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Of the discs that I have, much better than regular CD's, but not to the quality/ambience of DVD-Audio or even DVD-Video DTS.
Its future as a format may be debatable, but does SACD have the sonic goods? Have you been able to spend much time with SACD? If so, what do you think about the way it sounds?
SACD has poor resolution and dark-sounding in upper frequencies. I guess a typical SACD listener is a man in his mid-40s, and he does not hear the high frequencies at all anymore, so that is the reason he thinks SACD sounds good. Well, I still hear and like to hear the high frequencies and resolution also in upper range, so I am after 192kHz DVD-A recordings.
Are the 630 SACDs in my collection proof enough that I find it desirable? You do need a good player to make the most of the format though, and the modified ones are my choice. I have a Sony SCD-XA777ES that's been extensively modified by Ric Schultz (EVS), and SACDs on it are out of this world. This unit is stereo-only and that suits my two channel system. I don't need a multichannel demonstration to be convinced of the sonic advantages of SACD over CD.
I've found SACD (particularly original DSD recordings and analog-to-DSD recordings) superior to Red Book CD in naturalness of instrumental timbres, delineation of spatial characteristics (imaging, soundstaging, etc), and ease when reproducing huge dynamics.
I have thoroughly listened to many direct-to-DSD recordings and find all of them to be vastly superior to Red Book PCM recordings. Having done many comparisons between the DSD and PCM layers of hybrid discs, I can say with absolute and objective certainty that DSD is a great improvement over 44.1/16 PCM. One of the most prominent advancements that DSD offers is an extremely low noise floor. Resultant from the high signal-to-noise ratio, which is maintained at ALL AMPLITUDES, is spectacular low level resolution. All sorts of detail that would otherwise go unnoticed become readily apparent. Furthermore, the revealed detail is always very natural, never etched or analytical. Another extraordinary benefit that DSD brings to the table is its ability to truly preserve the "ebb and flow" of music. That is, it maintains the coherency of the temporal continuum in which the music was originally played. In essence, DSD allows the music to be reproduced as a single continuous temporal event rather than an agglomeration of many separate ones. In the end, the improvements that DSD offers over Red Book PCM are many in number and profound in nature. However, this really isn
i listened, i heard. sacd is a major leap forward in sound quality over regular cd, period! however, i still enjoy music from cds, as well as vinyl and dvd-audio. in fact, both new hi-rez formats are a better direction sonically, and both deserve to succeed. detractors of sacd, on a sound quality basis, need a reality-check! although not perfect, sacd is sonically superior to that which was [vinyl excepted] and is,overall, equal to what is currently available [vinyl,dvd-audio,xrcd2]. it sickens me to hear or read rants thrashing any of these very good formats because the pros for each far outweight the cons. anybody can have a preference and an opinion, but should use a little logic, rational thinking and common sense dicussing such. so, does sacd have the sonic goods? insofar as "we" are currently able to reproduce music, live or otherwise, the answer must be, logically and rationally, a definite yes.
Fabulous. On a real high-end system with a decent player (I have a Lindemann), the sound is sensational, and there is no contest between the SACD and CD layers. Red Book CD also sounds supurb on the Lindemannuntil I put on an SACD. Why is the future debatable with more and more releases by more and more companies?
After hearing a DSD master tape in a studio that does "beta testing' for SONY professional division -I have been a fan. And as a hi-end professional who builds tube equipment, this is the first digtal format that I feel matches the very best vinyl/tape analog playback. But it needs more than what is sold by the regular player manufacturers torealise this quality, and we are specialising in upgrading certain player to get this quality.