Which albums and players will push you into high rez? (1 Viewer)

[JordanS]

Pink Floyd's DSOTM on SACD

I have already went out and purchased a SACD player because of this title.

I want to see more Floyd/Solo,The Who, The Eagles, Led Zeppelin, Dire Straits, etc etc------

I am not prepared to discuss the debate over SACD/DVD-A; I was hoping someone could show me a link to some debates where I could make my own conclusions.

I had a chance to actually listen to my DSOTM on SACD on a SACD player and was blown away--

 

[MichaelTa]

For what its worth I went DVD-A because of the Grateful Dead's American Beauty and Workingmans Dead albums being released on DVD-A. My taste has been classic rock for the most part so I had been happy with DVD-A except for the lack of a consistent release schedule. I own 24 DVD-A's. With the release of DSOTM on SACD I am going to rob my kids inheritance and pick up a Yamaha S2300 DVD/DVD-A/SACD player. I just hope that they release more albums that I want and like on SACD as I have not been interested in any of the releases until now. At least with the S2300 I will have all bases covered or so I hope. As always just my $0.02.

 

[Philip Hamm]

Well, it's history.....

Step 1 Two of my favorite albums of all time, Sam Phillips' "The Indescribable WOW!" and "Cruel Inventions" were issued in 1998 I think as 96/24 DADs by Classic Records. I bought them, and bought a Pioneer DV-414 to play them on since my Toshiba SD2006 did not have high-rez DACs.

Step 2 A bargain on a Technics DVD-A10 combined with Steely Dan's "Two Against Nature" (which I had only heard on DTS - which sounds excellent BTW) were the main reasons I got into DVD-A.

Step 3 Another favorite, Bruce Cockburn, had a "Career retrospective" (known in the industry as "Greatest hits") released on SACD. That title "Anything Anytime Anywhere" , along with Miles Davis' multichannel "Kind Of Blue" and a $112 deal on a floor model Sony DVP-NS500V got me into SACD.

So now I'm good to go!

 

[John Kotches]

Philip,

And the cable manufacturers love you. 12 (or more) ICs to hook it all up!

Makes me like that Meridian stuff better and better each day.

Regards,

 

[Lee Scoggins]

Makes me like that Meridian stuff better and better each day.

Yes, but I don't have $16K lying around for the combo.

 

[John Kotches]

Lee,

So? Other solutions with single cables are on the market, and these solutions will only get cheaper over time.

Why even bring it up, since the point was the sheer folly that most hardware manufacturers are throwing upon people in the name of copy protection.

Regards,

 

[Philip Hamm]

I'm not a cable "believer" and I don't mind running a lot of decent quality cables (mostly Radio Shack Gold).

 

[John Kotches]

Philip,

I agree, I used to do the same myself. I imagine the back of your rack is looking pretty crowded, eh?

Regards,

 

[Jeff Kohn]

I'm not a cable "believer" and I don't mind running a lot of decent quality cables (mostly Radio Shack Gold).

You don't have to be a cable "believer" to realize that a single digital connection has huge advantages of 6 analog connections.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

You don't have to be a cable "believer" to realize that a single digital connection has huge advantages of 6 analog connections.

I definitely want a single cable also, but unless the jitter/masterclock implementation issues are put to rest, digital is not necessarily better than analog in this context.

 

[Iain Lambert]

But Lee, unless you're going to vinyl, the digital jitter issue is going to be there, isn't it? Or is digital jitter really that much worse if you leave the decoding until the preamp stage?

 

[Philip Hamm]

You don't have to be a cable "believer" to realize that a single digital connection has huge advantages of 6 analog connections.

Since I don't see the advantages, please spell them out for me.

 

[John Kotches]

Philip:

Depending on format, input can be Just Another Digital Source, treated identically to a DD/DTS disc. This means Time Alignment and Bass Management would be accomplished within the digital domain with the same techniques applied, since TA and BM are done on the PCM output of the DD/DTS decoders. This will be tougher for a digital link with SACD, as you can't leverage the same processing infrastructure (though not impossible).

All digital links I have knowledge of (Meridian MHR, Denon Denonlink, Pioneer iLink, Muse's Link, Sharp's link) are encrypted, which necessitates buffering and reclocking as you go from an encrypted datastream to a decrypted datastream. I haven't discussed the nature of the digital links available from dCS, Accuphase or MSB to determine if these links are encrypted.

Simplicity, and ease of use too

Regards,

 

[Dave Morton]

Actually, I'd like to see the decoders in my pre-amp and have the high rez signal sent to the pre-amp for processing.

 

[Iain Lambert]

Philip, all I think is being meant by the "advantages" of a single digital cable is that it generally costs around 1/6th of the price of analogue cables, or even more once you get into the question of an analogue signal being more subsceptible to cable quality than a digital one. That and the fact that its 5 less cables to route around the back of your system, which I know I'm quite happy about.

 

[Philip Hamm]

So, as I knew, the real differences boil down to convenience, not really any sound difference at all (assuming Time Alignment and Bass Management, if necessary, are done by the SACD/DVD-A machine).

Not what I'd personally term as "huge advantages". More like "minor nit".

 

[Jeff Kohn]

How many affordable SACD/DVD-A players have full-featured bass-management and time alignment? How many affordable SACD/DVD-A players have better DAC's than a good pre/pro? As far as I know the answer to both of those questions is few, if any.

Sure, if you spend enough you can probably (maybe) get those features in a player, but why should I have to? It makes no sense to me to pay for high-end DAC's and processing features in multiple devices, when I can put that money into just one device that can then be used for all my input sources? If I can buy a pre/pro that has the DAC's and features I want, it makes much more sense to be a modestly priced SACD player with a digital connnection that it does to spend big bucks on a SACD/DVD-A player with those features.

So I guess if you have an unlimited budget and don't mind the inconvenience of all those extra cables, maybe it's not too big a deal. But for the rest of us, there are definitely big advantages to a digital connection.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

By the time there is a standard digital interface (and I'm not buying until there is a standard; I am not locking myself into matched manufacturers), all the high-res players will have bass management and time alignment.

The current ICs are just behind the curve right now.

Ultimately I do think that a digital connection is better, but I'll take my 'spaghetti cable' mess over the political/legal mess plagueing the 'high res digital interconnect world'.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

All digital links I have knowledge of (Meridian MHR, Denon Denonlink, Pioneer iLink, Muse's Link, Sharp's link) are encrypted, which necessitates buffering and reclocking as you go from an encrypted datastream to a decrypted datastream.

Good point John. If the reclocking is done right on digital interfaces it will present little or no problem.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

On top of encryption requiring that everything gets reclocked, the high-res IC makers all seem to be designing their DACs to reduce the effects of jitter.