mid-priced CD players vs low-priced SACD player?

[psg]

I'm wondering if I'll get into SACD/DVD-A or perhaps buy a standalone CD player (NAD C521BEE).

I'm currently playing CDs using a Pioneer DV-333 worth C$300 in 2000, it they sound fine to me (no hard edge to speak of).

Does the SACD medium and format outclass even a good redbook (but affordable) CD player?

Or does the SACD player still need to be very good to compete?

Specifically, would a cheap Pioneer DV-578A playing SACDs beat the NAD C521BEE playing redbook?

Or does one need to step up to the new Denon DVD-1920 universal player for US$350 MSRP (or higher)? It has Burr-Brown 24-bit, 192-kHz Audio DACs - PCM-1756. (What does the Pioneer have? Their web page doesn't say.)

I don't want to overspend on the video part of a universal player since I have a non-HD 52" RPTV anyway (non progressive).

Thanks!

[jbsl]

I have a NAD C542 and a Denon 2900 DVD universal player. For cd playback I use the C542 if I had to choose one.

For SACD the Denon sounds very good! One thing about SACD and DVD audio is if whoever remixes it into this 5.1 channel format does not know what they are doing the discs can sound terrible. So read reviews on the discs before buying anty.

The Denon 1910, 2910, 3910, etc may sound as good or better than my C542 but until I buy one I won't know. I say if you need a new DVD player just get the 1910. Then find a NAD dealer in your area and ask to take home the cd player and demo it against the 1910 to see if it is worth having both. Also depends if you have the money to spend. Good luck!

Yes a good SACD and DVD audio disc will beat a good cd but that is my view. I'm sure there are people who do not agree.

A good cd will beat a bad SACD.

Xman

[psg]

Thanks! My DVD player works fine. I'm just curious about what is really needed to get into SACD. Will a C$150 player get me 95% of the sound of a C$600 player? I don't need fancy video processing...

[dragonfyr]

The Pioneer DV-578A (DVD, CD, SACD, DVD-A) works great in ALL respects, and all for ~$125!

I defy anyone in a double blind test to distinguish it from the units costing several times more - I have AB'd it with several other units costing several times more, and as I result, I have resorted to using it almost exclusively.

Save your money.

Enjoy.

I have heard much more variation in the production of the media then in the player!!!

[Parrot]

On the very inexpensive side, I'd get the Sony SCD-CE595. It has no DVD capability, just SACD and CD, and is a 5-disc changer.

SACD is a close-to-dead format though, except for jazz maybe, and except for classical in which it is thriving like never before with the small, high-quality companies. Of course for around $125, it's not like it matters as long as you have a couple SACDs you like. It's not as if you spent $5000 for the first model of SACD player.

If you don't like jazz or classical, look at the titles already out on SACD, and see if there is enough already out to make it worthwhile for you, 'cause there's probably going to be very very few more pop rock titles in the future. The site to see all 3220 titles is

http://sa-cd.net/

[psg]

I listen mostly to jazz, which explains my interest.

Thanks!

[tpg]

I was wondering about the Sony SACD player. I've seen it several times in Best Buy and Circuit City and have been wanting to pick one up, but haven't ever seen much info about it. Is it a decent player? None of my electronic gear is particularly high-end, so it wouldn't really hurt to have a $130 SACD player... I have heard mixed reviews of the Pioneer 578, which I have been considering previously. But, I received an Onkyo DVD player as a gift from my parents, so I don't really want to replace it in any respect by having a multi-format machine.

[psg]

Which model is that?

The only one I could turn up is the SCDCE595 for US$153, but it's a 5-disc changer and I'm not very fond of those.

Since some people say Redbook playback is so much better in a CD player than on a DVD player, it would be nice if it could also play SACDs and solves both issues...

[joshnich]

It is sad that there are not more titles. I love SACD. Its sad that it was (is) undermarketed. If I didnt frequent places like this I would have never known that SACD existed. I bet if you asked 100 people in a record store if they knew about SACD, only 3 or 4 would say yes. I have asked folks working in large record store (vintage vinyl St Louis) about SACDs, and they looked at me like I was asking for cooking supplies. You would think that Sony was smarter than that or would have least learned their lesson with Beta.

Josh

[Parrot]

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. Just because people are exposed to the product doesn't mean they're going to buy it. Some of the very early individual releases, back in 2000 when the players were $5000, had sales of fifty (50) copies!!!!! Why would a major company want to get involved in that, or stay involved.

The audiophile market is minuscule, relatively speaking. Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" multichannel SACD/CD hybrid sold a million copies. But would it have sold 990,000 copies if it were straight CD? No one knows.

The niche market is where the future of SACD lies. The small independent recording labels need to sell only 1000 copies of a title before it is profitable, and they can get that fairly easily just with audiophiles alone, they don't even have to tap into the larger market of all-formats classical buyers. If a classical title sells 10,000 copies, it is a number one bestseller on the classical charts.

The CD will not be replaced by a higher quality format, it will be replaced, already is being actually, by a lower one: downloaded mp3 or similar files. Beethoven got 1.4 MILLION free downloads in ONE WEEK from the BBC Radio site recently.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/4703073.stm

[psg]

Parrot,

When people say Redbook CD playback sound a lot better on a "good" CD player than on an "excellent" DVD player, would this include the Sony SACD 5-disk changer you suggested?

[Parrot]

There's no way to answer your question because everybody has different opinions on these things, and especially when we're talking about blanket statements of all one type are better than all of another type.

