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SACD - worth the investment ?

Quite why record companies never released music as 24/96 on vanilla DVD is a mystery. I picked up a couple of these at US shows years ago and they sound great. I suppose they were wedded to the DVDA format which died a betamax like death.
 
I got aNeil Young Collection which had a vanilla CD and an audio only DVD, the latter sounded ace. Must dig it out and see if I can rip it.

Last night because I was reading this thread, I played a DG Elgar violin concerto in SACD. I opened the case which was covered inSACD, DSD logos then read that the SACD 2ch layer was 24/96 PCM.quite confusing, because I don't think my Lindemann SACD player does 24/96 PCM. Can only assume it's a PCM recording transferred to SACD? ....still sound better than CD though......


How the big labels must be missing their halcyon days when they could charge £15 for a CD, twenty bloody years ago.
 
lennyw said:
I am sure the OP has long ago stopped reading this thread...
Click to expand...

too right !

I've been off listening to music ;) I ignored "experts" and moved my speakers but thats going on another posting.

I'll come back to this one in a few weeks to see what you have all decided.
 
Can someone 'splain something to me?

If SACD players are superior to CD players, how is it that so few audiophile companies have bothered to make one?

Joe
 
Hardly any, except Wadia, Linn, McIntosh, Teac Esoteric, Marantz, Sony, Lindemann, dCS, EMM Labs, Vitus, Arcam, Shanling, Xindak, probably quite a few actually.
 
Joe P said:
If SACD players are superior to CD players, how is it that so few audiophile companies have bothered to make one?
Click to expand...
The likely answer is that the Scarlet Book licensing is hugely expensive. If you want to build a Red Book player from scratch, you need the expensive license but most of the time you would acquire the licensed components from specialist sources, typically you get the transport from Sony or Philips. This delivers its output in standard format and the remainder (system control, power supply, converters etc.) are all fabricated either out of standard parts or supplied as chips or modules from OEM sources.

Scarlet Book (SACD) is different insofar as the transport is highly specialised (it has to support Pit Signal Processing) and I believe that this plus the specialist chips that handle the data encryption can only be sourced by licensees.

What it probably comes down to is that it's just too expensive an exercise unless you are charging a small fortune or are an international corporate whose total sales justify the licensing costs.

N.B. the foregoing is not definitive, it's derived from my observations and a bit of guesswork. Part of the problem is that the full Ts & Cs of these licenses is not in the public domain so we don't really know under exactly what restrictions licensees operate.
 
Alan,

Hardly any, except Wadia, Linn, McIntosh, Teac Esoteric, Marantz, Sony, Lindemann, dCS, EMM Labs, Vitus, Arcam, Shanling, Xindak, probably quite a few actually.
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What I meant was why doesn't every audiophile company that makes a CD player also make an SACD player.

I know some have, as noted in your list, but if SACD is the dog's danglies I'd expect every audio company of any reasonable size to offer a player.

Joe

P.S. Plotox -- It can't be that expensive. My first DVD player, a $200 unit, also played SACDs.
 
Great shame the SACD format did'nt take off - I hate the idea of downloading music - fathing around with networks and DACs and the three absolute killers for me no artwork / packaging, sleeve notes etc, no resale value and having to back up your data - 100% depreciation on purchase.

How many people building a downloaded music collection keep a backup away from home? does insurance cover provide cover for a downloaded music collection?
 
Joe P said:
Alan,


What I meant was why doesn't every audiophile company that makes a CD player also make an SACD player.

I know some have, as noted in your list, but if SACD is the dog's danglies I'd expect every audio company of any reasonable size to offer a player.
Click to expand...

The only companies of reasonable size I can think of that didn't offer an SACD player are Naim, Cyrus, Quad, Meridian and Mark Levinson.

I forgot to include Krell, Accuphase, Luxman and Yamaha in the list that did. I am wondering if the fact that all Japanese manufacturers did and still do in their current ranges is significant.

Depends what reasonable size company means too.

But so what anyway?..... I'm sure perceived sound quality had nothing to do with any hifi companies' decisions to offer SACD playback or not, and they were far more driven by the hope that it might help them sell more players!
 
gerard said:
Great shame the SACD format did'nt take off - I hate the idea of downloading music - fathing around with networks and DACs and the three absolute killers for me no artwork / packaging, sleeve notes etc, no resale value and having to back up your data - 100% depreciation on purchase.

