SACD - a new life? - Page 2

Re: SACD - a new life?

When you take the analog outs of the player and put it into the AV Rec'r some rec'rs may have bass management but in doing so re-converts the analog signal to do the bass management in the digital domain. Some players have bass management but such bass management is usually very ltd. (e.g. a single crossover frequency that may not be optimum for all situations) and it too may re-digitize the signal. The signal when it is read is in 'dsd' and then gets converted to analog so making it go thru the conversion process again (especially in a product designed for HT) is not going to do wonders for the sound. In my main system, I define all my speakers as full range (my main speakers are and I have stereo subs crossed over at 22 HZ and a sub for the center and one for the rears). That is my solution.

Re: SACD - a new life?

"I'm gonna sound like a broken record, but in a time where CD sales are continually dropping and MP3 sales are increasing, why would improved sound quality matter to people?"

Marc, you are right if thinking about SACD being a replacement for redbook. But one can argue SACD is doing very well among audiophiles in classical music. I think a niche market exists for better quality sound. It may be 2% of the market or less but done well could be profitable for many companies.

Perhaps Warner is thinking the same thing with DVDA and LP in the Because Sound Matters campaign. I think LP has particular appeal since so many young people are embracing it.

Re: SACD - a new life?

Bass Management, my favorite subject

The short is that the SACD/DVD-A concept is built around 5 channel audio, not 5.1. They expect you to have 5 full sized, full range, speakers to listen to it properly. The problem is none of us have that, at least the majority don't. So you get mud out of the back small speakers unable to reproduce the full range sound, same with the center channel.

There is no bass channel in most recordings.

I invested about 5K into my setup about a year or so ago and popped in my first CD. It was OK but nothing great. I then popped in a DVD-A and found it highly lacking also. SACD didn't work at all because I was not using analogs.

So I went and bought analog cables. Sounded much better but something was still missing.

I did some checking and found out about the statement above about being designed around 5 full sized speakers.

Outlaw Audio used to sell an item called an ICBM, or a analog bass manager. I bought one to these, $250+$180 for their cable kit and now it sounds right.

Its purely analog and you can change the cross over for each speaker, it pulls the bass from each channel and creates an LFE where there was not one before.

Its incredible. Its also fantastic for stereo too.

I've played around with my Yamaha RXv-2600 for hours upon hours with all the digital doo dads and nothing comes close to the sound of the analog ICBM cross over.

I posted a message on another forum regarding digital bass management. The best response I was given was from someone with far more money in their setup than I who used a simple 2.1 channel crossover unit to keep it all analog.

Its a huge difference and its also got me stuck. I want to upgrade but until I can find a digital bass management system that is equal to what I have I'm hesitant to do so.

Bass management is a huge problem since there seems to be a problem with all the SACD/DVD-A/HD Audio spec's where the bass channel, if there is one, is -10db.

Its one of those things unless you know what your missing you may not think your missing it at all.

Re: SACD - a new life?

Eric: the NHT "Controller" preamp has a 7.1 input with analog b.m. (reviewed here), though it is a tad more expensive than the ICBM.

I agree that b.m. issues have - and still - plague both hi-res surround formats and is another deterrent to adopting these formats for many people. This slightly important aspect should have been standardized from the day both formats were rolled out. Instead, EIGHT years later the consumer is still being left to figure out what works and what doesn't. So I am not surprised more & more labels are releasing their surround music on the dvd-video format via Dolby or DTS* because these formats always work correctly.

* if anyone has heard a DTS-CD and wondered why it sounds so much like a CD despite using a lossy format, that's because it uses a data rate of 1200kbps! On a dvd, DTS can use up to a 1500kbps rate. Then there's the DTS96/24 format, still lossy, but includes more samples and an extended frequency range.

Re: SACD - a new life?

Bose announces universal player for car....

http://www.bose.com/controller?event...stem/index.jsp