Comments on: SACD is NOT dead.

By: SACD and its promises.

SACD and its promises. — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 18:04:21 +0000

I am glad SACD did not make it despite I was an early supporter and was given losts of promises and possibility of Multi Channel Audio,Natural Sound,Wide Frequency Response and so on.

It was a learning experience for me.Yes,Once upon a time Analog became Digital.
and we believe it to be the future.
New Technology may not necessary meant better performance.
I paid and learnt my lesson.

By: Rafael S

Rafael S — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 18:17:22 +0000

You guys are hilarious, SACD is amazing, it’s sad that Sony and phillips did not market it right from the beginning.
If the medium had the right artists signed even before release, it would have been a different story. SACD multichannel
outperforms everything out there, if of course mastered right.

By: Rolemfat

Rolemfat — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:44:52 +0000

CLEAN YOUR ALBUMS!â€¦.

No thanks, I have a life!

By: wigedout99

wigedout99 — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:20:15 +0000

Snap,crackle &pop……CLEAN YOUR ALBUMS!….Its no different with cd’s,SACD..Blu-ray…..WHAT GO’S IN COMES OUT!

By: Rolemfat

Rolemfat — Tue, 12 May 2009 01:05:16 +0000

M.man
We are in agreement. SACD or redbook both abide by the law – garbage in, garbage out. Also, I think the recording engineer contributes more to the sound of many titles than people realize. Although redbook is a flawed medium, I have many cd’s I think sound wonderful and I give a nod to the session engineerfor that, not the medium.
Let’s hope as more and more players include SACD handling (thank you Oppo for the BDP-83), we’ll see more titles available and of course there’s Blu-ray.

INTERESTING COMMENTS-Says

“Somewhere in the process of dividing, separating, and rejoining all those tracks, warmth is lost.”

I feel the verdict is still out on Blu-ray music. Too soon. SACD had issues in the beginning and it has improved substantially when recorded and edited in DSD.

I enjoyed the sound of vinyl for over 30 years, but I do not miss the pops, clicks, audible distortions, 20 minute limitation per side, fragility etc. etc. etc.

Snap, crackle and pop is for cereals, not music.

By: mbuchanan

mbuchanan — Sat, 09 May 2009 22:32:13 +0000

The right idea, at the wrong time.

By: CheeseDR

CheeseDR — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:44:09 +0000

Its not dead but it is on barely able to buy without DVDa or Multi-channel layer embedded as well as a CD red book player. You are fortunate to get anything that is new mainstream music. The boutique producers offer a paltry number of SACDs each year not month and it is usually limited to artists with no interest from the big recording industry. In sum it’s on an island with a shriking water supply or you might say it’s on life support in a hospital on a fronteer.

By: Interesting Comments

Interesting Comments — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:58:30 +0000

Many good comments here. IMHO, yes SACD is superior, yes, it depends on the mastering, NO vinyl is not a “distortion riddled” media that boomers “can’t let go”.

I love both and have had the privilege to audition many hifi combinations as my good friend owns a hifi repair/restoration shop. All things being equal, good quality SACD will outperform all. Mediocre SACD will not outperform CD that is expertly made. (“Blue Rain Coat, Cafe Blue, Antiphone Blues, etc.)

Good vinyl on great equipment will have an analog warmth, stage, and presence that will make it a superb listening experience. It has all the resolution of CD and more musicality. Unfortunately many poor quality records have been made, but, if the best of the medium is played on high quality gear, it is a stunning musical experience that will not disappear and is second to none in enjoyability.

BluRay is stunning for movies but will not be more musical than high resolution stereo. Somewhere in the process of dividing, separating, and rejoining all those tracks, warmth is lost.

For music, three dimensionality created by high quality stereo gear is a musically more enjoyable and rewarding experience than hearing artificially spliced channels coming from multiple directions. Again, just MHO, your mileage may vary.

By: i_like_tuesday

i_like_tuesday — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:19:26 +0000

Well-mastered DSD SACDs provide amazing sound quality for any acoustic recordings that are subjected to minimal processing like classical and jazz. Highly processed music, like a lot of past and present popular music, doesn’t sound any different on SACD vs. Red Book because it’s character is shaped more by the processing rather than real-world acoustic information. Modern music production techniques tend to negate the strengths of SACD by being designed to sound good using the lowest common denominator – MP3.

Redbook can be made to sound pretty good, but to me, DSD nears the ideal of continuous waveform music minus many of the physical limitations present in analogue distribution mediums. DSD has dynamic range that challenges the noise floor of my equipment and listening room and the headroom to accommodate ultrasonic information that gives instruments a sense of reality despite escaping our conscious recognition. Well engineered multichannel mixes add a whole new spacial dimension. I’m not yet convinced that even the new blu-ray audio formats surpass SACD when it comes to sounding “natural”.

By: M.man

M.man — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:43:58 +0000

I’d have to disagree with Rolemfat.
All things being equal, SACD will sound vastly superior to redbook, however, things are rarely equal.
A well mastered cd on a quality cdp can outperform a poorly mastered SACD. I find aprox a third of the SACD’s I’ve heard aren’t mastered well enough to take full advantage of the format and don’t sound any better than their redbook counterpart, sometimes worse.
I’ve also never heard a $400 SACD player that could outperform my($7000) transport/dac, though I have heard a couple $1000 SACD players that probably could.