Which programs can rip SACD?

Thanks.

The DSD layer? No one if I recollect.
You'll be only able to rip the Standard Audio CD Layer if it's a Hybric SACD.
There's a trick of "grabbing" the DSD Playback through the output, but I don't know much of it...

For SACD you have to use the analog out and convert that back into digital I believe.

None.



You're welcome.

I am wondering if anybody used this plug-in sucessfully :
dsd_converter_plug-in
it's a Sony soft for a media player that makes realtime conversion from DSD to PCM ( it converts in real-time 1-bit dsf files to pcm)
I could not make it work in windows media player and in media player classic, the plug-in is recognized but sees not to work.
Maybe make it work in Foobar ? Any clue ?

Is it the analogue lossy output?

Why the "" did they make these anyways? Some music are ONLY available on SACD.

Copy protection gone mad.

I'm not sure exactly how to set it up, but you know when you plug a keyboard in the "line-in" and record when you play it, I think it's the same situation. I really don't know how SACD/Player behaves because of the multi-channel and other complexities - also there's a debate about DSD being a "mask" to the "same old PCM" data, at least that's what I have read around here.

I think SACD is useless and didn't catch it, just like the old Video-Disc big platter. The new media BD-Rs and HD-DVDs are coming and they should support many kinds of audio data, also bringing down the 44.1kHz PCM limitation found on DVD-Rs.

There is already a good enough format: FLAC files on a DVD+R. No need to wait for Bluray or HD-DVD.

You'd have to find a computer disc drive that can play SACDs first.

Good luck with that.

Other than standalone DVD-player type hardware, the only SACD player I know is the Sony Playstation.

Jlohl,

Here is a decent description of the environment that plug-in was originally designed for:

http://www.highfidelityreview.com/news/new...number=11278979

Andrew D.
www.cdnav.com

You can use a DVD player like the Oppo 980 that converts DSD to LPCM internally. Then you can use an Atlona HDMI to DVI + SPDIF coverter to sent the PCM stream to your sound card. This only works for 2 channel audio though.

How are SACDS better? I know that there are some higher technical specs over CDs, but for any of you that have SACDs, do they actually sound better?

Can you hear the different voices of a music more clearly?

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/lofive...php/t57406.html

That says that there is no audible difference between CDs and SACDs on normal volumes.

But is that stereo SACD or multichannel SACD?

Because with music sometimes on the CDs some voices in the music are lost or outshouted by the other voices. In multichannel, is it possible to direct different voices to different speakers?

With multichannel, it is possible to direct anything to any speaker, and of course this is a benefit of SACD and DVD-A/DVD-V over CD. If this possibility is put to good use by the producers is a subjective matter.

The fundamental discussion of SACD over CD has in large parts been if the DSD format used by SACD is techically superior to PCM for transfering a single channel (or more).

The Sony/Philips and the audiophile camp claimed that it was so, while most people with any technical training and experience seemed to be sceptical of those benefits.

-k

I think the truth is that quite a few SACD discs sounded better than earlier CDs, simply because the mastering was better. Put head-to-head, though, comparing a 2-channel SACD layer with the red book layer, the differences are subtle at best.

One could make a good argument that many (if not most) of the SACD players that were released had better D/A sections than previous CD-only players. Given that, it's possible that a lot of the audible differences some people heard could be due to improvements in the D/A's.

I have to say, though, when I first heard the SACD reissues of the Rolling Stones albums, I just about fell off the couch. Most of those albums never sounded that good, certainly not back in the 1960s. But I attribute that more to good mastering and better source tapes than SACD per se.

It's kind of a moot point, because SACD is pretty much dead these days. I think Sony made more money on MiniDisc, and that wasn't exactly a success, either.

You have many valid points. But the JAES-paper linked elsewhere in here, ruled them out by arranging a large-scale doube-blind test where the source always was SACD/DVD-A, but where the "CD-qualtiy" was obtained by degrading the hirez output by patching in a CD-recorder with 16 bits/44.1kHz.

This way, the content was exactly the same, and the DSD D/A-converter was also common. The only difference was the insertion of a sub-optimal 16bit/44.1kHz AD/DA-converter.

The could not conclude that the audio-format of SACD was any better than CD for critical, normal use.

They did find, however that many listeners preferred SACD because of the content.

Normal users arent free to swap content and delivery format individually, therefore we get these somewhat stupid discussions where people claim that 44.1kHz is "clearly inferior" based on listening to some SACDs vs listening to other CDs.

-k

Can regular DVD rewriters in computers rip the CD layer of the hybird versions?

Yes.

Is the CD layer of a hybird SACD exactly the same as the same album released onto CD?

If you mean from the same master, it depends on the disc. There is no requirement that this be the case. Otherwise the answer is no, of course not.

Yes, from the same master.
Then people buying the SACD can get literally scammed? Because they can't access the DSD layer, and the CD layer can be inferior to regular CDs?


Are DVD audio readable by all computer DVD drives?

The "CD-layer" has the logical structure of a CD-player, and can be read by most CD-players, but it is not physically identical. I think that some CD-players cannot read the CD-layer.

In principle, of course, record companies are free to put a mix that is limited to 8bit resolution into the CD-layer if they wish to. I dont think that has ever happened.

What is heavily reported, though, is that the DSD-layer and the CD-layer are based on a different master, such that the user when doing A/B is actually listening to one dynamic compression setting + the DSD format, vs another dynamic compression setting + the CD format. Usually, the "audiophile" factor of the dynamics processingis either equal, or better in the DSD layer.

Surprisingly, audio magazines and audiophiles does not seam to consider this to be posible at all, and commonly attribute all perceived advantages of SACD to PCM being inferior to DSD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvd-audio#Copy_protection

That is using general PC dvd-rom drives.

-k

Before you buy the CD, is there any way of researching if they did that?

Or superior. Or exactly the same as. There's no rule.





You're being paranoid. No one's done that. But many have put masterings with limited dynamic range onto the CD layer. Just as they've released CDs with limited dynamic range.

What would a CD with "limited dynamic range" sound like?

Loud. You know when the movie on your tv is stopped to show commercials and you run for the remote because your ears are bleeding? That is limited dynamic range.

There are no quiet passages in music (ok, a few rock-bands has incorporated that into their style), but quiet stuff is cramped up.

Stuff like sustained voice/pads/organ/strings is "pumping" in opposition to the base drum beats

Worst case, clipping (artificial overtones caused by the waveform clipping at the 0dBFS barrier)

-k

So it's either all really loud or all really quiet?

Yes, it depends on how loud you have it turned up. Increased dynamic range means you can have loud and quiet bits in the same music, but that's a bit complicated for some record labels to understand.

If you always have your volume know set at (for instance) 12 o' clock, then a "loudness war" CD will sound much louder than another, dynamic CD. If you twist your volume down when listening to the"loudness war" CD until it sounds as loud as the dynamic one, you will notice that it is contant level without peaks and valleys.

For further info, you should check out the wikipedia-article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

They show these examples of the very same track

One Of Us, 1981 release

One Of Us, 2005 remaster

Notice that the peaks are similar in size, but the loudness-war CD has those peaks all of the time.

-k

The the Red Hot Chili Pepper's 'Californication'. Everything as loud, or louder, than everything else.

Go on google, look up the phrase 'loudness war'

FWIW I should be getting my hands on the Oasis SACD in a week or two.
Then I'll digitize the analog output of a a track or two from the DSD layer, and
see how they compare to the CD version with waveform analysis.