DVD Audio vs SACD (1 Viewer)

[John-Miles]

yes i believe you did misunderstand.

actually i likely worded it badly so let me clarify.

realize tht both SACD and DVD-A are far superior to CD, however I have been told that SACD players will produce better sound on regular CD's whereas DVD-A players will sound the same as a CD player when pleying regular cd's, basically if you wanted to play a regular cd it would sound the best on a SACD player, and approximately the same on a DVD-A player and a CD player.

i hope i worded things better this time.

 

[RicP]

Could you tell me again the gears you are using including amplifiers and speakers?

Sure...
SACD Player: Modified Sony SCD-C333ES
DVD Audio Player: Panasonic RP-91
Stereo Pre-Amparasound P/HP-850
Multi-Channel Pre-Amp/Reciever: Pioneer Elite 29TX
Stereo Amplifierarasound HCA-1500A 205wpc
For DVD-Audio, the L&R channels are amplified by the Parasound, and the other 3 are amplified by the Pioneer.
Speakers: Paradigm Studio40's v.2 x 4
Subwoofer: Acoustic Research AR112PS
There you go. It's been an interesting discussion.

 

[John Kotches]

Ric,
Actually I have some "full stream" 24bit/192K material from Germany. This means that the entire chain was 24bit/192K from input to output. Check out Re`Told from the Hammamura Quintet on the Audio Net label, at http://www.audionet.de
I believe the words "Absolutely f'ing amazing" would apply here. As good as anything I've heard on SACD. Of course it's (24bit/192K) in such short supply that very few will get to here this.
Of course the AIX Records materials I have (their sampler disc, and the Beethoven's 6th, Resphighi Pines of Rome) is simply killer material as well, "full stream" 24bit/96K here.
Frankly, they both are so far ahead of CD that I hope either one will survive.
Regards,

 

[Jaehoon Heo]

Thanks RicP,
It was an interesting and challenging discussion. I hope to get back to it when you find more information. And thank you for information on your gears. They seem nice.
Regarding multichannel 192kHz recording, I have really a big complaint to DVD forum/WG-4. The MLP itself has no restriction on the original recording format, and I believe 176.4kHz 20bit 5-channel recording would be possible within current 1x DVD bit rate of 10Mbps. 176.4kHz 20 bit 3 channel front and 88.2kHz 20bit 2 channel rear would be another good combination. However, they seemed to exclude this possibility. I hope they would eliminate this foolish restriction to make DVD-A multichannel as good as it can be.
Just my 2 cents for your gear : You seem to have liked the analog LP sound. Am I right? If you do, and you feel so much harshness from your CD/DVD-A collections, I suggest you to audition some speakers with soft fabric dome tweeters. I think Paradigm speakers are using metal dome tweeter, and as you may know, metal dome tweeters have tendency to create some harshness or to exaggerate existing harshness in recording. Just my suggestion to increase your joy when you listen to your music collection...
So far, I only listened to 4 recordings of 192kHz/24 bit PCM. 3 of them are world first recordings made by Kompass multimedia/Samsung using dCS gears in 1997, and the other is the commercial release of String Quartet by Guarneri String Quartet, recorded/produced by Surrounded By Entertainment. The former 3 sounded better than the last one, but I am not sure by how much. Alas, those 3 recordings may never be released...:frowning: You may try the last one, but I am not sure you would be pleased with it.
Oh, one thing I was wrong about : PDM/DSD can be processed through digital signal processing chain, but a quite greater cost than PCM's, due to its very high sampling rate. When I wrote it wrong, I had mistaken PDM with PWM. PDM can be added to generate multibit PCM and DSP can be applied. But PWM has nonlinear property and very hard to do DSP processing as it is. I was momentarily mistaken.
John: Yes, I misunderstood your word. Sorry about that.

 

[John Kotches]

Jaehoon,

By dropping back to 20bits, you allow the noise floor to impinge on audibility within our most sensitive region (1-4K). This was the reason for the push to 24bits.

MLP is an open standard, and you could do a 3 channel 20bit 176K well within the limits. Remember the nominal compressed rate needs to be around 6-7mb/sec so that there's enough bandwidth to handle shortfalls which are buffered.

