IMHO SACD is the best sounding format for digital. I love analog sound but came late to the game and never accumulated the equipment and LPs to make it worthwhile. SACD gets closer than anything to analog as far as my ears are concerned. It has incredible detail, tonal accuracy, and soundstaging combined with utterly liquid effortlessnees that allows you to listen for hours very carefully without fatigue. I have a few Mahler symphonies on SACD if you know what I mean.
The important thing to remember about SACD is that it is not a PCM format like CD or DVD-A or MP3 but completely different. All PCM formats I would argue are fundamentally flawed in the way they sample the analogue waveform - they literally chop it up, and regardless of the bitsize or rate, you are always going to get that digital edge and grain with PCM. SACD's approach is called Direct Stream Digital (DSD), which samples 1 bit at 2.8 MHz, allowing a far greater approximation of an analogue waveform which one could conceptualize as a 0 bit with an infinite sample rate (?). At least that's how I understand it so it may very well be wrong. Also, most SACDs to have 5.1 mixes so I agree as someone else said that you are getting an engineer's interpretation with the mix, but all have 2 channel mixes as well (my preference) that are usually direct remasterings of original analog masters (in the case of older recordings). Love it. I have done ABCDE... testing with my squeezebox and my Sony SACD player. There is some music (Kind of Blue, Dark Side of the Moon, Sketches of Spain) which I have on both CD and SACD, so I've ripped it in low bit rate MP3, FLAC, full WAV. I can then compare those formats with CD and SACD on the Sony. MP3 is appallingly bad, completely uninvolving and just wrong. I also have some music in WMA when I was using WM Player, and it's not really much better. I can't believe people tolerate it, but I'm sure those little white earbuds have a lot to do with it. FLAC is great, but is actually noticeably inferior to WAV/CD -- the tonality of instruments is quite good to my ear, but the soundstage shrinks and flattens out. I think you're loosing too much of the higher harmonics/overtones that are nearly imperceptible but still give us our spacial cues (think of how you can actually hear objects/space when you close your eyes or have the lights out even though they aren't emitting sound). WAV/CD is fine but inevitably has that sheen or edge in the higher frequencies that to my ear is a little grating and leads to fatigue. Nevertheless, a very cool thing is that I cannot hear the difference between the SB3 and the Sony-- or rather, I can hear a little difference, but each is equally satisfying, like say a Bordeaux and a Rioja, or perhaps a left vs. right bank Bordeaux. SACD is, as I said before, utterly liquid, effortless, and the closest thing to the real thing I've ever heard (but I've never heard a really outstanding analog system). With this in mind, when it comes to my CD collection I've decided to rip all rock/electrically amplified music as FLAC, with a few exceptions. Typically, unremastered rock CDs that I've had for years are fine in FLAC. All jazz and classical goes in as full WAV. The only discs I have out for playing in the Sony now are SACDs, again with some exceptions or if I have something new I want to check out. I love the SB3/SqueezeCenter for everyday listening or parties etc., but ultimately SACD is the most satisfying for sheer listening pleasure. Any music I am really serious about I buy on SACD if possible, and if it's a hybrid CD/SACD disc then I rip it as full WAV too. I think we've all had the experience of hearing something so good that you can't go back. That's what SACD is for me. Anyhow, long post, but that's my experience. Cheers, B -- rhizomaticon SB3 + DIY FreeNAS server w/SlimNAS + SqueezeCenter 7.0 Sony C555ES CD/SACD Creek 0BH-12 Musical Fidelity A3CR Hafler 500 4-way DIY transmission line towers with Scan-Speak Tweets, rest Peerless (Bi-Amped) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ rhizomaticon's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=15312 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=45839 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
