It's SACD for me! (1 Viewer)

[Ron Reda]

Just this past Friday, I picked up 4 new high rez titles; Big Phat Band "XXL" (DVD-A), Santana "Supernatural" (DVD-A), Foo Fighters "One By One" (DVD-A) and Elton John "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" (SACD). After checking out all four titles, I came to the conclusion that, while both formats sound excellent (depending on the source material), the DVD-A authoring is the pits! It's bad enough that I have to hook my player up to my monitor in order to see what I'm playing, but then I had to put up with navigating the horrible menus on the Foo Fighters disc just to choose between the stereo and surround tracks. AFAIC, music (high rez or not) is all about popping in the disc and enjoying and IMO that's difficult to do with DVD-A, but not so with SACD. So, unless there's some knockout material coming out on DVD-A in the near future, I think I'll be strictly an SACD kinda guy!

 

[Phil A]

Ron, it is indeed unfortunate that DVD-A has a spec available that will allow some to toggle between the stereo and multi-channel layers by using the audio button. They should make that the std. I find having stereo has a preference on most discs, the interface to be quite annoying.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

My player readily indicates whether a DVD-A is playing high-res, regular-res, stereo, or multichannel (and what track is playing).

Regardless, my purchases are all based on my love of the artists and the albums. I buy both formats.

 

[LanceJ]

I'm a surround guy so for me dvd-audio presents no problems:

I put the disc on the tray, push "play" and it plays.

The only time dvd-audios are a bother (& only certain titles) is when I want to see a video or check out the stereo track, which is maybe once or twice a month.

My Pioneer DV-656A also indicates what format it is playing.

Though I do wish they would operate just like a CD, I also understand there is more to most dvd-audios than just the hi-res tracks. In other words: Dolby 5.1 or DTS 5.1 tracks; stereo Dolby; videos; special animated graphics that go with the music (Flaming Lips frequency waveform imagery); artist interviews; the "play along" feature on the Megadeth dvd-audio; that A/B comparison system on the Elv1s dvd-audio, etc, etc.

The only thing I truly dislike about CERTAIN dvd-audios (not all have these characteristics)? Discs that start all by themselves when I never pushed "play" in the first place; menu music that never stops repeating; and discs that DON'T stop at the end of the album but keep repeating.

I'm still waiting for a player manufacturer to have the cojones(sp) to build a player that overides discs that are authored with moronic operating systems & plays the disc the way the user wants it to play. This can't be difficult since a dvd player is basically just a specialized computer with hardware and software.

LJ

 

[Phil A]

My main player also indicates what is playing, the problem is getting there do the the variations in authoring. As Lance noted he is a surround guy for DVD-A and the way most discs are authored that usually is not much of a problem on the discs that I have. I am in the minority on this forum, I like surround and have a first rate set-up but prefer the stereo mixes on 85% or even of bit more of what I have. When there is a choice of DVD-A or SACD (e.g. Universal) I will either get the SACD of hold-off in those cases in which there is a chance (Universal)of it being on SACD. For other labels I just buy what music I like. Universal should stop fence sitting and just release one format, whichever one it is. Just saw a post on the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road thread, that someone will likely hold-out for the DVD-A version. I think Universal is just hurting hi-res by playing both sides of the fence. I usually have enough music laying around to listen to, not to mention movies, that I can wait and see what happens on most things.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

I think Universal is just hurting hi-res by playing both sides of the fence.

Did the studios hurt the home video industry by supporting Beta, VHS, CED, Laserdisc, and even (to a degree) 8mm?

Supporting all formats is fan-friendly. Disregard the fans, and then you are killing all interest in high-res.

If anything, Crest has hurt SACD. They are the main reason I have not been tempted to purchase the GYBR SACD.

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

Ron, it is indeed unfortunate that DVD-A has a spec available that will allow some to toggle between the stereo and multi-channel layers by using the audio button. They should make that the std. ...

