Hi-Rez Highway

Posted by Ted Smith (B) on July 01, 2008 at 17:11:19

In Reply to: RE: What do you notice most in regard to SACD vs Redbook of the same title? posted by Robert C. Lang on July 01, 2008 at 16:09:52

Howdy

Random thoughts:

Many (most) SACD/CD players don't present SACD and CD exactly the same. We hear a lot of people saying that SACD does this or that better than CD, but IMO it's often not as true as the reporter thinks:

If a player has too much bite on CD the owner may choose cables, speakers, whatever, which ameliorate this, perhaps at the expense of SACD playback. Conversely some feel that SACD has a velvet curtain and might voice their system to enhance the highs which for some players will make some CDs quite sharp.

Some people only have a handful of SACDs (or perhaps a few hundred) and extrapolate from them. The problem is that after you control for various variables this narrows that down to just a few samples in each category(e.g. how many discs do you have that are, say, mastered in DSD and use Sony's Super Bit map to produce the CD layer? How about with a 24/96 digital source with the DSD produced with an analog console?...)

Another problem is that many cheaper players use, say, DSD based DACs and tho I believe CD can be done well with them, not everyone agrees. Then there is Esoteric whose earlier DSD offerings converted DSD to PCM...

I do think there are players that do extremely well with both formats, but even then there are people I respect who disagree about those players.

-Ted

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