Before posting this, I did search the forums, but didn't
find anything tackling this directly

I've done my homework and read quite a lot on the subject (though, I
don't pretend to be a reference). To me, even though the Redbook CDs
are a 20+ years old technology, they should suffice. Especially since
about '95-'97 proper mastering has been grasped (recordings which were
on analogue tapes have been digitized at 20-24-32 bits, then dithered
back to 16-bits, they used original master tapes, etc.) and the public
was offered re-issues of classic jazz recordings like Miles Davis
'Kind of Blue' and John Coltrane 'A Love Supreme'.

Just for the fun of it (and because my internship job sucks), I did a
search on the newsgroups (deja.com) about SACD and whether it sounds
better than normal CDs. I was mainly interested about the
difference(s) between the re-issue CDs I already mentioned and their
SACD re-issue.

What I found suprised me (somewhat). Some people (hmmm.. maybe 80% of
them) are saying the new SACD re-issue sounds MUCH better. I have
even read someone saying the SACD re-issue of 'A Love Supreme'
reveiled tons of details not present in the 2002 Deluxe Redbook
re-issue
(http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=831d8e2b.0301160023.11aeae38%40posting.google.com&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain).

I have a hard time with this. I mean.. being a lover for conspiratory
theory, if the SACD even reveals so much more details from the
original recording, I have to wonder if pressure is applied on the big
labels to 'sabotage' the new re-issues on Redbook so the SACD sound
better. Okay.. maybe I watched too much of X-Files...

If SACD is so much better, it means our mathematic knowledge and
understanding of why Redbook CDs are 'sufficient' has to be flawed
somewhere. I do _not_ refuse to accept that, but if the reports I
have read are true, I am perplexed.

I know there could be a placebo effect, and for a real test you need
to ABX with the same equipment at the same sound level (+/- 0.1dB)
with discs that have been mastered from the same tape, same engineer
and.. damn it.. best way would probably be to use the same source and
just dither to 16-bit for the Redbook CD... but still...... could so
much more information be present on SACD or this is yet, again, some
'audiophile' fluff (the fuckers...)?

thanks.

Quality issues has been brought up before. A quick summary: If mastering is done correctly, a normal CD will sound really good and DVD-A/SACD is probably not needed. But doing the proper mastering is suppossed to be difficult. A bad mastering engineer will probably get better results on DVD-A/SACD.

I would not be surprised if the labels were sabotaging normal CDs in order to get people to buy the copy-protected DVD-A and SACD.

Not so long ago, someone posted a link to an article about black cd-r medias sounding different than blue ones and the original pressed cds. The article was written by a guy with a $6,000 SACD player from Sony. His friend had the same SACD player and could hear differences too. It is possible that these guys are crazy. But if they are not, then it is possible that certain SACD players are not capable of flawless audio cd playback. This might be a weakness with the SACD technology or a flaw in some of Sony's players...

The other thread about the colored discs got concluded with the assumption that the different cdr's may not have been within red-book spec (Pio taught us that iirc some 35ns jitter was the upper bound imposed by the red-book standard, and many cdr's do worse than that). So, hopefully conspiracy theories do not apply .

The advantages of high-bitrate formats are imho mostly matters of hardware construction being easier. It seems, it is easier to build a good 24/96 converter than a good 16/44 one. I think limitations lie not within the source material, but mostly within equipment. Even though most people here agree that cd-audio contains sufficient information, reconstructing a signal from that properly is just somewhat more difficult.

Since there hasn't been enough DVD-A source material around yet to go about testing, you won't find any "definitive" answers yet when searching the forum.
But, well, I dare to state my expectations in advance: when starting off with 24/96 material, and using some high-quality xxth-order lowpass at 22kHz and high quality dithering in the last 8 bits, so that essentially you have 16/44-like quality in a 24/96 package, most of us won't be able to abx the files.

Before discussions explode: I stress these are my expectations, and nothing of it is based on facts yet.

I can't seem to believe that a 24/96 DAC is easier to construct than 16/44... Then everything would be feeding upsampled bits into 24/96 DACs.

OTOH, a DSD decoder for SACD is definitely easier. Direct stream digital - you can play stuff back by literally feeding the bits (full scale voltage for 1, -fs voltage for 0) into the simplest lowpass filter. And the dreaded audiophile-murdering soundstage-destroying quantization noise will lose most of its bite. ;-)

Well, something like that is common practice. Most DACs upsample internally, while applying some digital filtering. One of the advantages of that, is that with the higher sample rate, analog filters can kick in at higher frequencies, making things simpler. However, digital filtering isn't the easiest thing in the world either. The way it is implemented in many ICs, it influences the audible frequencies.
Supplying higher sample rate data in the first place, makes all filtering, digital and analog, easier to do.

Actually, most modern and not so modern cd players use converters with an equivalent resolution of more than 16 bit, because it helps at the oversampling process ( to avoid quantization distortion at the new calculated samples). And sampling rate is several times the nominal 44.1 KHz due to use of this same oversampling.