No they should not. This would force them to time align the stereo and multi-channel mixes which would be an uneccesary constraint on the mixers in a situation where there is no need to synchronize with video. You can't switch between multi-channel and stereo on the fly with SACD's either, but the method is always the same, which makes it less confusing.

Regards,

 

[Chris_Eff]

I must be lazy but I agree with Ron. When I want to listen to music I just want to put in a disk and let it go. I buy music to listen to it not watch a video to go with it. While the extra video content is a nice feature I will only watch it once maybe twice but listen to the album many times, not worth it fighting through menus to get my album ready IMO.

If anything, Crest has hurt SACD. They are the main reason I have not been tempted to purchase the GYBR SACD.

While I was scared as well Michael, I picked up both GBYR and Tommy both with spindles from hell. I have played both as much now (if not more great disks) as some of the other known crest crackers, when those started displaying cosmetic cracks, with no signs of cracking at all. Plus at Best Buy you can get the GBYR 2 disk hybrid SACD of the album plus a dvd for $28 a little more than a normal DVD-A.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

While I was scared as well Michael, I picked up both GBYR and Tommy both with spindles from hell. I have played both as much now (if not more great disks) as some of the other known crest crackers, when those started displaying cosmetic cracks, with no signs of cracking at all. Plus at Best Buy you can get the GBYR 2 disk hybrid SACD of the album plus a dvd for $28 a little more than a normal DVD-A.

I'm still a little concerned about the 'oil bubbles' that people are reporting, and potential long-term issues that may arise as a result.

FYI, the DVD is missing the 45 minutes of extras that appear on the stand-alone documentary.

 

[Rich Malloy]

If anything, Crest has hurt SACD. They are the main reason I have not been tempted to purchase the GYBR SACD.

That is a problematic issue, but the reason I've eluded temptation are the reports regarding EQ problems on this SACD (that is, eq'd much too bright). It was also reported in a thread here that the EQ'ing of the stereo hi-res track on "Toys in the Attic" was poor (distinct lack of bass as compared to surround remix). High resolution can only get you so far; proper mastering is crucial.

To this day, the finest Elton CD I've heard is a CD-R needle-drop of the Steve Hoffman mastered DCC LP of "Madman Across the Water"... even taking into account the faint surface noise when it's cranked to "11". Beats the hell out of the MOFI CD master of the same title (which is pretty damn good in it's own right). Although there aren't any identical tunes on "Madman" and the new "Goodbye" SACD, I bet the needledrop CD-R sounds better, generally speaking.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

I love the MoFi 'Madman' gold disc...I need to hear the needle drop.

FYI, I wholeheartedly agree that mastering trumps resolution in the digital formats (all the formats, really).

 

[Rich Malloy]

Michael, I've also got the MoFi "Madman" disc (perhaps from you!).

But get this... I think the DCC LP needledrop is better (don't know who made it; probably one of the SH Forum guys).

Maybe we should put together a little trade again soon?

 

[Michael St. Clair]

Yeah, that was me.

 

[Rich Malloy]

There's a good chance I got DCC "Greatest Hits" from you, too! At any rate, I've got so much really nice sounding Elton (though not GBYBR), that I'm hardpressed to spend top dollar for a "too bright" disc. Or perhaps I'm trusting the wrongs sets of ears? Do none of you folks think this disc sounds tipped-up/eq'd too bright?

(Michael, if you ever want a copy of the "Madman" DCC needledrop, send me an email... I'm sure I owe ya!)

 

[Chris_Eff]

I can see how someone could make that claim but to my untrained ears it does not sound any brighter than my other multichannel SACD recordings, then again I do have a Yamaha amp

I have known people to mistake(including me)clarity for brightness, also the MC mix is really surrounding with vocals coming from all speakers in some songs increasing their presence. Plus there is all of the bass management crap with the hi-rez players that could be a ploblem. (I use no bass management.)