DVD-A vs. SACD

[KillJoy]

I don't want to start a flame war between the aspects of both formats. I want to do my own comparison of the two.

I've have some excellent SACD titles & SACD sounds great:
Pink Floyd- Dark Side of the Moon
Joe Satrani-Strange Beautiful Music
Roxy Music-Avalon

I have 2 DVD-A titles:
Yes-Fragile
Eagles-Hotel California
These titles don't sound as clean or as well mixed. Can anyone recommend a title(s) that really shows the full range of DVD-A?? Rock is preferable but Classical / Pop / or Fusion Jazz will work.

Thanks!

 

[daved64]

I don't have the Eagles disc, but the Yes one sounds great on my system! Bruford's snare on Roundabout is in my face!

Steely Dan's Everything Must Go is the best DVD-A I have, sound wise........
but the question that begs to be asked.......are you playing the DVD-A's thru the analog outs or are you playing the DTS/DOLBY tracks? If you're not hearing them in hir rez, that might be the problem!

 

[KillJoy]

I'm pushing out 5.1 analog from my Denon DVD-2900 to my 5.1 external (ext-in) inputs of my Denon AVR-4802R.

Fragile sounds good but somewhat soft. The Eagles sounds really good but on Life in the Fast Lane towards the end it sounds clipped.

I guess I'm looking for a relatively recent recording (within the last decade) that has pretty much a straight Digital path Record/Mix/Master. Although both DSOTM and Avalon on SACD were both mostly analog paths.

Thanks!

 

[Guy Robinson]

Steely Dan, "Everything Must Go" and Graham Nash, "Songs For Survivors" are both great.

 

[daved64]

I'm pushing out 5.1 analog from my Denon DVD-2900 to my 5.1 external (ext-in) inputs of my Denon AVR-4802R.

Fragile sounds good but somewhat soft. The Eagles sounds really good but on Life in the Fast Lane towards the end it sounds clipped.

I guess I'm looking for a relatively recent recording (within the last decade) that has pretty much a straight Digital path Record/Mix/Master. Although both DSOTM and Avalon on SACD were both mostly analog paths.

Thanks!

You could put Life In the Fast Lane on Super Duper Fragilistic DVD/SACD...it would still suck! it always sounded crappy!

Yes, the Graham Nash disc is good, as Guy said!
Queen's The Game is great sounding....it's just really short!
And Guy can't stop raving about his Aaron Neville disc.

 

[Cai Campbell]

Your query is of merit, but I must say that posting a message titled "DVD-A vs. SACD" then stating you don't want to start a flame war may not be the best way to approach your topic. Just seeing "DVD-A vs. SACD", for some folks, is akin to a bull seeing red. I would suggest trying to word the topic in a less confrontational manner. I realize this was not your intent, but there is a nasty rivalry between the two formats that can get out of control on other forums. We try very hard to avoid such confrontations here.

With that bit of "administration" out of the way, I would like to address your concerns. My first thought is that you are using a universal player. From all I've read, there seems to be a consensus amongst reviewers that universal players can do one format exceptionally well, but not both. I don't have any firsthand experience in universal players so I'm certainly not an authority. I'm just saying that maybe your player favors SACD performance over DVD-A? It's just a thought, but it may be worth researching reviews of your player and see if there is anything to be found on this.

Also, just because you are using the 5.1 analog outputs on your player does not guarantee that you are playing the DVD-A discs in hi-rez. Your player may have an internal DD and/or DTS decoder and could quite possibly be outputting a lo-rez signal. I am not familiar with your player, but my Toshiba SD-9200 has a built in DD decoder that will output the lo-rez content through the analog outputs. I have to make sure I set the player AND media to the proper hi-rez output.

It is interesting to note that the two titles you are having "problems" with happen to be two of my personal favorites. I wouldn't say these are "the best" examples of what DVD-A has to offer, but they are right up there. Other great examples I might offer happen to be analog recordings as well. I prefer recordings held in the analog domain as much as possible but you have a preference for digital. I don't think this has anything to do with your preference of SACD titles over DVD-A, especially seeing as the number of samples is so small, but it is something worth noting.

The only "mostly digital" popular title I can think of right now is the exceptional "Nightfly" by Donald Fagen. It is an 80's era digital recording. I'm actually surprised at how incredible it sounds. I had the same reaction to a couple of the Peter Gabriel SACD's that were originally digitally recorded in the 80's. This leads me to believe that digital recording may have been quite far ahead of the CD mastering process of the time. Anyway, I digress.

As for other recommendations for exceptional DVD-A titles (irrespective of being analog or digital sourced) I offer:

Metallica - Black Album
Bjork - Vespertine
Graham Nash - Songs For Survivors
Queen - The Game
America - Homecoming
Doobie Brothers - The Captain And Me

I could come up with more, but I think that's a good start.

