Didn’t one of those sites get caught just upsampling pcm recordings?
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Peace-of-Mind Digital Chain: SACD Transport with I2S Output—What Are My Options?
Roland68
Major Contributor
That only applies to you and people who think exactly the same way. But that's just a subset.
Almost all important new releases are also available on SACD, and the prices for new, old, and used SACDs speak volumes.
The buyer groups are the same as with CDs and vinyl: those who continue to use them primarily and buy them regularly, and those who base their purchase decision on the quality of the respective medium. Therefore, my purchases are spread across CDs, vinyl, SACDs, and high-resolution files.
The sales statistics also clearly reflect this and have been increasing year after year for over six years.
But surely that shouldn't matter to you or anyone else who's no longer interested in such media, right?
I agree it's a niche format rather than a dead one but as a format it offers no sound quality advantage over PCM
It was never intended as a consumer format. It was only because some whiz kid in the Sony marketing department realised they could remaster their old titles and sell them all over again as new and improved sound quality format that it ever got started. The marketing material from Sony is full of lies about stair steps and gaps between samples. It was a scam, essentially, but in an industry full of scams it passed largely unnoticed.
The audio journalists invited to the launch were the usual crowd of shills and no-nothings. They were taken in completely, as they would be again with MQA a decade later.
High prices for used discs are a combination of people wanting the mastering that's only available on SACD and people who don't understand how digital audio works and assume SACD is intrinsically better than red book. In a lot of cases the SACD masters are dynamically limited compared to the original CD release which makes a mockery of the supposed advantage of a 24 bit format.
Certainly doesn’t matter to me. I have no desire for plastic or vinyl media or compromised music formats. All I need is some cool tunes encoded in pcm on a tasty SSD.
https://share.google/6CTXJjZPXGh6sBO3b
Yes, SACD is still a very alive medium in two areas:
- New classical music releases, mostly in Europe, due to the multichannel capability of the medium (serious classical music recording engineers have been aware that multichannel is the only way to get the most faithful reproduction of live music through loudspeakers for almost a century) ;
- Reissues of back catalogue in Japan, but sadly mostly in 2.0 stereo only, even when multichannel recordings are available, because, for some reasons, the Japanese haven't fully embrace multichannel audio.
Don't forget Philips! Philips and Sony co-developped SACD. And, in fact, the Super Audio CD specifications (called the 'Scarlet Book') is actually the intellectual property of Philips, not Sony! For its part, Sony owns the rights on the SACD and DSD logos and names.
For some reasons, when facts about SACD that are deemed annoying are brought up, Sony is always to be blamed but Philips is always forgotten.
That being said, I find your opinions excessively polluted by irrational anger.
It is very strange to state that SACD was never intended to be a consumer format whereas it is a consumer release format and former insiders from Philips and Sony, such as Mr. A. Demery, have publicly explained that, at the time, SACD had always been intended to be a consumer release format and that it had not been brought up out of thin air, but following demands for a next generation physical optical disc media issued by the main professionnal sound organizations around the world grouped in an International Steering Comitee.
Soundonsound has kept online a very good article about various matters concerning the then new music disc the recording industry was in search for: https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/cd-next-generation-super-audio-compact-disc
And as far as Sony marketing material is concerned, I am not aware of any lies about "stair steps and gaps between samples". Sony knows better than that for a very long time, the same long time it benefited a de facto monopoly on many production hardware for digital audio at the beginning of the CD era.
Anyone who doubts the level of knowledge people at Sony got about digital audio should read that old book, which remains to this day a quite extraordinary popularization of complicated subjects: https://www.bramjacobse.nl/wordpress/?p=5511
Especially, the statement made as early as page 4 of the book is absolutely unambiguous.
And this book also explains in simple terms from where the CD sampling frequency came from. It is the child of technical constraints imposed by already installed record and storage hardware used for content production purposes (see page 13), not an idealized standard set in stone.
Finally, I do not understand where you get the idea that "In a lot of cases the SACD masters are dynamically limited compared to the original CD release which makes a mockery of the supposed advantage of a 24 bit format". A quote is dearly in need here before proceeding to discuss this quite extraordinary statement. For now, it should nevertheless be clarified that SACD contains a 1 bit delta-sigma modulated signal, not a multibit modulated signal. Hence, I do not understand your reference to a "supposed advantage of a 24 bit format" in this context.
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No anger here, simply stating facts.
SACD was intended as a consumer format, DSD was intended as an archive format. Agree my post does not make that clear.
I would need to locate that particular advert and scan it which I'm not going to do but they did indeed produce SACD marketing material with these claims.
I do not doubt the Sony engineers of the day at all. They were amongst the best. But engineers don't write the marketing material or decide which products are sent to market.
The DR Database will throw up numerous examples of the SACD having less dynamic range than the original or in some case later remasterings on redbook CD. The difference is often sufficient to be significant. You're correct in that I should have said 'equivalent 24 bit', but that is really splitting hairs.
First album I checked - SACD release compared to 1984 CD:
Thanks.The DR Database will throw up numerous examples of the SACD having less dynamic range than the original or in some case later remasterings on redbook CD. The difference is often sufficient to be significant. You're correct in that I should have said 'equivalent 24 bit', but that is really splitting hairs.
