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Filter 2 has the job of performing "more sophisticated" computations than standard digital filters. As much as possible, "it takes the longest number for calculation processes." This is interesting. Conventional filters truncate or round up and down before passing data to the next stage; "dfil-2" adjusts the length of the input number to match the noise shaper before passing it along. "This way, all nonlinear portions in the computation process are eliminated. Thus, no quantization noise is generated and the data read from the CD retains all of its integrity. Also, there are no longer any…
Telling Sonic Event No.2 revolved around Kavi Alexander's fantastic recording, Nature's Realm (Water Lily Acoustics WLA-WS-66-SACD), with Wolfgang Sawallisch and the Philadelphia Orchestra playing Liszt's Les Préludes and three concert overtures by Dvorák. The music is inspiring, even if the hall wasn't perfectly suited to the performance. But if you don't hear a subway rumbling through the recording near the beginning and from time to time during the performance, you're not getting deep bass from your system. What's that got to do with the music? Not much, but the ability to render that…
How about 16/44.1 PCM?
This will be an important question for many of you. I mean, put the magazine down for a moment (but only for a moment) and contemplate your music. If you're like many readers, you've just looked at a roomful of CDs spilling over everywhere. (We won't even talk about the thousands of LPs crammed into every nook and cranny!) For most of us, saying "Welcome to my listening room. Have a seat!" is something of a non sequitur. The point is, how does this chunk of $5000 two-channel player do 16/44.1 PCM?
This will be an important question for many of you. I mean, put the magazine down for a moment (but only for a moment) and contemplate your music. If you're like many readers, you've just looked at a roomful of CDs spilling over everywhere. (We won't even talk about the thousands of LPs crammed into every nook and cranny!) For most of us, saying "Welcome to my listening room. Have a seat!" is something of a non sequitur. The point is, how does this chunk of $5000 two-channel player do 16/44.1 PCM?
Just wonderfully, thank you very much. It's those filters. One…
When I listen to a component with my eyes closed and find I've been transported to another time and place, then, as far as I'm concerned, I'm listening to a pretty special piece. One of these pieces was certainly the Sony, even in PCM mode. SACD recordings, on the other hand, were always suave, startling, and more palpable than my mother-in-law. And when she's in the building, she's present!
SACD vs upsampled CD
So lemme ask you: Which version of "fabulous" do you want? Super Audio CD or CD upsampled to a 24-bit/192kHz datastream with the dCS 972 digital-to-digital converter and…
Sidebar 1: Direct Stream Digital
As described in Stereophile some years back (footnote 1), Direct Stream Digital is a new way of digital-encoding an analog signal, and was developed by Sony's engineers in order to archive Sony Music's priceless catalog of recordings. While DSD is fundamentally different from the conventional Linear PCM encoding used on CD and DVD-Audio, there is a connection at the A/D level, in that both involve oversampling delta-sigma converters (footnote 2).
The most straightforward way of encoding an analog signal as a Pulse-Code-Modulated (PCM) digital…
Sidebar 2: Description
SACD playback: Frequency range: 2Hz-100kHz. Frequency response: 2Hz-50kHz, -3dB. Dynamic range: >105dB. THD: 0.0012%.
CD playback: Frequency range: 2Hz-20kHz. Dynamic range: >100dB. THD: 0.0012%.
General: Analog outputs: single-ended RCAs at 2V RMS; balanced XLRs (pin 3 hot) at 4V RMS. Digital outputs: 75 ohm S/PDIF on RCA and AT&T optical (44.1kHz, CD replay only). Power consumption: 30W.
Dimensions: 17" W by 57/8" H by 171/2" D. Weight: 58 lbs.
Serial number of unit reviewed: BM599445.
Price: $5000. Approximate number of dealers: 7…
Sidebar 3: Associated Equipment
Digital source: Burmester 969, Forsell Air Reference CD transports; dCS 972 sample-rate converter, dCS Elgar D/A converter operating at 24/192.
Preamplifiers: Burmester 808 Mk.V, BAT VK-50SE, YBA 6 Chassis.
Power amplifiers: Linn Klimax Solo 500 monoblocks, Accuphase M2000, Forsell The Statement.
Loudspeakers: JMlab Utopia.
Cables: Interconnects: Synergistic Research Designer's Reference Active Shielding, XLO The Limited, TARA The One, Nordost Quatro Fil. Speaker Cables: Synergistic Research Designer's Reference, XLO The Limited, TARA The One,…
Sidebar 4: Measurements, CD player mode
I tested the SCD-1 as a CD player using the CBS Test CD 1, the Pierre Verany Test CD, and a CD-R of my own test signals generated by the Audio Precision System One Dual Domain), and as an SACD player using a provisional Test SACD (TGZD 900005) supplied me by Sony. First, here are the measurements common to both modes of operation.
The maximum output level was 2.225V at 1kHz into a 100k load from the unbalanced outputs, 4.43V from the XLRs. There was a slight channel imbalance of around 0.15dB. The single-ended outputs are noninverting; the…
Playing back data representing a dithered 1kHz tone at -90dBFS gave a textbook analog output spectrum (fig.4), with no level error and no spurious tones or power-supply components present. The rise in the noise floor from low to high frequencies is due to the constant 1/3-octave filter bandwidth used, and to the noise used to dither the signal. The Sony's own analog noise is below this level, as can be seen (at least in the midrange and below) in fig.5. This graph shows the spectrum of the player's balanced analog outputs, now plotted up to 200kHz, with the player decoding data representing…
The Sony's analog stage is superbly linear. Fig.8 shows the spectrum of a full-level 50Hz tone. Only the third harmonic pokes its head above the -100dB level, with the fifth at -105dB. (I suspect that the higher-order components in this graph are not real, but mathematical artifacts of the FFT.) The Sony's performance on the high-level, high-frequency intermodulation test was also superb, with the balanced output (fig.9) being a little better than the unbalanced (fig.10). Both of these graphs were taken with the "std" digital filter. Using, for example, "dfil-4" (fig.11) allows some "image…