Vote

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.

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.

The SACD has made listening to recorded music enjoyable again, especially in well-recorded surround. I love native DSD 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.

THE sound for the 21st Century!

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.

If a good recording.

Need to throw out your expensive and exotically designed powercords and PLCs to hear it as its best.

I don't buy regular CDs anymore—only SACDs or DVDAs. High-rez has spoiled me.

With the best players, it compares with the best vinyl.

Well-recorded/mastered SACD is wonderful when played back on a very good player. But so is well-recorded/mastered Red Book CD. And DVD-A. And DAD. I'm confused :-)

Much better than CD assuming both are excellent in their own right. However, SACD still isn't as good as the best vinyl. MCSACD is in a class by itself.

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

recording has the final said to the sound quality of SACD. in fact, it's applied to all media.

If only there where more titles.

Superior to CD, but not enough to make it a commercial success. I don't care about multichannel.

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.

a good dac will play redbooks just as well...

Depending on the quality of the source material being used.

This is what digital music should sound like!

what i've heard blows away the older cd versions

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 Lindemann—until I put on an SACD. Why is the future debatable with more and more releases by more and more companies?

dewpends on the remastering, but a good cd like diana krall the look of love, there is a world of doference between sacd and cd

Better than RBCD 99 times out of 100.

A true advance in fine audio...very exciting for the future of recording.

SACD sounds great, but so do many well engineered CDs on a high-quality Red Book-only CD player. I have no intentions of investing heavily in SACD.

Good DVD Audio is also wonderful.

I think I'm going to stick to Red Book CDs for awhile, and try the benchmark media DAC1 to see what upsampling sounds like. So much controversy before, but everyone seems to love the sound...thanks for the suggestion Mr. Marks.

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.

SACD sounds great. After hearing my first SACD disk I have bought nothing else.