How many people building a downloaded music collection keep a backup away from home? does insurance cover provide cover for a downloaded music collection?
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You raise a very interesting point. Downloaded music no longer has any intrinsic value. I had never actually considered that, although to be fair I've never sold any of my records or CDs. However having recently met someone who purports to own 96,000 records ( no kidding) one has to consider the value of that against 96,000 downloaded albums. I'm not even sure how you'd go about selling downloaded music, or even if your entitled to..
 
Joe P said:
Can someone 'splain something to me?

If SACD players are superior to CD players, how is it that so few audiophile companies have bothered to make one?

Joe
Click to expand...

Pretty much the opposite. Hardly any audiophile companies still make standalone CD players that are not SACD. Companies like Esoteric, Krell, Mark Levinson etc have all dropped standalone CD players ... moved to SACD. CD as an audiophile format seems finished. The new hi-end players are almost all either hi-rez SACD players (either stereo or multi-channel) or hi-rez network players.
 
Joe P said:
Can someone 'splain something to me?

If SACD players are superior to CD players, how is it that so few audiophile companies have bothered to make one?

Joe
Click to expand...

Check out the review of the new Krell Cipher in the August 2011 Hi-Fi Choice:

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/au...ecorders/krell-cipher-989164/review?artc_pg=1


HFC350.krell.cipher_main-728-75.jpg


Hi-Fi Choice Issue 350 - August 2011
=================================================================
"Playing SACDs on the Cipher forcibly demonstrates the limitations of conventional Red Book CD.
SACD offers a transparent openness, plus a wealth of fine detail that even the best CDs can't match.
There's a predictable 'sameness' about CD that SACD eliminates – the latter has a far wider range of tone colours and dynamics.

If anything, the Cipher widens the sonic gap between SACD and CD. On difficult, demanding SACDs, the
extra detail and information being delivered over CD is really apparent."

==================================================================
 
Or for £670 you could have a Marantz KI Pearl Lite

This SACD player also has a USB input on the front panel and a full set of S/PDIF and optical TOSLINK in and outputs. It can be used as a D/A converter, typically with an iPod with a digital output, or to provide a digital feed for a recorder.

GlH7xPN5d1BmXqmvLTxpoNt4ECu9NWcFVz2-eOBpAdMZb9NFE1AbKQOxFoeCLQPCzhgY2FemMclTWrbVwgwV_bGW_47ZGqZkYNj-jgbpS86vsqi2XsgV8EAtpqwYwJiev5oZmem__a-K5uzgUvN8-Z5mwiCMK_bdN9Swi2BkJEhheSrsXQU
 
Audiophile companies making SACD ...
alanbeeb said:
Wadia, Linn, McIntosh, Teac Esoteric, Marantz, Sony, Lindemann, dCS, EMM Labs, Vitus, Arcam, Shanling, Xindak, probably quite a few actually.
Click to expand...

And don't forget:
Accuphase, Goldmund, NAD, Ayre, Cary, TAD, Mark Levinson, Krell, Constellation, Playback Designs, T+A, NBS + all the Japanese hi-fi companies
 
gerard said:
Great shame the SACD format did'nt take off - I hate the idea of downloading music - fathing around with networks and DACs and the three absolute killers for me no artwork / packaging, sleeve notes etc, no resale value and having to back up your data - 100% depreciation on purchase.

How many people building a downloaded music collection keep a backup away from home? does insurance cover provide cover for a downloaded music collection?
Click to expand...

I certainly do.

Personally, I laud the demise of physical media. Once your collection becomes a worthwhile size, it becomes physically intrusive, and ugly, & if it is a vinyl collection, smelly.

A NAS can be tucked away out of sight. And surely no one misses searching for an individual amongst 1000's of others? And god help you if the CD is mis-filed. It's effectively lost. Oe worse still, a CD gets replaced in the wrong jewel case!

Chris
 
Great it works for you Chris - however not for me I, am too fond of the physical artifact - I like to collect stuff (particularly 'old' vinyl).

In my ideal future everybody will have a choice and 'downloads' will exist alongside physical media (ideally something better than quality CD). Hopefully the business world will continue to allow me to purchase the physical object and the equipment to play it on.
 
Does anybody know of insurance cover that provide cover for a downloaded music collection? Would be worth checking if your sinking a chunk of cash into downloads over a long period.

Maybe as the download industry matures it needs to look into a way of consumers getting back lost/destroyed downloads without having to pay the full retail cost again?
 
I really wonder what drives the hi-fi mags to say that SACD is a failed format.
I looked at the back of a recent copy of Hi-Fi Plus and 5 of the 6 reviewed classical albums were SACD.
Makes sense to me, not!
 
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