First album I checked - SACD release compared to 1984 CD:
I am aware that happens, but that is the product of regrettable production practices that can afflict almost all re-releases (DVD, CD, Blue-Ray, streaming, vinyl* etc):
*With the caveat that the DR is not reliable about vinyl.
Indeed, that is not a fault of SACD as a medium. My position is simply that claims that it offers an intrinsic sound quality advantage over PCM have no basis in fact and that the reality is that if you want the best sound quality mastering of a given recording, that this is often (not always) to be found on the original CD release and not the SACD release. This is relevant to the o/p.
Roland68
Major Contributor
This has absolutely nothing to do with SACD.No anger here, simply stating facts.
SACD was intended as a consumer format, DSD was intended as an archive format. Agree my post does not make that clear.
I would need to locate that particular advert and scan it which I'm not going to do but they did indeed produce SACD marketing material with these claims.
I do not doubt the Sony engineers of the day at all. They were amongst the best. But engineers don't write the marketing material or decide which products are sent to market.
The DR Database will throw up numerous examples of the SACD having less dynamic range than the original or in some case later remasterings on redbook CD. The difference is often sufficient to be significant. You're correct in that I should have said 'equivalent 24 bit', but that is really splitting hairs.
First album I checked - SACD release compared to 1984 CD:
These examples exist in all formats, whether CD, SACD, vinyl, or digital file.
80-90% of audio CDs on the market, especially those aimed at the mainstream, have such a drastically reduced dynamic range that they fall far short of the capabilities of a CD.
This has nothing to do with the medium itself, but solely with incompetent sound engineers (rarely), directives from above, cost pressures, and above all, mainstream compatibility.
Yes. Please read my post #30 directly above yours.
Jim T
Member
My Shanling SCD 1.3 arrived today and I must say for $1300 I like it. I will post some FFT files recorded at 24/192 through my Tascam DR680MK2 for all to see. I will also record a CD and show that as an FFT. I will then show the same Brian Culbertson "On The Road" tracks through a Sony Blu Ray player PCM through a Schiit Mani SPDIF.
The Shanling 1.3 is crisper, more punch and more air and detail in all formats. It should for $1300. I have 3 other CD players that have Topping D50 DACs which I love. I still think that the Schiit Mani is a nice DAC especially for no money. Of course we all can and have done better. I alomost bought a DX5 before getting the Shanling, but I wanted to play my SACD collection again. As a note, I have a Tierney Sutton Telarc SACD that my old Sony and Yamaha SACD players refused to play. The Shanling did right away.
I have inexpensive and no longer made Sony BR transport that plays SACDs but will DSD can only be sent over HDMI and to a HDMI receiver that can receive DSD which I don't have and have no intention of getting. I simply extract the DSD from the SACDs (the player is one that I can) and then playback the DSD using Foorbar2K via USB to a DAC (as straight DSD or DOP)
All that said as some have said very few recordings were recorded natively in DSD and most SACDs are conversions to SACD and arguably no better than PCM via a redbook CD
All that said as some have said very few recordings were recorded natively in DSD and most SACDs are conversions to SACD and arguably no better than PCM via a redbook CD
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I just wish to stress that out of the 16,335 SACDs listed to this date on HRAudio.net (formerly SA-CD.net), nobody of my knowledge precisely know how much are recorded in analogue on tape (or other media) and digitized in DSD, recorded in DSD, or recorded in PCM or digitized from tape (or other media) in PCM and converted in DSD. About the last category, PCM can be at 16 bit/44.1 kHz, as well as any other formats superior to CD quality, be them obsolete or not (50 kHz sample rate such as with the Soundstream process and comparable format, 48 kHz, 96 kHz, 192 kHz, ... at 16, 20 or 24 bits).
Statistics about that subject would be interesting, but I have no knowledge of a way to obtain them.
I know that up to a point, all SACD projects were supervised by Philips and Sony, which used to make a catalog of all SACDs released, but they have ceased to do so for many years now.
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I know some SACDs (at least classical) will say they were recorded in DSD but some if not most labels have ceased that due to the expense. Note DSD recordings are now increasingly being made available without SACD physical media.
Andolink
Active Member
Many classical music labels continue to produce SACD's in native DSD and, being primarily a classical consumer, a significant portion of my collection is in that format. I pretty uniformly find the sound of these to be especially excellent for whatever reason. I use the PS Audio DAC/Transport with its i2S implementation primarily because of my commitment to SACD format.
Trying to do exactly that using my OPPO UDP-205 the question is which amplifier to use?
Yes many SACD are poorly remastered same with Vinyl, CD, Tapes, digital downloads or streaming!…..The DR Database will throw up numerous examples of the SACD having less dynamic range than the original or in some case later remasterings on redbook CD. The difference is often sufficient to be significant. You're correct in that I should have said 'equivalent 24 bit', but that is really splitting hairs.
First album I checked - SACD release compared to 1984 CD:
Depends on your speakers and what sort of SPL you want to listen at!
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