SB is killing the SACD format! ;)

[crooner]

I only have around 50 or 60 SACDs which I have slowly amassed from 2002 to present. My rediscovery of vinyl 3 years ago kept me busy collecting LPs and besides SACDs titles were not always the best musically speaking.

I have to say my vinyl setup has given me many sonic rewards. I've extracted music from those grooves that I never thought possible. It really demonstrated to me what the fuss was all about.

However, had the SB3 come earlier I wouldn't have returned to vinyl at all. The sound I am getting from regular 44.1/16 sources is unreal. It's got some the best qualities of a good record without the drawbacks. "needle drops" or FLACs made from my LPs sound virtually identical to the source!

[ModelCitizen]

Yeah, shame about SACD, but it was always going going to have a short shelf life. To me HDCD (******* acronyms, have I got that right?) sounds the same... and SB supports it. Mind you I have a grand total of three HDCD disks... probably all that were ever made (joke alert).... even my favourite artists (Can) chose SACD over HDCD...the bastards. :-(

[crooner]

HDCDs, do indeed sound great. My external DAC doesn't decode them but my Denon universal player does. I also have around 3 or 4 of them. I have a Nanci Griffith one that sounds awesome.

[P Floding]

Yeah, shame about SACD, but it was always going going to have a short shelf life. To me HDCD (******* acronyms, have I got that right?) sounds the same... and SB supports it. Mind you I have a grand total of three HDCD disks... probably all that were ever made (joke alert).... even my favourite artists (Can) chose SACD over HDCD...the bastards. :-(

Does the SB support HDCD?
(And actually decode it?)

[crooner]

It won't decode it. However, since the SB3 has bit perfect digital outs, the HDCD information should be preserved for processing by a capable DAC. Mine doesn't do HDCD unfortunately, but I believe it has been sucessfully done by several folks.

[P Floding]

It won't decode it. However, since the SB3 has bit perfect digital outs, the HDCD information should be preserved for processing by a capable DAC. Mine doesn't do HDCD unfortunately, but I believe it has been sucessfully done by several folks.

Oh..
Yes, of course. (I believe most modern transports are bit perfect.)

[agentsmith]

I was actually thinking about posting a message to the Audioasylum Hi Res forum but did not want to start a Jihad.

I have close to 80 SACDs myself, but since the purchase of an SB2 I have not hadly been listening to my SACD collection.

The main thing is access, I now have access to most of my music through the SB2, and the sound is good enough for me.

[agentsmith]

I was actually thinking about posting a message to the Audioasylum Hi Res forum but did not want to start a Jihad.

I have close to 80 SACDs myself, but since the purchase of an SB2 I have not hadly been listening to my SACD collection.

The main thing is access, I now have access to most of my music through the SB2, and the sound is good enough for me.

On second thought, nobody is killing SACD, both the SACD and DVD-A HD formats never really lived.

[Sliztzan]

I don't get this. Have you guys ever heard a SACD in the multi-channel 5.1 mix, such as DSOTM with a proper SACD player? The sound quality and 5.1 to boot, blows away the original CD format 10 fold. I compare it to when Mono went to stereo, yet that doesn't fully do the HR music justice.

However, I do realize that some SACD releases just suck and were purely made for profit and not quality.

[jimmy100]

Wow, this is an old thread.

>DSOTM
I have the SACD and it's fantastic to listen to in multi channel, but how many other artists/genres lend themselves to a 5.1 mix? When the music is just instruments and vocals, the only option the sound engineer has is to make you feel like you're in the band. Notwithstanding the difficulty in doing this well without making it gimicky, is this really the way the artist intended their music to be heard?

>proper SACD player
Well I doubt my $200 universal player would qualify but the Sony ES models mentioned by others in the thread must surely count.

5.1 music will only ever have niche appeal because it requires the listener be in the sweet spot the whole time. It's not suitable for background listening, can't be played on portable players through headphones, and any sound quality difference over CD is probably inaudible to most people; particularly given the poor quality of the equipment in the average home. The final nail in the coffin is the closed nature of the format.

I had high hopes for SACD when I got my first player, but like most on this thread, the few albums I own have barely been out of the case since I got my SB2.