SACD flawed to begin with? S&V David Ranada's article: (1 Viewer)

[Garrett Lundy]

If they didn't want SACD/DVD-A to stall out the gates then they shouldn't have made CD so damned good 20+ years ago! (Which, despite golden-eared claims, is an effective "transparent" 2-channel stereo medium for 99.999% of humans on 99.999% of material. Name 10 people you know who can hear 18,000Hz let alone 40,000Hz).

 

[Rommel_L]

It's either you go 5.0 or 5.1, pick one. If you go 5.0, then you will take full advantage of the 5 identical speakers' full range (if the speakers are really that good in reproducing the low frequencies). If you go 5.1, the speakers will only reproduce down to the low frequency cut-off (50-80hz range, depending on the listener) and the subwoofer will handle all the frequencies below that. If the speakers don't have a low frequency cut-off point, it will muddy up the lower frequencies.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

"If they didn't want SACD/DVD-A to stall out the gates then they shouldn't have made CD so damned good 20+ years ago!"

C'mon Garrett, no intelligent record engineer thinks 16/44 is a great format. If you get several of them in the room eventually they complain about the format. That's why so many like hirez whether its DSD or 24/88.2 or higher. It just sounds so much better. It's also why almost all audiophile record labels are recording in a hirez format like Chesky with 24/96 or Channel with DSD.

 

[Rommel_L]

Lee,

You have to take into consideration of the quality of the source and how it was mixed/produced before it is converted to PCM 16/44...

 

[Chris Gerhard]

Is Chesky still in business? I have been unable to order or contact the company from their site. I think CD sounds fine, although I like SACD and DVD-A better. I still haven't found either to be enough better to replace stereo CD's with stereo high resolution, although there are likely some examples where I might if I heard it but based on the stereo SACD and DVD-A comparisons to CD I have made, that would be a very rare exception. The difference will almost never be worth the cost to me.

Chris

 

[JeremyErwin]

I have a Sony SCD-2000ES. It has settings for speaker distance, speaker size, and level matching. Yes, I suppose it would be more pure to run the six channels into my receiver unmodified. But, my Onkyo TX-SR502 is lowly enough that it does not provide bass management for the multichannel inputs. And since I use a sat-sub instead of full-range speakers, I would prefer not to miss any low end material that made into the L,C,R,Rs, or Ls channel.

And, yes, I have run Fourier analyses on the various outputs. Dark Side of the Moon is not "bass-managed". It has an LFE track accompanying 5 full range tracks.

 

[Phil A]

You mean there are intelligent record engineers' I think what was likely meant is that CD was billed as 'perfect sound forever.' Many people are satisfied with MP3s. Many are also unconcerned with other factors as long as the sound is clean and undistorted. They're not going to sit there like us neurotic audiophiles and say the strings sound edgy on 16/44. Lots of good stuff can be done with CD like what was done with XRCD. I'd be perfectly happy if they gave us 24/96 DADs on DVD-Vs instead of CDs.

 

[ChristopherDAC]

From a qualitative perspective, combining mathematics with psychoacoustics, the 16 bit 44.1 kHz PCM Compact Disc qualifies as "very good". Is it perfect? No.
To fully match the auditory characteristics of someone with excellent hearing [not most of today's population, accustomed to loud distorted music and headphones, and not most recording engineers either] requires something more like 60 kHz and 20 bits. To make a master recording for manipulation and post-processing, you really want more. 24-96 PCM is excellent, and I wouldn't say no to 24-192, although I really consider something with that kind of bitrate less than an optimum choice.