So, in fact, most 44.1/16 converters are not 44.1/16 internally.

Even near the bottom of the FAQ, the SACD/DVD-A link ?

Now you got it right, not the DAC, only the filter is easier (cause it doesn't need to be so steep). You can have digital filtering before the actual DAC and analog filtering after. High order filters often introduce phase shifts.
--
Ge Someone

I guess you're right GeSomeone, my usage of the word converter is vague.
Digital filtering and upsampling etc usually occur within the same IC as d/a conversion, but properly spoken that is before the dac. When I stated before "It seems, it is easier to build a good 24/96 converter than a good 16/44 one", I was speaking of the whole circuitry, rather than the proper dac.

Even that. The first thread of the FAQ talking about SACD is the
first one that popped when I performed a search. People are talking
about the technical details of SACD and essentially, people are saying
the DSD technology might suffer with transient response... but what I
wanted to know is if anyone actually listened to a SACD version of an
album that is also available in a relatively recent (post 1995)
remastered version on Redbook.

If you say "I did! And I couldn't ABX it. I think the DSD technology
is over-hyped because of this technical 'proof'" I'll be happy. If
you say "I did! SACD do sound much more detailed than the remastered
Redbook CD. It is ABXable even on a 2000$ hi-fi setup." I'll be happy
too.

Again, sorry if my questions already have been asked. I try not to be
too redundant. I try to attack the questions from a different angle.

Thanks for your input anyway Pio2001.

I thought that a benifit of DVD-Audio was that the music could be recorded in surround sound. Is this true?

I can definetly tell the difference between surround sound and regular stereo on DVD videos, so I assume I could hear the difference in a music recording. On the other hand, I think the benifit of surround sound might not be as enjoyable in music as it is in movies or games. And it would be useless if you were listening with head phones.

Ian

Yeah, thats true. Thats pretty much the only really cool aspect of DVD-A. But, similar to new 3d graphics technologies and game developers, its up to the artists/producers to make good enough use of surround sound for it to be worth upgrading to.

I have...

Santana Abraxas.....MFSL vs SACD..it is slightly cleaner. AB tests I can pick the SACD out everytime on certian passages...but it's really not night and day.

Also...

L.A Woman by the Doors...DCC version vs DVD-A...granted this is not a 24 bit 192 sterero version but 24 bit 96 kHz....I can tell the difference. It's slightly warmer...same deal..ab on just certian passages...

But then, we ARE talking about a couple of albums that are 30 years old.....

What's MFSL ?
And DCC is a psychoacoustic compressed format, like Minidisc, so a CD should sound better than a DCC.

EDIT : ignore this post, I thought it was "Digital Compact Cassette" by Philips. Yes there was a time when the format war was between DCC, DAT, and MiniDisc.

MFSL = MOFI = Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab

Before Sony et al. released remastered re-issues, MFSL were doing just that. They searched for the original master tape of the album they wanted to remaster, they fixed every anomalies and pressed the result on gold CDs. I have a couple of them (mostly Pink Floyd albums).

Its not hype. But since its relativly new and expensive a few things are going to have to happen before you'll hear any differences.



A. The recording studios are going to have to upgrade all there equipment so it can take full advantage of the new formats. Old equipment and techniques are only going to yield the same sound as on normal cds.

B. Better mastering. Here is just one example: There are few sacds and dvd-a that are properly mixed for multichannel audio. (who the hell wants to hear trumpets behind there heads?)

C. Your going to have to get better equipment your self. Products will get better as more generations come out. For example bass managment is missing from most players and so is the support for multi-channel sacd. And how much money did you have to spend on cd player setup before it was "audiophile" and sounded much better. Alot. The same thing is true for SACD and DVD-A.


And another thing. Using old material and reissuing on sacd or dvd-a should not yield better results than the same re mastering on cd. Unless multichannel can some how enhance your listening.



----------------------------

A possible exeption to the reissue issue...and a little bit off topic to boot!!!!


Theres been talk about lps sounding better than cds. And theroreticaly it should since its resolution is higher than that of SACD and even DVD-A. But we all know that wasnt true in real life because of the inherent flaws in the medium, the equipment, and user bias etc etc. But now they can digitaly scan the vinyl and from the resulting picture analyse it and send it directly to the sacd or dvd-a at just the resolution. lol they'll have to downsample it! Ive even read that someone used a home scanner and played an lp whith his software from the scanned image.

MFSL went out of business a while back, but from what I read, is going to make a comeback doing SACDs.

Here's a partial list and some prices of their titles..

Click me, please...

As to DCC....these are considered Audiophile CD's...My Wish You Were Here on CBS Mastersound is Killer....

Click me for a list and prices of DCC gold discs..

Not cheap but keep in mind...some of these titles just keep going up in price.

