Super Audio CD: The Rich Report Throw Away Your CDs!

Sidebar 4: Throw Away Your CDs!

I am a pianist, inventor, successful businessman, and a longtime subscriber to Stereophile, The Abso!ute Sound, Stereo Review, and Audio magazines. I have been an avid audio enthusiast for 55 years and have never been satisfied. I have, in fact, been very critical of the sound reproduced by CDs. Recently, however, I purchased a Sony SCD-777ES SACD player at a generous discount from Anthony, at The Good Guys in Canoga Park, California.

Mortgage your home, send your wife and children out to work, do what ever you have to do—the sound we have been waiting for from the start of all this, 55 years ago, has arrived. This is not the subtle improvement one experiences when upgrading or replacing equipment. SACD will knock your socks off. The sound is mellow, smooth, and transparent. The harshness, noise, and thinness are gone. I am absolutely thrilled. You will never make a better investment in your enjoyment of music and corresponding enjoyment of life.

Throw away all of your CDs—the Super Audio experience is overwhelming in every regard. After listening to SACD, you will accept nothing less.

The available music is limited to about 55 titles [at the time of writing, February 2000—Ed.] and most of the classical stuff was originally recorded 40 years ago. It's amazingly good, considering how old it is, but it's many worlds apart from some of the very recent recordings supplied with the excellent Telarc sampler: "Children Will Listen" from Into the Woods, and "Deep Purple" from the Dave Brubeck Quartet.

The only sources for SACDs I have discovered are Tower Records, Acoustic Sounds, and Music File. Tower gives a reasonable discount, and I have just learned that Amazon has acquired Music File.

My first bit of advice to purchasers of the Sony SACD player is to remove the screw at the rear of the unit that prevents switching from operation in Standard mode to Custom mode. In Custom, the frequency spectrum is substantially greater (as Sony indicates in the SCD-777ES manual), and the sound is far better. Sony indicates that in Custom mode you might damage your other equipment, but do it anyway—the sound is worth whatever risk, if any, there might be.

We finally have what we sound/music obsessives have been passionately dreaming about all of these years. It is our duty to make certain that the inferior DVD-Audio does not become the medium of choice thrust upon us for reasons other than excellence.

Thank you, Sony; I am forever grateful. Now, about that next model...—Paul S. Cooper, Los Angeles, CA

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