[Lee Scoggins]

Friends,

Please see the following links for comparisons of the new high resolution formats DVD Audio and Super Audio:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/Practical.doc

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/Technical.doc

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To download these Word documents, please right-click on the above links, select "Save Target As" and file name. The files will then download automatically.

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Disclaimer!

Please note that I tried to keep the Practical as objective as possible while Technical are notes gathered from many years as a recording engineer and a final gradation on sound quality differences.

Please share with me your thoughts and ideas.

I hope this will further help Forum members and visitors understand and manage the complex choices presented by the two formats.

[Lee Scoggins]

Technical difficulties

Bear with us as we figure out a way to make these documents downloadable.

Any suggestions appreciated.

[John Kotches]

Lee,

Your title counts are way off for DVD-A in the Practical doc.... DVD-A is 377 or 416 depending on whether you take the Quad list title count or the Meridian sponsored list at High Fidelity Review.

I realize that this paper goes back awhile, but if you had wanted accurate counts, you should have asked -- 230 titles might have been accurate sometime in mid 2001.

Also, I'm not a major reviewer -- and my inclusion with people like Bob Stuart, Mark Waldrep and the others, while flattering, is not something that I have earned to date. If you want to include a "big name" reviewer use Dr. Robert E. Greene from TAS. I'm not Bob Stuart, but I'm sure he would appreciate it if you spelled the company name right, it's Meridian. Why leave off Alastair Roxburgh from Alpha Digital/EAD or John Dawson at Arcam from the DVD-A supporters list?

As far as breakthrough titles go on DVD-Audio, HC is good, but don't forget that Fleetwood Mac's Rumours sold more copies. Then there's Queen's A Night at the Opera. These certainly deserves listing.

The number of DVD-Audio players on the market exceeds the 20 you are listing, regardless of whether it is actively marketed players or number of players since launch.

Currently it's
Panasonic: 5 models
Toshiba: 3 models
Denon: 4 models
Meridian: 2 models
Pioneer: 1 (DVD-A only is what I'm counting not universal)
EAD: 2 models
JVC: 5 models minimum

I haven't even hit all the players yet, and I'm stopping at 22, as I've already proven my point......

I have also excluded HT in a Box.

You did not mention that the noise characteristics of High-Res PCM are linear across the pass band, and ignored the rising noise characteristic of SACD, beginning at 4k.

There are other things I don't like, but that's enough for 2:00am CDT on a first glance.

Regards,

[Lee Scoggins]

Quote:

Also, I'm not a major reviewer -- and my inclusion with people like Bob Stuart, Mark Waldrep and the others, while flattering, is not something that I have earned to date. If you want to include a "big name" reviewer use Dr. Robert E. Greene from TAS. I'm not Bob Stuart, but I'm sure he would appreciate it if you spelled the company name right, it's Meridian. Why leave off Alastair Roxburgh from Alpha Digital/EAD or John Dawson at Arcam from the DVD-A supporters list?

You could be more supportive of what is a very good effort at clarifying the field. The list was done about a month and a half ago and the totals were correct then. As for title counts, I got the numbers from a press release from Warners I believe. Maybe they are behind also.

Quote:

You did not mention that the noise characteristics of High-Res PCM are linear across the pass band, and ignored the rising noise characteristic of SACD, beginning at 4k.

There are two problems with this. First, many people believe that the noise does not dip below 12K. Second, most engineers do not feel the ultrasonic noise is audible.

Of course, to have a balanced view, we could go into the zero crossing distortion that PCM has inherent.

If you want to criticize the whole list fine. There was enough thought and research behind this that I can respond point by point.

Your words would carry more weight with me if you at least thanked me for the effort.

[Mike Broadman]

The links still don't work. How are you reading them, John?

[Lee Scoggins]

Mike,

I am still having trouble as well.

Packy is able to access them however.

[James Q Jenkins]

Lee, no offense, but from reading your posts over the last few years it seems to me as if this would be the equivalent of a white paper comparing Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows XP presented by Steve Ballmer. I mean your SIG is "Super Audio: So Close It Kisses The Master Tape!" for gosh sakes.

I can't read the links. I will do so however if I have time when they are up.

[John Kotches]

Lee,

Quote:

You could be more supportive of what is a very good effort at clarifying the field. The list was done about a month and a half ago and the totals were correct then. As for title counts, I got the numbers from a press release from Warners I believe. Maybe they are behind also.

Wow... there have been somewhere between 140 and 190 titles releaesed in the last month and a half on DVD-A? That's impressive as hell. Of course it's also just plain wrong.

If you don't want constructive criticism about the document, don't have it posted.

[John Kotches]

Mike,

I only clicked on the Practial link last night which worked.

However if you right click on the link and select "Save Target As" you can download the documents to your machine and peruse them at your leisure.

Regards,

[Lee Scoggins]

Quote:

Lee, no offense, but from reading your posts over the last few years it seems to me as if this would be the equivalent of a white paper comparing Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows XP presented by Steve Ballmer.

James,

This may be true for Technical, but not for Practical as I interviewed several engineers on each side for a balanced view.

As a loyal HTF reader, I was concerned in Practical with creating something useful for the membership and to drive interest in high resolution audio in general.

I wanted to present the facts as best I knew them and let people be aware of the differences. You will see things about the DVDA format, for instance, based on earlier threads where people like KeithH posted their views of strengths and weaknesses of both formats.

As for the record label and title counts, I perused press releases and carefully counted the labels listed on High Fidelity Review which struck me as more complete than other sources. As John finds my DVDA title count off, I did get that number from a Warners press release and saw the number again in some articles on the format. As it now may be low following additional releases in the past month or two, then at least we have John to bring the count up to today. There was certainly no attempt to slant the evidence one way or the other.

The Technical document as I stated is one recording engineer's opinion based on years of PCM use and a couple with DSD. That is a personal opinion of mine but there appears to be gathering consensus that a very high sampling rate does, in fact, capture note transients particularly well.

People here on the board know my signature line well. It would be wise to look at all available evidence and make up your own mind.

I just attempted to make the data gathering a bit easier. Hopefully this will be good enough to add to the HTF FAQ for beginner overviews.

Quote:

However if you right click on the link and select "Save Target As" you can download the documents to your machine and peruse them at your leisure.

Thank you John, this is what were missing for downloading the documents.

Things seem to work well now.

[Lee Scoggins]

Links seem to be working fine now.

Thanks Packy for your help!