SACD Players ?

[Froggy]

Hi All,

Does anyone have any experience of SACD players?

Are they any good, how much should you spend, is it worth it, Can you get a reasonable amount of music for them ? ? ?

[Chav]

Had one for years. Can't tell the sodding difference with SACD vs ordinary CD. (even with sacd compatible fullrange speakers)

All kinda last century now.... dont use it just stick to mp3 playback (320kb+) and no faffing around swapping cds. (I'm lazy)

[Mac]

Yer, what he said I got into this but couldn't see the point - haven't used my physical player in over a year.

[Froggy]

Excellent, what a great way to save money

TBH - I'm amazed it doesn't sound better, the sampling rates and dynamic range etc are miles better...

[Mac]

I'm not massively into my music but I'll be buggered twice by a rhino if I can tell the difference

[Teacake]

Had one for years. Can't tell the sodding difference with SACD vs ordinary CD. (even with sacd compatible fullrange speakers)

All kinda last century now.... dont use it just stick to mp3 playback (320kb+) and no faffing around swapping cds. (I'm lazy)

You are joking, aren't you?

You need a 5.1 amp and speakers to get the difference between SACD and CD. Under these circumstances it's like night and day. I've got cloth ears, and I can tell the difference. If you haven't got a proper surround sound rig, it's like connecting a Blu-Ray player to a standard definition telly and saying that it's no different to standard DVD.

A properly mixed SACD (or DVD-audio for that matter) album will be steering different instruments and effects to different speakers, as well as to the sub-woofer. None of the pseudo-surround protocols (DTS:Neo for example) will even get close to the same effect on standard CDs.

To the original question, £130-150 gets you something like the Denon DVD-1940, which will do both DVD-Audio and SACD, as well as playing DVDs. There isn't a huge amount of SACD stuff out there, DVD-Audio is more common, but the few titles there are can often be brilliant (Dark Side of the Moon is superb on SACD).

[Froggy]

Ah - so on my Exposure pre-amp, dual PSU and power amp set up, I'll be missing a lot of the added material or improvements, or does it still work just as well in good old fashioned stereo.

My old Denon (CD-1500??) CD player is getting a bit long in the tooth, struggles with copies or made-up compilations, and needless to say can't play MP3 etc, so was looking at possible replacement. I'm well out of the current state of the art Hi-Fi loop.

[Chav]

You are joking, aren't you?

You need a 5.1 amp and speakers to get the difference between SACD and CD. Under these circumstances it's like night and day. I've got cloth ears, and I can tell the difference. If you haven't got a proper surround sound rig, it's like connecting a Blu-Ray player to a standard definition telly and saying that it's no different to standard DVD.

A properly mixed SACD (or DVD-audio for that matter) album will be steering different instruments and effects to different speakers, as well as to the sub-woofer. None of the pseudo-surround protocols (DTS:Neo for example) will even get close to the same effect on standard CDs.

To the original question, £130-150 gets you something like the Denon DVD-1940, which will do both DVD-Audio and SACD, as well as playing DVDs. There isn't a huge amount of SACD stuff out there, DVD-Audio is more common, but the few titles there are can often be brilliant (Dark Side of the Moon is superb on SACD).

hiya. sorry i have all the kit several times over and i cantreally tell the difference between cd and sacd. all music sources here are played through multichannel anyway. cant stand dull old 2 channel sound. neo is the effect use most here...much punchier than plII etc.

i can however very much tell the difference between a music album recorded in a quality studio and a shiite one.

eg madonna albums are always top notch (regardless of quality of tracks themselves). very punchy but crystal clear bass, excellent midrange and well defined top end. but quite a few albums are shiite. which annoys me when you pay the same price.

eg compilation albums are often very badly mastered. yes the songs are different, but where did the studio quality go. same with anything originally recorded more than 10 years ago. digitially remastered shiite is still shiite. (clarity etc)

neo does seem much better at channel selection for frequencies than other formats. its kinda pointless though for most songs as you want the music to appear to be coming from a certain direction with effects from all around (Eg crowd noise).

all rather subjective of course

[Mac]

Mine goes into a Yamaha 5.1 amp and out via those little BOSE speakers.

Don't get me wrong, it sounds great, I just can't tell the difference between them and normal CDs - well other than the fact I have to turn on the effects to get the full 5.1 effect on normal CDs.

[Teacake]

Froggy: A SACD disc should be at least as good in stereo as a normal CD. It's claimed that the higher bandwidth should give better sound when played back on an SACD player, but I wouldn't be able to tell in a blind test myself. That's in stereo. In 5.1 it's a whole other ball game.

