advertisement


SACD - worth the investment ?

H

hughmc2

pfm Member
Feedback please.....

I currently have an Arcam CD23 which obviously reads HDCD. The difference between red book and HDCD is incredible but the choice of avaliable HDCD discs is not great. Basically you have Yes, Roxy Music or American Country & Western ( yes...generalising a bit but you get my drift )

My question is - is it worth selling my CD23 ( losing the joy of the DCS Ring Dac ) and buying a quality 2nd hand SACD player so as to have a greater choice of discs.

Do existing owners find the increased cost of the SACD's stops them buying enough discs to justify the original outlay ? Will I get a player that sounds as good as the Ring Dac on Red book ?

Stick or twist ???
 
If you like Diana Krall Amazon have 'Girl in the Other Room' on SACD Hybrid for £11.99 delivered - well reviewed in terms of sound improvement over bog standard red book CD.
Dave.
 
Yes, seems so.

I went on ebay last night and there were about 400 in the rock section alone.

I think it might do a "vinyl" one day. I used to go to a local car boot and pick up LP's no problems. Some real bargains. Now I have to get there at 5.00am, limber up, then race around hoping to get something before all our vinyl heads off to eastern europe. I kid you not, one guy takes a fu%!in modified sack-truck and doesn't even look at the LP's. Just buys everything he gets to first.......records never to be seen this side of the channel again.
 
Buy a cheap universal player and just enjoy the occasional sacdtrack. The alternative is to go hi-res......Squeezebox touch.
 
mudlark said:
Buy a cheap universal player and just enjoy the occasional sacdtrack. The alternative is to go hi-res......Squeezebox touch.
Click to expand...
Something like the Sony Blue Ray players do SACD, and pretty well, too.

I wouldn't worry about Hi-res, just yet. No-one has yet been able to prove there is an audible difference, but it makes a good selling point.
 
mudlark said:
Buy a cheap universal player and just enjoy the occasional sacdtrack. The alternative is to go hi-res......Squeezebox touch.
Click to expand...

Not really keen on the hi-res route but a universal player for occasional....now that's great lateral thinking :D
 
There are a number of considerations you need to make before deciding on this:

1. Music taste: what do you listen to most, and what is the likelihood that SACDs are going to come out in your preferred areas.
a. Classical -- there are an enormous amount of classical SACDs available, and it seems the pace of releases is, in general, remaining pretty constant. Most of the orchestra own-label releases are SACD (RCO/SFSO/CSO/BaySO/etc) and the likes of BIS, Channel Classics and others are supporting the format pretty fully. As mentioned above, even more comes out it Japan, but this can end up being expensive
b. Jazz -- lots of 1950s/1960s re-issues at Analogue Productions which I'm sure sound fantastic, but not a lot of modern stuff
c. Rock -- some things are still around, some, like Dire Straits, are released at €50 in Japan, but can be got from your local amazon site direct
Other type of music seem to be fairly poorly represented.

2. It is important to get a good player. Many of the cheap CD/SACD combos are not really serious machines (like the PS3 or DVD players that throw in SACD) though it might be agood place to start -- a SH one off ebay for a couple of hunderd €/£/$ might be the way to go. The highest rated "reasonably priced" players (ca €1000) are the Marantz 8003, the Oppo BD-95 (which can do all the media streaming, and blu-ray playing to boot) and the SonySCD XA-5400ES, which is the one I bought (though is apparently no longer in production). Each has their fans, but as I've not heard the other two, I can't comment. AS someone with 4000+CDs and maybe 200 SACDs, I was taken by Stereophile's Kal Rubinson who said that it was the best CD player he'd heard.

Hi-rez on line is making slow progress, and I guess it depends on how much you want to have physical product.

Whatever you decide, check out sa-cd.net. Loads of info (and loads of opinionated SOBs, so tread carefully, someone's always ready to bit you in the a$$, whatever your viewpoint). The best thing about the site is the search function, as every SACD released is on there.

Let us know what you decide.

[EDIT] By the way, orchestral music on SACD sounds incredible, a huge jump from CD. Just try the SFSO Mahlers to hear the difference.
 
Two connected issues with SACDs, and the reason I've not bothered is that firstly there's no digital output on a SACD player (unless it's converted to PCM, which rather defeats the object), so I can't use them with my digital only 'speakers, and secondly, and more importantly, one can't rip an SACD for my Squeezebox, which is now my main source.

