Some are remastered from PCM files, others are derived from DSD or DXD recordings, or from DSD/DXD redigitalisations of analog tapes. So, it really depends, and the SQ varies a lot. One of the selling points of SACDs was that they offered multi-channel, but it turned out that few music lovers wanted to expand their systems from stereo to 5+1 (nearly tripling the costs of the equipment) just to listen to very few recordings (at least initially). So it quickly became a catch 22 situation.
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Audio extractor recommendations for SACD (DSD) via HDMI to RME DAC?
- Thread starter Strumbringer
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Some are remastered from PCM files, others are derived from DSD or DXD recordings, or from DSD/DXD redigitalisations of analog tapes. So, it really depends, and the SQ varies a lot. One of the selling points of SACDs was that they offered multi-channel, but it turned out that few music lovers wanted to expand their systems from stereo to 5+1 (nearly tripling the costs of the equipment) just to listen to very few recordings (at least initially). So it quickly became a catch 22 situation.
It's hard to say since the information is, often, not available for CDs or for SACDs.
FWIW, DXD is PCM.
Yes, true. DXD is converted from DSD to do mixing, AFAIK, but I assume it gets converted back to DXD for making an SACD or downloadable file. And I meant SACD, not CD as I wrote.
Seems to me that unless the original recording is made as a DSD, then mixed and mastered in that format (I assume this is possible) and put on a disk (or released as a file) then that seems valid as a format. Once conversions to PCM (and back) enter the workflow, it kind of makes it absurd - i.e. why not issue the PCM directly without extra messing about?
I suspect SACD was really all about DRM, so the audio benefits were essentially fabricated in order to sell the format (and at a higher price).
I'm not having a go if you prefer SACD or DSD, but it's just hard for me see what makes it worthwhile, but then again, I admit I cannot hear any difference between a CD and a 24/192 FLAC of the same source material, so maybe that's it!
Seems to me that unless the original recording is made as a DSD, then mixed and mastered in that format (I assume this is possible) and put on a disk (or released as a file) then that seems valid as a format. Once conversions to PCM (and back) enter the workflow, it kind of makes it absurd - i.e. why not issue the PCM directly without extra messing about?
I suspect SACD was really all about DRM, so the audio benefits were essentially fabricated in order to sell the format (and at a higher price).
I'm not having a go if you prefer SACD or DSD, but it's just hard for me see what makes it worthwhile, but then again, I admit I cannot hear any difference between a CD and a 24/192 FLAC of the same source material, so maybe that's it!
Some, but I wouldn't say 'nearly all'. In fact DSD was originally developed as an ultimate archiving format for record companies. My intuition is that there are plenty of DSD-sourced SACDs.
SACDs that are sourced from PCM (or have a PCM intermediate production stage) will have telltale bandwidth limits in spectral analysis at e.g., 22, 24, 48, 96 kHz depending on the SR of the PCM stage.. They exist too and can serve as examples of the ludicrous belief systems of TAS-style audiophiles.
And then there's DXD, aka 'PCM narrow' , a multibit format that enables producers to do all the production stuff they can't do in pure DSD...and still feel saintly.
But maybe what you mean is, a great many SACDs are sourced from analog tapes? That's true, but doesn't mean they are 'remastered from PCM'.
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I agree about minimizing format conversions.
I preferred SACD/DSD because they offered me the best/widest choice of multichannel classical music.
It has been perfectly possible to mix and master in DSD for a very long time. I wrote a historical summary on this topic in post #104 of another thread.
Sony's engineer Ayataka Nishio, who designed the first dedicated digital processor for DSD editing, the Sony CXD2926 (see below) has been interviewed by a Japanese website. He stated that it is not until Sony released said processor that its partner, Philips, was definitely convinced to step in the SACD bandwagon.
The image caption in Japanese states that the CXD2926 processor was released in August 1996.
But many engineers at Philips believed that mixing directly in DSD was pointless and that it was better to convert DSD to PCM. In fact, some at Sony thought the same thing. Paul Frindle, famous for being one of the main developers of the Sony Oxford OXF-R3 all-digital PCM mixing console, recounted on the Gearspace forum that all efforts to mix while remaining in or returning to DSD were foolish and that he even withdrew from the DSD mixing tools development project entrusted to Sony Oxford. But other engineers persevered and, of course, fulfilled the parent company's order by producing all the devices I talk about in the above mentioned historical account.
As for Philips, while they collaborated with Merging to help develop the DXD format—which is merely a marketing name inspired by the DSD acronym, even though it's simply a 24-bit/352.8 kHz PCM format—their own engineers nevertheless designed a method capable of making edits or gain adjustments directly on a DSD stream, without converting the entire file to PCM. This technique has been available since the release of the very first version of the Pyramix system capable of SACD production. Which just goes to show, nothing is simple, or black and white!
As far as DRM is concerned, it should not be forgotten that robust copy protections were a feature made mandatory by the disc industry in a set of specifications for a new generation of optical disc they released under a steering comitee.
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Aha, I did not know that SACDs could be multi-channel. Are there many though?
Interesting history. Thanks for the details.
IMHO, that's the whole point of SACDs!!! Resolution issues are small potatoes compared with the difference between stereo and mch (if done properly).I have thousands but they are mostly classical. I suspect that there are even more non-classical.
Between 2003 and 2019, I published in Stereophile a series of 100(!) articles about multichannel and the bulk of the source material was SACD: Music in the Round
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ummmm...yes. Many.
And your evidence for this extraordinary claim is…
It's precisely zero. It's like saying cheese is a type of lettuce because both are food.
Finally, someone actually hits the nail on the head. The industry was desperate for a format to rid them of the scourge of CD-R.
In a strictly Red Book world there is a possible argument that DSD is a step up — remembering that 24/96 PCM ADCs weren't developed to anything like the accuracy we enjoy today, but there it ends.
If I'd influenced the marketing back then, I might have slightly undercut CDs with SACDs to get traction, as there is no big issue with production costs as a percentage of the end-sell price - they'd have been able to stand for a long time at a sensible price. But no, the DRM goal was abandoned because soemone said that if you pedal quaility, you can justify the price. Then we had MP3...
In so many things, price and/or availability wins. [VHS was poor, but they also won on price and content availability. ]I have just learned that the new, or new to me, angle is multi-channel. I heard there are thousand of titles - but the ones I have seen are old-ish classic albums, but I buy lots of stuff from very new bands (say last 5 years), and I also have a good back catalogue - so I don't need more versions of say "Wish you were here", even in multi-channel. It seems like the old trick of selling you the same-old same-old on new formats (vinyl>CD>SACD>FLACs). I just can't keep up with sepnding money on music that is not new.
danadam
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This possibly doesn't reflect overall percentages, but if you go to nativedsd catalogue and filter "Original Recording Quality" with various DSD and Analog values you get:
Code:
121 - analog
3 - dsd
1136 - dsd64
58 - dsd128
604 - dsd256
304 - analog tape
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2226
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That's because you missed the boat. Discrete multichannel has been pushed out of the marketplace by Atmos. That is the go-to format for multichannel today.
I'll never have an interest in multichannel, whatever the tech, so not really missed anything!
Maybe I'm just an old geezer, used to basic live bands!
You can't pull the old geezer excuse with me but no one needs to justify a personal preference.
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