Chav: Hi there. I don't want to teach my grandmother to suck eggs, and you're clearly knowledgeable on the subject, so please don't take it amiss if I sound like I'm trying to tell you something you've already done. But are you sure you've set up your hi-fi properly? Most 5.1 or 7.1 receivers can't decode SACD signals, so if you're connecting via coaxial or optical digital connectors you're not going to be getting the SACD signal. Instead, you'll be getting only the stereo signal, which your DTS:Neo up-mixes to pseudo-5.1. If that's the case, the reason you can't tell the difference between SACD and CD is because in both cases you're listening to exactly the same thing, and not the proper SACD sound. I was mistakenly operating this way for months, before I realised I had it set up wrong.

In most cases, the only way you can get to hear the SACD properly is to get the player to decode it, and then send the decoded signal, usually over analogue cables, usually six phono cables, one for each channel. The amp then receives the signals and sends them direct to the relevant amp channels without any processing.

If you do this, you can switch between SACD and CD on the same disc by simply switching your amp from the 6x analogue inputs to the digital one on the fly. The difference should then be very clear.

In any comparison of DTS:Neo and Dolby PL:II you'll find advocates of both, but I tend to agree with you that Neo is the superior. However, all it does is "fill-in" in the additional channels and cross-over low frequency sound to the sub-woofer. It doesn't redirect any of the instruments, nor does it have a dedicated low-frequency effects channel, in the way that true 5.1 sources do.

I haven't noticed any drop-off in the quality of mastering in the way you describe, but I have noticed the increasing tendency to ramp up the volume almost to clipping to make the music appear punchier. It seems daft that Motorhead albums from 15 years ago seem to have a lower volume setting than Britney albums...

To sum up, in order to listen to SACD (or DVD-Audio), you'll need:

A player capable of decoding the format.

A 5.1 amp, and a means for the player to send it the decoded signal in a way it understands.

Five speakers and a subwoofer.

If any of the above are missing, you'll be hearing the stereo sound, which your amp may or may not fiddle around with, but it won't ever be on a par with the full-fat SACD sound.

[Chav]

no worries mate. sacd signal is digital.the amp tells me the frequency/bit depth channel count etc. i was just trying to explain that studio recording quality seems to make much more of a difference to the sound quality in my eyes/ears than theoretical bit depth/bandwidth!

we use 16 and 24bit mastering for game sound effects/music too. but i'll be dammed if i can tell the difference. quality of microphone makes biggest difference.

also in my experience, the better your sound kit the more music tends to sound pants - eg you really hear the crapness of some albums.

kinda like having a 1080p display and watching SNES output i guess!

...as with anything this is all rather subjective. i tend to prefer female vocals/mild music and a bit of dance/pop. my system makes rock sound ****e.

then again to my ears - heavy rock always sounds ****e.

[pingpongpo]

The only SACD I have is 'War of the Worlds' and it sounds completely different on my player. Its a fairly old Sony all-in-1 jobbie but it plays SACD's and it sounds awesome compared to normal CD's.

Those who cannot tell the difference imho can't have it set up correctly. I am by no means an expert but it is like chalk and cheese, quite obvious.

[Teacake]

The only SACD I have is 'War of the Worlds' and it sounds completely different on my player. Its a fairly old Sony all-in-1 jobbie but it plays SACD's and it sounds awesome compared to normal CD's.

What do you think of the new version of War of the Worlds? While the SACD sound is great, I'm not so sure about the remix. Some instruments and effects have been removed and others added, and it's not always an improvement.

[Chav]

The only SACD I have is 'War of the Worlds' and it sounds completely different on my player. Its a fairly old Sony all-in-1 jobbie but it plays SACD's and it sounds awesome compared to normal CD's.

Those who cannot tell the difference imho can't have it set up correctly. I am by no means an expert but it is like chalk and cheese, quite obvious.

The original SACD mastering process ended up with many SACDs sounding worse than their CDDA counterparts. As with anything, its not about theoretical capacity, its about implementation.

Your sony all-in-1 jobbie obviously doesnt have good processing for standard CDs. But not interested in a pissing battle - for the most part its better to have a good CD player than a cheap SACD solution.

Probably the only time SACD will have advantage is for music where instruments are continually driven to independent speakers and you want the original surround effect. Not many situations where that happens though - except movies - and standard DVD will do that fine (or games consoles)

[Teacake]

for the most part its better to have a good CD player than a cheap SACD solution.

Not sure I agree with that, because the occasions when the ordinary person will notice the quality difference are quite rare, so I'd say the surround-sound aspect of SACD is more important than any virtually-inaudible difference in bit-rate between the two standards or quality differences between players.

Like pingpongpo my SACD player is an old Sony all-in-one jobby. However, I don't use it for standard CDs, as these are ripped to FLAC and played using a decent media player, probably at a better quality than most CD players could achieve. Against this, SACD still wins hands down.

Probably the only time SACD will have advantage is for music where instruments are continually driven to independent speakers and you want the original surround effect. Not many situations where that happens though - except movies - and standard DVD will do that fine (or games consoles)

I haven't come across any SACDs where the instuments aren't mixed to take advantage of surround sound. This is the big selling point for me - the properly-mixed effect is so much better than pseudo-surround constructed from a stereo source.