 

[JonUrban]

Hi Killjoy,

I just took delivery of a Denon 2900, and am in the process of putting it through the ringer.

I have those exact DVD-As, and will listen to them carefully. I still have my Kenwood DVD-A machine, so I could actually do a comparison.

I do seem to remember that Hotel California was not one of the truely outstanding DVD-As out there. That being said, it still is a "must own" disc.

The 4 Steely Dan releated discs are "most excellent". Cai has already mentioned most of them, "Everything Must Go" is my current fave, although I really like "Kamakiriad", and am a sucker for "The Nightfly". "Two Against Nature" has some incredible sonics over the two Fagens, gee, if you like Steely Dan, I would get them all.

Randy Newman, Grover Washington, Pat Metheny, there are some great DVD-A's out there.

As well as SACDs. .......

@:

We should remember a few things:
(This pertains to everyone, and really has nothing to do with Killjoy except for relating to the thread topic header)

1) If you can currently play only one of these formats, that does not mean you must bash the other. This happened a lot in the '70s when the people without CD-4 stuff would "poo-poo" CD-4.

2) If you have both, and like one over the other, you should not try and force your allegiance on other members. The real key here is getting surround stuff out there, and if we spend time bashing "the other guy", we lose time supporting the existance of these formats themselves. We waited 20 years for new surround product. If WE don't support THEM BOTH, it is we that will lose.

3) Let's keep all in house disagreements friendly. There are other places on the net to go where people spend hours of time and bandwidth on arguments that can never end. You cannot cahnge everyones mind, and there are millions of people out there who just live to argue you till you surrender.

It's all fun, it's not life and death. We should all be happy that we can find M/C stuff to buy, even if our local WalMart still won't stock it!

End of lecture. We now return you to your local forum

:-jon

 

[Guy Robinson]

Hi Killjoy,

I just took delivery of a Denon 2900, and am in the process of putting it through the ringer.

I have those exact DVD-As, and will listen to them carefully. I still have my Kenwood DVD-A machine, so I could actually do a comparison.

I do seem to remember that Hotel California was not one of the truely outstanding DVD-As out there. That being said, it still is a "must own" disc.

The 4 Steely Dan releated discs are "most excellent". Cai has already mentioned most of them, "Everything Must Go" is my current fave, although I really like "Kamakiriad", and am a sucker for "The Nightfly". "Two Against Nature" has some incredible sonics over the two Fagens, gee, if you like Steely Dan, I would get them all.

Randy Newman, Grover Washington, Pat Metheny, there are some great DVD-A's out there.

As well as SACDs. .......

@:

We should remember a few things:
(This pertains to everyone, and really has nothing to do with Killjoy except for relating to the thread topic header)

1) If you can currently play only one of these formats, that does not mean you must bash the other. This happened a lot in the '70s when the people without CD-4 stuff would "poo-poo" CD-4.

2) If you have both, and like one over the other, you should not try and force your allegiance on other members. The real key here is getting surround stuff out there, and if we spend time bashing "the other guy", we lose time supporting the existance of these formats themselves. We waited 20 years for new surround product. If WE don't support THEM BOTH, it is we that will lose.

3) Let's keep all in house disagreements friendly. There are other places on the net to go where people spend hours of time and bandwidth on arguments that can never end. You cannot cahnge everyones mind, and there are millions of people out there who just live to argue you till you surrender.

It's all fun, it's not life and death. We should all be happy that we can find M/C stuff to buy, even if our local WalMart still won't stock it!

End of lecture. We now return you to your local forum

:-jon

Amen to all of that.

I have about 50 SACD's and 50 DVD-A's (this weeks count) and it all comes down mostly to the mix as to which ones are the best. I just recently bought the 3 discs (ie- RN, GW and PM) you mentioned within the last few weeks and they are also great. I am playing catch-up on some older stuff that I am missing. The only surround disc that I am not happy with is the Fleetwood Mac - Say You Will. Because it is new and was released the same time as the CD it could have been recorded at 24/96 (like the AIX releases) but it isn't. I also agree with Dave; Life In The Fast Lane is the worse sounding track on Hotel California and always has been no matter what the format. However if songs like "Pretty Maids All In A Row" don't sound fantastic in DVD-A there is something wrong in your playback chain.

 

[KillJoy]

I've got Donald Fagen's The Nightfly and it sounds crisp and clean compared to Yes and the Eagles.

The Eagles, I must say aside from Life in the Fast Lane sounds great!

I'm on the fence for both formats, but I think it really depends on the original source masters and how much attention to detail was paid during the re-mastering process. Garbage in = Garbage out. Besides the Yes - Fragile is 30 years old and at the time increasing the bass levels was a more common practice.

