factors in the end product sounding as good as poss far as I'm concerned but I just cannot accept anyone who says that the SA-CD sounds the same (or even "as good as") as the DVD-A of the exact same mastering & source material.. there's a load of Universal albums that got released on both SA-CD & DVD-A, I suggest anyone who is on the fence about it all buys them and checks for themselves (YMMV of course but I'm sticking to my guns on this!).

One thing for certain, both camps are loyal to the format, and will defend it. I see no valid defense of sacd though.

 

[JonUrban]

Not worth the back and forth arguing. Must move on. This was a discussion for 2001-2-3-4-5.

No one is going to change anyone's mind at this point. No need to convince anyone of anything. Enjoy what you have and be happy you have it.

PEACE!!!!

 

[Philip Spinner]

Not worth the back and forth arguing. Must move on. This was a discussion for 2001-2-3-4-5.

No one is going to change anyone's mind at this point. No need to convince anyone of anything. Enjoy what you have and be happy you have it.

PEACE!!!!

Amen.

 

[Philip Spinner]

Not worth the back and forth arguing. Must move on. This was a discussion for 2001-2-3-4-5.

No one is going to change anyone's mind at this point. No need to convince anyone of anything. Enjoy what you have and be happy you have it.

PEACE!!!!

Amen.