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In Reply to: More stringent requirements.... posted by oscar on January 31, 2003 at 05:24:54:
The provenance of a recording is seldom clear with SACD, unless the disc is from a DSD master. With DVD-A, lower resolution PCM recordings are usually encoded as originally recorded. However, I do have a few discs which sound upsampled - and you've got to think upsampling and dither when you see 88.2/24. At any rate, I would say that DVD-A is closer to the angels on this one than SACD or CD.
Follow Ups:
With SACD, you always know your getting the BEST possible. You always know your getting stereo, You always know its watermark free, You always know its at full resolution.Speculating on masters is pointless, fact is, if you like the album, it will have been remastered from the best source available, even if that is a 78 rpm record, 48khz PCM, then that is the best source they could find.
Are there any simple ways to identify upsampling?
Best
I don't believe that there is a PCM signature, but I do think that you can hear the difference between upsampling and high resolution. I find that upsampled material has the HF smoothness of high resolution but lacks the detail, timbral accuracy, separation of voices and musical sense of high resolution. One real tipoff on orchestral works is the missing warmth on violins. If the violins sound like CD, I suspect upsampling.
I didn't say a word about SACD. I don't agree that SACD is any worse than DVD-A with regards to published information on resolution (if anything, DVD-A is worse about misleading the consumer (e.g. passing off 16/48 as "Advanced Resolution").OTOH, I have been looking with suspicion on releases which don't explicitly state "pure DSD"; even those derived from analog even though these transfers can be quite good.
Oscar,
I wasn't criticizing your post so much as augmenting your remarks based on my own experience as an audiophile shopper. I generally find it easier, in the absence of clear information from the label, with DVD-A than with SACD. The sleaziest trick is the upsampling to 96/24 - I'd rather they left it at 48/24 or 44.1/24. However, why would you set a higherv standard for DVD-A than for SACD?
Anyway, it wasn't what I tried to say or imply. I want pure DSD and maybe in the future 'pure' 24/192. In the meantime, I have to deal with older recordings from analog masters or older (relatively low) PCM masters. I would like to know what I am dealing with but don't always know and I will probably assume the worse (e.g. I now hesitate to buy Sony Pop releases from the 1990s.)I'll agree upsampling sucks if we don't know about it and are expecting better sonics than what we get. Guess we probably have to do more digging to find out the true recording heritage (easier said than done).
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