[pingpongpo]

The original SACD mastering process ended up with many SACDs sounding worse than their CDDA counterparts. As with anything, its not about theoretical capacity, its about implementation.

Your sony all-in-1 jobbie obviously doesnt have good processing for standard CDs. But not interested in a pissing battle - for the most part its better to have a good CD player than a cheap SACD solution.

Probably the only time SACD will have advantage is for music where instruments are continually driven to independent speakers and you want the original surround effect. Not many situations where that happens though - except movies - and standard DVD will do that fine (or games consoles)

But surely one of the main points of SACD was the surround sound capability? I thought no matter what CD system you have set-up, the CD will never be mastered to achieve this? You could have a gazillion speakers which cost £9999K each and it wouldn't be the same? A CD and a SACD are different beasts, no?

[Chav]

yes surround is the difference - thats what i was saying about driving instruments to a particular speaker, but i probably worded it crap.

a standard dvd will give you same effect also.

however theres not many types of music where its useful to have a flute go to back left, a guitar go to back right, vocals to front center, and drums to front left etc.... mainly live music for the crowd and typical stereo effect.

we use real surround in games much more than music due to 3d positional effects for footsteps, guns, weather effects etc... but it rarely crops up in music.

instead of sacd, they should have marketed dvds (ordinary ones) being used for multichannel music....everyones got a dvd player. noone has sacd anymore. its history.

[Teacake]

So Froggy, I think we've given you some wonderfully clear guidance.

SACD is either important, or it's not. It makes a big difference to the listening experience, but only when it does. The sound quality is unmistakeably hugely improved, but you probably won't notice it. It's definitely worth having, but only if you would find it useful.

Does that help? +++

[Chav]

interestingly the pro sacd chaps only seem to consider the multi channel sound a benefit - probably because most all in one sacd systems dont have good enough speakers to get the vibrational benefit from the extended frequency response (we cant directly hear it, just feel it etc)

i wasnt trying to be an awkward ****, but the marketing behind sacd was crap. they should have focused on the multichannel aspects - as surround music is ace. they just insisted on the numbers game - which didnt work.

7.1 mp3 is the way now i guess as any kind of physical media such as cd, dvd, blueray will be obsolete within a couple of years.

cant believe consoles still insist you put a silly disk into a slot to be honest. people want convenience.

[danksy]

Just my two-penneth.

SACD kicks the arse out of standard CD's but you will probably need a reasonable system to hear the difference.

The multichannel format of SACD adds an extra dimension to live CD's, but in the case of remastered originals it just reflects the guys behind the mixing desk buggering about with the soundstage to make a few more quid by breathing life into an old product!

[burble]

SACD has the potential to sound better but some producers are a bit lazy and don't do much to take advantage of the SACD format.

Dark Side of the Moon on SACD sounds absolutely superb. Mind blowing infact.

[Teacake]

Dark Side of the Moon on SACD sounds absolutely superb. Mind blowing infact.

I'll second that. In fact, I think I firsted it earlier in the thread. Listen to the Dark Side of the Moon SACD on a halfway decent system and your ears will love you forever.

Unless you don't like Pink Floyd, in which case avoid it, it's pretentious w*nk.

[Froggy]

Well - as is always the case with Hi-fi some of it's subjective and some of it isn't.

I do have a pretty good system, it would probably cost in excess of £20,000 to completely replace with equivalent new state of the art stuff, however I'm not that into it all any more.

My question was more really along the lines of should I get a specific SACD unit for the "hifi-ness", or just a(nother) good quality DVD player.

And I like Pink Floyd. Judging from the responses, methinks I'll need to go and find a demo and hear it for myself. But thanks for all the fish..

[Teacake]

And I like Pink Floyd. Judging from the responses, methinks I'll need to go and find a demo and hear it for myself.

Yeah, give it an audition - it's what ears were invented for. It's that good.

[S70ODA]

Personally, I despite being a young-un, I'm of the old school vinyl breed.

If you want to hear War or the Worlds in it's ture form, get in on the black stuff.

SACD, DVD-A, Minidisc ... all digitally compressed and rubbish.

Even standard CD's are not up to much compared to a good quality and well set-up turntable.

My entire system (capable of both 2 channel and full 5.1 dolby digital) isn't cheap by any stretch of the imagination, but it's also not quite in a £20k league.

However, I can distinctly tell the difference between the various formats on my system. MP3's sound noticably digital and tinny compared to my CD player (no matter what the recorded bit rate) through analogue or digital coaxial connections.

I can tell the difference between the MP3, CD and vinyl versions of WotW for example - but then again, I love my a/v equipment and take great lengths to set it up correctly.

SACD is a dying format, much like minidisc. I don't think there is a huge amount of material available on SACD (correct me if I'm wrong ??).