I enjoy all my surround disks I really don't care what format their in. I have DTS CD's & DVD's, DVD-A and SACD, and a few DVD with DD 5.1 and all of them have excellent tracks.

Thanks everyone for your responses!!

 

[timbre4]

I enjoy all the formats myself.

The Eagles disc has an acknowledged clipping flaw on that track. It may be fixed one day.

I'd also recommend Toy Matinee as a nice latter day demo DVD-A. I used the stereo CD in my hifi selling days all the time.

The new Chicago DVD-A is stunning in it's detail, the vocals and horns are really clear. (older than Yes Fragile too!)

Tis all about the care in mixing and mastering as always...

 

[ssully]

With that bit of "administration" out of the way, I would like to address your concerns. My first thought is that you are using a universal player. From all I've read, there seems to be a consensus amongst reviewers that universal players can do one format exceptionally well, but not both. I don't have any firsthand experience in universal players so I'm certainly not an authority.

One thing to be aware of , is that in some instances the factory-set crossovers for bass management of DVD-A vs. SACD are differernt, in such players. THis is the case, for example, in the Pioneer DV-45a. This could well results in a difference in 'clarity' of playback, depending on the other settings and equipment in the system.

 

[Guy Robinson]

One thing to be aware of , is that in some instances the factory-set crossovers for bass management of DVD-A vs. SACD are differernt, in such players. THis is the case, for example, in the Pioneer DV-45a. This could well results in a difference in 'clarity' of playback, depending on the other settings and equipment in the system.

Well not wanting to get on another topic, I have a 45a and I find that there is equal bass with both formats and generally both sound as good as each other with the same settings.

 

[daved64]

Well not wanting to get on another topic, I have a 45a and I find that there is equal bass with both formats and generally both sound as good as each other with the same settings.

I have a 45a as well and never noticed any difference.....of course it all depends on the source disc!

 

[ssully]

Well not wanting to get on another topic, I have a 45a and I find that there is equal bass with both formats and generally both sound as good as each other with the same settings.

Me too..or, at least, I haven't noticed enough difference to bother measuring it. But the crossover difference is noted both by Pioneer and by Sound & Visions' bench testing. IIRC, one is crossed over at 80 Hz, the other at 100 Hz, with different slopes too. I may get around to measuring it, since as it happens I recently aquired both the SACD and DVD-A versions of the Telarc 'Tribute to Weather Report' disc.


IIRC, you don't use the crossover anyway, right? You run everything large, sub on. Theoretically the crossover shouldn't be used in that setup, where the sub only gets dedicated .1 channel info.

I run mine with all speakers small, and sub ON. There's no bass management on the recever side, and my sub itself has its own crossover dialed all the way up (125 Hz).
So for me, the player is doing all the crossing over, for hi-rez stuff.

 

[petermwilson]

Hi,
The further I read the more it seemed to be a disc discussion rather than a format one.

The logical progression of that type of reasoning would be to see which format your favorite artist is going with and invest in that machine.

Like a few of our members I'm hip deep in both formats and have discs on both sides that could have been done better IMO, is that going to slow me down one way or another? Absolutely not, because it isn't that I wouldn't be fair to the format, I WOULDN'T BE FAIR TO MYSELF!!

Think about it.

Peter m.

 

[Guy Robinson]

IIRC, you don't use the crossover anyway, right? You run everything large, sub on. Theoretically the crossover shouldn't be used in that setup, where the sub only gets dedicated .1 channel info.

Well this is true for me most of the time so yes that would effectively null out the crossover differences.

 

[KillJoy]

I received Avalon from Amazon.fr a couple of weeks ago. I must say that this album is definitely one of the best surround mixes to date.

Bryan Ferry's vocals are firmly rooted in the Center channel and the placement of the rest of the band is very well done. This album's ambiance definitly is enhanced by a surround environment. If you like Roxy Music and have SACD this is a must own disk.

 

[ssully]

Me too..or, at least, I haven't noticed enough difference to bother measuring it. But the crossover difference is noted both by Pioneer and by Sound & Visions' bench testing. IIRC, one is crossed over at 80 Hz, the other at 100 Hz, with different slopes too. I may get around to measuring it, since as it happens I recently aquired both the SACD and DVD-A versions of the Telarc 'Tribute to Weather Report' disc.

Correction: the crossover points are the same, just the slopes for the high-pass filters (i.e., the output to the main speakers when bass management is used) are different: -6dB/octave below 100Hz for SACD, -12 dB /octave for all other media

This was from the Dec 2002 Sound & Vision bench test of the DV-45a.

 

[kstuart]

Can anyone recommend a title(s) that really shows the full range of DVD-A??

Bucky Pizzarelli - Swing Live

is probably the state of the art in recording.