You might be able to get away with a 5 channel 20bit/176.4K, but that would be pushing things severely, as the typical compression would need to be about 2.5:1.

Regards,

 

[Jaehoon Heo]

John,
Thanks for your comments. But the current practical limit of 120dB noise floor may make 24 bit a little waste, doesn't it? Could you give me some more explanation on your first statement of 20 bit drawback, and nominal bit rate limit of 6~7Mbps for MLP? I am really interested in it, but I don't have much information on MLP, since I left that arena before MLP was introduced to DVD-Audio format. Last, as far as I know MLP for DVD-Audio doesn't allow 176.4/192kHz multichannel stream. Am I right? Thanks in advance...

 

[John Kotches]

Jaehoon,
Start with this paper on Meridian's website:
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There are others out there, most likely on the AES site.
The gist of the issue is this:
24bit (or higher) is required throughout the recording process, with 20bits inadequate to the task when operated on numerous times in the playback chain (bass management and time alignment for example). Each successive "touch" of the data adds a little noise, which increases the THD+N effectively raising the noise floor.
Data rates for MLP are garnered from several places, including Meridian's own papers on MLP coding:
Link Removed
There are temporary shortfalls where the data simply cannot be compressed to fit under the hard limit of 9.6mb/sec. As such, you need to have the safety margin by hitting the nominal data rate for the majority of the time. This gives you spare headroom to load the FIFO buffer up to handle short term overruns in required data rate.
Also, for some reason, I see several people missing a very key point. They're caught up thinking about today's practical limitations in the recording chain. What about 2 years from now, or 5 years, or 10 years? By going with a standard that's barely adequate for today's technology, we shortchange the future.

 

[PatrickM]

Just for everyone's information, if you want to hear what 24/192 stereo sounds like from an original analog master try America's DVD-A of Homecoming.
By the way, great thread. I go off to Vegas for a couple of days and this thing explodes.
Patrick

 

[John Morris]

Just for everyone's information, if you want to hear what 24/192 stereo sounds like from an original analog master try America's DVD-A of Homecoming.

Okay, I think, he says, swiping the sweat from his brow...?

Can I hear all of the 24/192 glory of this recording on my rp91??? I am just way tooooooo confused to correctly set up my system right now. Holy Shit!

 

[Jaehoon Heo]

John,

Thank you very much for your information. Regarding 20 bit drawback, I think that 24 bit master can be used by the mixing stage, and just release master to be noise-shaped to 20 bit. Considering the difficulties of achieving the 120dB noise floor, 20 bit release may still be good enough, IMO.

Regarding the maximum nominal bit rate of MLP, I think that is quite dependent on the buffer size of the player. As progressive-scan feature became quite common among DVD-A players, the video buffer size seems to be doubled, allowing more buffering and higher nominal bit rate for MLP, IMO.

 

[John Kotches]

Jaehoon,
The nominal rate also needs to be 6-7MB to get the advertised playing times, it's not just a matter of buffering. Bit budget vs. playing time comes into play at a certain data rate as well.
It seems that you're falling into the trap again, it's difficult to do 120dB today -- it was difficult to acheive 100dB a few years ago. By focusing on today's abilities rather than looking forward, you have basically accepted that things will get no better. I chose not to think that way.
Personally, I like the fact that the recording medium itself is not the limiting factor in the chain when it comes to LPCM at 24bit sampling depth.
Regards,

 

[Mark Jany]

I hesitate to enter such a technical discussion but here goes...

It would seem to me that if both formats are anywhere close in terms of quality (and the above arguments would indicate that they are) the issue will be settled on marketing and not technical grounds. In other words it may not be which format is truly best but which will catch on in the marketplace. The music industry is no doubt chasing a mass market and factors that audiophiles argue passionately about may be less relevant to them.

The questions I would wonder about are which format is easier/cheaper to add to a progressive scan DVD player - a next purchase for many moving beyond current basics. Which is easier to use in car or portable players? Are there production cost differences for the studios? What is the current market share of each and what are the changes in that over the last six months?

Just my non-technical 2 cents worth.

Mark

 

[KeithH]

John Kotches,

I just checked out the Retold disc on audionet.de. Looks very interesting. Have you compared the sound quality of the 24/192 DVD-Audio track to the 24/96 DVD-Video (DAD) track? Is there a significant difference?