As a matter of fact, when Sony and Philips introduced the Compact Disc, they were roundly criticised for some of their choices. In particular, they went with the 44.1 kHz sampling frequency which had emerged [in 14-bit implementations] from Sony's work on the EIAJ digital-audio adaptors designed to interface with early home VCRs, rather than the 48 kHz which was becoming the standard for professional recordings. Some parties had militated for 60 kHz from the beginning, for a better match with human auditory characteristics and TV and film production framerates (and to move the "knee" in PCM response at 1/3 the sampling frequency out of the audible band), but it didn't get adopted because it was not possible, at first, to build equipment which would record it.
The 16-bit depth was generally accepted at that time, although there was a push for making the professional formats extensible beyond that, for one simple reason : it was almost impossible to manufacture ADCs and DACs which would yield true 16-bit performance. In fact, it remains true that building a suite of recording or reproducing equipment which will actually use the dynamic range and signal-to-noise ratio of even 16-bit linear PCM is beyond difficult, and most studios, not to speak of listening environments, do not have -96 dB noise floor, much less 144 dB!

 

[Rommel_L]

Not really. Anybody who owns a Denon 5806 only means they can afford to buy one, not necessarily know how to use it. Again, this has nothing to do with SACD's so-called flaws as the writer has stated. If you really want to be a critical listener (a real audiophile???), it's not enough to have right equipment, but also the right listening environment. You have to differentiate the the two - critical listening environment and home theater environment...

 

[JeremyErwin]

A piece of marketing fluff white paper on sacd and bass management.

afaik, the same basic design is used in the player I use.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

"You have to take into consideration of the quality of the source and how it was mixed/produced before it is converted to PCM 16/44"

??? On an SACD there is no 16/44 which is why they sound so good. Most SACDs are pure DSD or analog to DSD transfers and BOTH of those sound great.

"Is Chesky still in business?"

Of course, in fact they are working on a jazz series in Super Audio right now.

"In fact, it remains true that building a suite of recording or reproducing equipment which will actually use the dynamic range and signal-to-noise ratio of even 16-bit linear PCM is beyond difficult, and most studios, not to speak of listening environments, do not have -96 dB noise floor, much less 144 dB!"

This is not true Chris. First, most mics and recording equipment now can easily record extended frequencies from DSD. Second, the noise floor on redbook is not inaudibly low. That is also part of the benefit from the hirez formats. That's been shown in several AES papers.

Takeo Yamamoto's work with 24/96 has used RXY blind testing to prove the preference for hirez among normal listeners as well.

 

[JeremyErwin]

Frequency response is not measured in dB

 

[ChristopherDAC]

Did I say the Redbook noise floor was "inaudibly low"? Nope. I said it wasn't, but that the combination of environmental noise and equipment noise factor in most situations adds up to a higher level — usually considerably higher — thus making improvements perceptible only with difficulty. I didn't say there was "no improvement", I said that under most conditions, and with most people's hearing, the improvement is not too noticable.

 

[LanceJ]

Christopher G said
Bingo.

This applies to me also. If a recording is really good to start with AND the music is important to me, I will buy the hi-res version (this includes stereo-only recordings). Otherwise........

 

[Lee Scoggins]

"If a recording is really good to start with AND the music is important to me, I will buy the hi-res version (this includes stereo-only recordings). "

That seems perfectly reasonable to me. I do agree that a quality mastering really lets the hirez formats shine through best...

" I didn't say there was "no improvement", I said that under most conditions, and with most people's hearing, the improvement is not too noticable."

I don't think people's hearing is the limiting factor though, I think it is their critical listening skills and the overall resolution of their system.

 

[Rommel_L]

Huh?

 

[PaulDA]

I don't know about anyone else, but proper time alignment is certainly a crucial factor, as it proper bass management, in my system. In fact, having experimented with a number of setup options, I ultimately chose to deliberately (gasp!) take my DSD signal from my universal's analogue output and DIGITIZE it (my receiver applies time alignment and bass management to the MCH analogue input) as I prefer the steeper slope of my receiver's bass management settings (as well as the flexible xover point) AND my room makes it impossible for me to have my speakers in the ITU configuration. Without the time alignment, the echo effect described above is most certainly bothersome in my room. Moreover, I do ALL of my critical listening in that room. And with that critical listening, I've discerned that coverting the DSD signal to PCM is indistinguishable to my ears (I've A/Bed it many, many times) whereas not adjusting the time alignment is noticeably inferior.

 

[Phil A]

Here is an interesting review/article that covers some of what has been discussed above:

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue26/dsd.htm