I see SACD as a real dead-end. If one wants more than Red-Book CD (and I really question why one would), there's higher resolution PCM available, not this peculiar went-nowhere system.

S.
 
sergeauckland said:
Two connected issues with SACDs, and the reason I've not bothered is that firstly there's no digital output on a SACD player (unless it's converted to PCM, which rather defeats the object), so I can't use them with my digital only 'speakers, and secondly, and more importantly, one can't rip an SACD for my Squeezebox, which is now my main source.
Click to expand...

There's quite a few players that can stream unadulterated DSD (encrypted) over HDMI, with a few processors and what not having the ability to decode this DSD. There was also a few setup that sent the DSD stream over a firewire style connection (e.g. Denon), but again encrypted and also little compatibility. Doesn't help you with your digital speakers, but I just wanted to clarify the point.
Regarding ripping, apparently there's been some progress using old 60GB PS3's with an old firmware. Bit of a phaff and not really for those with some coding/hacking skills. Some info here: http://www.ps3sacd.com/
 
Arfa said:
There's quite a few players that can stream unadulterated DSD (encrypted) over HDMI, with a few processors and what not having the ability to decode this DSD. There was also a few setup that sent the DSD stream over a firewire style connection (e.g. Denon), but again encrypted and also little compatibility. Doesn't help you with your digital speakers, but I just wanted to clarify the point.
Regarding ripping, apparently there's been some progress using old 60GB PS3's with an old firmware. Bit of a phaff and not really for those with some coding/hacking skills. Some info here: http://www.ps3sacd.com/
Click to expand...


The issue of playing/ripping SACDs is that the result usually needs to come out as PCM before a PC or external DAC can do anything with it. There are very few DACs with native DSD decoding, I can only think of the DCS unit offhand although there may be a few others. If one is going to go to PCM, why bother with starting off with DSD? Might as well stick with Red-Book CD or higher resolution PCM formats if one must have them.

What I can't understand is why bother? SACD can offer multichannel, but very few of them do, and so could that other dead format, DVD-A. It seems that multichannel music only (i.e. without accompanying video) is of real minority interest, as witnessed by the failure of DVD-A, and the I believe, complete lack of any music-only BDs.

S.
 
SACd's that I play are only two channel because I haven't a processor that does multichannel analogue from DVD to power amps.

My occasional DVD player is a Pioneer 600. Small and produces excellent results for the price. Now a days I might go for a bluray player for the odd film etc. The problem is I'm not prepared to pay for a new processor, and the extra speakers, stands/wires and amplifiers needed. multichannel can get stupidly expensive. i keep mine cheap by sticking to 5.1.
 
To be honest though there's more SACD than decent high quality PCM source material from reputable sources, so even if it does have to be output as pcm it's still better than cd, hopefully.
 
A lot of mis-information here.

Almost all SACDs have a stereo and multi-channel mix.

In one sentence: SACD offers the clarity of CD and the warmth of LP, with a seeming limitless range.

Regardless of type of music, SACD is much better than CD, and if SQ is paramount to you, then this is still the only current direction realistically available (no doubt Hi-res DLs will be around soon, but at the moment it's chaos).

Like I said, a quick browse of sa-cd.net will tell you all you need to know. Most of the posters here seem to have made their minds up about the format in about 1999!

[EDIT] why would you want to output the SACD signal digitally -- you're DAC wouldn't be able to do anything with the signal anyway?
 
my requirements are varied.

Primarily I want the sound quality and the diversity of music choice.

My computer is at one end of the house and my stereo is at the other. I don't really want to join the two together because as I sit at a computer all day at work the last thing I want to do is go home to use another one. ( regardless of how it's packaged ).

Relaxation to me is getting away from technology and into the music.

Sounds like an SACD player of some kind may have to come.

On that matter...........how many plugs can you connect up to one socket before it becomes a fire hazard. I currently ( no pun intended ) have an Arcam A32, CD23, Denon TU1800, MF X-Can V2, Graham Slee Reflex Era Gold, Michell Gyro SE, B&W 608 sub and a table lamp...all into 1 socket ??? I don't think I'm anywhere near the 3000w I've read about.

Probably wouldn't be a good idea moving the tumble-dryer into the living room though.;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top