Patrick,

Are you saying that the America Homecoming disc has a 24/192 stereo track? I was not aware that Warner/Rhino had released anything in 24/192. Have you compared it to the CD?

 

[John Kotches]

Keith,

The one flaw with this disc is that it comes close to being a perfect reference disc. THe catch is that the tracks aren't derived from common performances, so while you can compare the same group at 24/192 and 24/96 in the same studio, on the same songs, you aren't comparing identical tracks. So close, yet so damn far!

That being said, the differences between 24/96 and 24/192 are subtle, with a little bit more "shimmer" on the cymbals -- there's a kind of splashiness/edge that a cymbal has in the real world, and the 24/192 seems to get this a little bit more right. That was the only big difference, Vocals and piano are nearly impossible to distinguish between the two tracks. Acoustic bass and saxophone were impossible to distinguish any differences between the tracks. Could I tell you the difference in a double blind environment, with the same song at 24/96 or 24/192? I highly doubt it.

I've been working on imaging with my own speakers over the weekend, trying to improve the soundstage presentation, and will give things another listen on this disc sometime later this week.

Regards,

 

[KeithH]

Thanks for the info., John. Much appreciated. I will still have to get this disc. Interestingly, you have to e-mail them for the price.

 

[Jagan Seshadri]

Despite having weighed in with some technical banter myself, I agree with Mark Jany's non-technical sentiments wholeheartedly.
It's just easier to form technical arguments than to guess marketing outcomes. The final outcome will likely be universal players quite frankly, unless the formats magically become separated from record company conglomerates.
Just be thankful that the DVD group was established for video, and that Sony didn't come up with some proprietary digital video format for consumers, otherwise we'd only be watching movies made by studios owned by Sony. It is because of the success of DVD-Video that I'll be rooting for DVD-Audio.
As the Sesame Street song said "Co-operation...Makes it happen...Co-operation.. Working together!"
-JNS

 

[John Kotches]

Jagan,
SACD was released as a seperate format because Sony couldn't get WG-4 to accept it as an alternative coding scheme within the DVD-Audio specfication.
The economic downturn might have come at just the wrong time for either of these formats to succeed, but I really do hope that one of them survives.
I'm not sure who I give the edge to, Sony is a marketing juggernaut, and I think that Progressive Scan will make it to all but the dirt cheap players at CES2002. By CEDIA 2002 I look for all DVD players not from Sony/Philips that aren't dirt cheap to have DVD-A capability as well. These are just my opinions, which you all are welcome to ignore
Regards,

 

[PatrickM]

John Morris,

Patrick,

Are you saying that the America Homecoming disc has a 24/192 stereo track? I was not aware that Warner/Rhino had released anything in 24/192. Have you compared it to the CD?

Yes, the America Homecoming DVD-A has all its 2 channel tracks in 24/192 albeit from an original analog tape. I was surprised as anyone. I decided to pick this up at a local B&M and when I got home I listened to the multi-channel track first and checked out the resolution and found it to be 24/96 like normal but when I went to listen to the two channel tracks it came up as 24/192. That really surprised me.

I have not compared it to the original CD but I'm thinking about going out and getting it to do a comparison.

Patrick

 

[KeithH]

Patrick, thanks for the info. The inclusion of a 24/192 stereo track on the America disc surprises me too. Is the stereo track on the same side as the 24/96 5.1 track? I have always read that the 192-kHz sampling rate hasn't been utilized much because a 24/192 track won't fit on the same side as a 24/96 5.1 track. I would imagine the America disc has a Dolby Digital track on one side of the disc and the DVD-Audio material on the other side. Maybe they can fit the 24/96 5.1 and 24/192 tracks on one side if the playback time is short enough.

 

[PatrickM]

Keith,

The disc is single sided and has all ten tracks available in 24/96 multi-channel, 24/192 stereo, DD5.1 and DTS5.1. So that kind of dispels the rumour about not enough space I'd say.

It also has photos and a bonus audio interview of the making of the album with the band members.

I love Ventura Highway in multi-channel. The acoustic guitar is very nice.

Patrick