Someone who switched from a hi-fi vinyl setup just had to buy a good CD player to have a hi-fi sounding setup using a CD player. You didn't need a "digital" setup..... same goes with SACD. If you already have an excellent setup with a CD player acting as source, swapping the CD player for an excellent SACD player should do the trick.

10000$US MG-20.1 Magneplanar speakers are already plenty good... no need for "better" speakers for SACD...



I don't know. If you read the link I furnished in the first post, there is a guy saying the SACD re-issue of John Coltrane 'A Love Supreme' reveals more details and just sounds better than the Impulse! Deluxe re-issue.

Did you listen to any SACD?



Huh-huh

thanks for your input.

The level resolution of vinyl is limited by noise, so it is much worse than CD. The frequency resolution of vinyl is limited by frequency response, and it is equal to CD in theory, worse in practice, as records wear out.

The supposed better sound is supposed to come from defects in the DACs that the vinyl doesn't have, but some say that it's just distortion that is pleasant to the ear.

Isn't it the other way around? Or maybe you were answering to something else?

Vinyl are far from perfect but some find them more pleasant to the ear because of some of its non-linear characteristics. A typical vinyl rapidly rolls-off at 12 kHz, is that it? And at those "high freqs" some distortion happen which are pleasing to the ear.

Heck.. it is more or less the same with tube amps... they are injecting non-linear distortions, impurities, but the actual feeling is pleasant...

If you really prefer vinyl, try a plug-in like iZotope Vinyl for Winamp. It simulates the sound of vinyl.. from old shitty turn-tables to recent turn-table sound. Sometimes I listen to whole albums with that plug-in activated and it is relaxing.

In the thread about vinyl vs CD, I posted some spectrum comparisons.

On the Depeche Mode vinyl, there was no roll off at all. The CD had more treble from 2500 to 12000 Hz, then the vinyl had more treble than the CD until 20000 Hz (end of the spectum analysis)

On the Legendary Pink Dots vinyl, there was a roll of starting at 3000 Hz

Oops! I prefer the sound of my vinyl copies. The "wear" slider is really well done, though.

Mmmn, with vinyl records in good shape costing anywhere from $0.05 to $1.00 apiece (and a huge catalog available, especially pre-1985), why pay for the CD?

I'm rolling in cheap music, and laughing at the record companies... they don't get another penny of my money. I buy an occasional CD too, but always used. And vinyl -> digital transfer is a fun hobby. I'm having my cake & eating it too. B)

A recessed midrange with analog (sounds like the result you got) is often the sign of a poorly designed turntable/cartridge/tonearm. Either any or all of those... they function as a unit and it's hard to separate them except in theory.

I can say for a fact that no decent vinyl rolls off at 12KHz. That would sound downright dull to the ear (not 'warmth' but dullness), and none of my vinyl sounds like that. I've looked at plenty using Cool Edit's spectrum analysis, and although the concentration of music is well below 16KHz (as it should be), there is obvious non-random frequency extension all the way up to 22KHz after I transfer it to digital.

If anyone's interested, I'll find one of my transfers with obviously good frequency extension and post a sample (I still use LPAC, so I'd ask to please accept it in that format).

Like this one ?

http://perso.numericable.fr/laguill2/files...kraftwerk1.flac (915 kB)



The frequency extension is good, but the treble level actually decreases above 15 kHz.

How can you be sure the audio in the > 12kHz range is not noise? The question may sound insulting but it is genuine. I have a hard time believing the arm can follow the groove of a vinyl at that speed and not distort.

But anyway.. don't worry.. I won't debate to death whether vinyls are superior to CD. I find this to be irrelevant. I do have vinyls (and a Linn Sondeck LP12 turntable) and enjoy listening to them once in a while.

... if I may get back on the topic , I still haven't found anybody here who AB'd albums available on Redbook and on SACD.

I found theses links:
Hi-Fi Choice article
Stereophile article
Vinyl Anachronist article
Stereophile guide to home theater article
Another Stereophile article..........
Kind of Blue SACD vs Redbook (newsgroup thread...)
Another newsgroup thread about SACD vs CD

Okay.. enough links. Are these people exagerating? I am aware of the fact that magazines like Stereophile must be 'sleeping' with big multinationals like Sony so what they are saying have to be taken with a grain of salt. I am also aware that a guy who invested 2000$+ on a new SACD player will not be willing to say he can't tell from a Redbook CD.

So, the question still stand.. anyone here was able to conduct ABX tests between SACD and CD? I plan to buy about 100 CDs this year but I don't want to invest a penny more in CDs if SACD really do sound better than their Redbook counterpart.

thanks...

Ok..so it was only 2 of them and one was a DVD-A......but I guess not.

Nobody that I know has performed a proper comparison of SACD or DVD-A vs. plain CD, meaning by proper that the mastering is identical, and only the distribution media is different.

A doable and good test would be the one that I suggested at the recent HDCD thread. That would clear up all issues, but nobody has tried domething similar that I know yet.