There's a general audiophile bias against having video (DVD) circuitry in the same unit as audio circuitry. It doesn't concern me personally. Same with changers; I wouldn't let that sway me against a machine, but to others it's a deal stopper.

I myself wouldn't spend $5000-$10000 on a CD or SACD player even if I had a spare million bucks to play around with. But obviously others choose differently or there wouldn't be any of those units available.

It's tough to quantify these things because everybody uses his own personal scale. Is something a hundred times better, ten times better, a little better, 1/10 of a percent better? All those descriptions could apply to the same equipment but listened to by different people! On my scale, a $150 player is easily 95%+ as good as the most expensive players. But audiophiles are willing and eager to spend big $ to get that last tiny improvement over run of the mill.

[aviserated]

I would worry more about CD/DVD players error correction capabilities. Sony's are pretty good

[psg]

Okay... Thanks again guys.

I may get an inexpensive universal player just to take advantage of the format with a few albums I really like and I know to be available in SACD format.

Then I'll try to borrow a good CD player to check out if I can hear a difference or not. I'm currently very happy with my system that includes a cheap DVD player from the year 2000 and thirty year old caps in my KHorns. If the sound improves after I make changes in those areas, so much the better for me! But I won't be too surprised if the changes are subtle at best (otherwise I would have done them by now).

[dragonfyr]

I would agree with everything Parrot has said, with the one addition that you cannot simply blame the industry and the lack of marketing and subsequent public interest for the failure of SACD. Blame SONY (and yourselves! yep!!! read on!)!!!!

But a moment to look at business strategies is in order to understand what has, and is still happening!

You have to give Sony the credit that is due (he said sarcastically!!!). Just like with Beta (remember Beta vs VHS?), Sony had a format where, instead of making it available to all who would employ it or to manuyfacturers who would add the decoders to their players, Sony kept it proprietary and charged the manufacturers a licensing fee. They also only put the SACD decoders in their own mid-ranged players and did not put it in their lower range players, despite the actual additional cost of pennies (viewed from the true cost point of view of the actual economies of scale).

Rather then actively encouraging the disemination of SACD enabled players in the process of creating a more compelling reason reason for consumers to 'explore' SACD media and for producers to make SACD media, they kept it a niche capability while also charging producers an additional licensing fee which made it a production expense. Everyone in the food chain was penalized! And we now sit here wondering why there are only a few titles! Duh!

Just as they did with Beta! For those who do not know, or who only vaguely remember, Sony , due to their arrogance, charged manufactuters a licensing fee to manufacture Beta VCRs, as Beta was a superior product (literally - its helical scan capability as opposed to VHS's linear nature effectively raised the speed of the tape - in other words, 100 inches of linear tape effectively became several times that for Beta, which was the same as increasing the tape speed and increasing the record quality). And Sony's arrogance and marketing ignorance charged manufacturers a licensing fee which became a production cost which served as a disincentive for manufacturers to make the players. And Sony thought this would work, as after all, it was a technologically superior format (said with a very haughty tone!).

On the other hand, JVC (who owned the rights to VHS) said, wisely: if you want to make a VHS player, go ahead!!! No Charge!!!! They wisely (and to the detriment of users) put the licensing fee on every videotape you bought - for life! So you never stopped paying!!!! The advantage and the incentive was, the manufacturers didn't see the one time cost at the end of the year! It was shifted to you. And rather then pay the additional (say) $1 for the technology, you ended up paying many many times that over the life of the technology, and the manufacturers paid zero for it. JVC wisely used the Gillette strategy of essentially giving away the razors and charging you for the blades. And the public jumped at the chance! (Pat yourselves on the back!!!! And then you ran out and bought a Windows PC!!!!...And then these same 'victims', I mean, intelligent consumers ran to the government for protection from Microsoft who they said forced them to buy their lousy PC as they had NO CHOICE!...He said even MORE sarcastically as the sappy violin music played in the background!!!)

And Sony sat there wondering why their superior technology wasn't adapted! Duh! A simple case of a classic strategic business error! And they have repeated it with SACD and they are in the process of doing it again with Blu-Ray! Instead of making the technology ubiquitous and pervasive and getting it out to the market and creating an incentive for producers to use the format, they are making it cost prohibitive for both manufacturers and producers to use it. And they wonder why the competing formats which do not do this are gaining ground or surpassing them. After all, Sony says, they have a technologically superior product! Duh! The idiots!

It's funny, being the 'oh so smart' consumer he said with a self-depricating laugh!, as I still have a perfectly functioning Super Beta Hi-Fi VCR with its S/N within 1 dB of CDs. (It will look nice in the museum!!!) Plus I have always been a Mac nut (despite living in UNIX for too many years now and wondering what the hell my Windows machine is doing as it appears to hang with no apps running! - ironically, its FINALLY time to go back to the Mac as the one platform that operates natively in UNIX - it is full blown FreeBSD Unix with Apple's GUI - with complete Windows file compatibility, and the next Intel variant will be supported by VMWare - per the VMWare developer's meeting I attended last month A HUGE STEP!!! Apple has FINALLY done something right by using FreeBSD!! And while I love IBM's POWER technology, moving to Intel's ubiquitous platform will take advantage of it's pervasive commodity nature. All the while Apple still adhere's to the lamebrained Sony marketing scheme by saying they will not let OSX run on non- Mac machines!!!! - Note, I expect this to mean that they have been given a sweetheart deal by Intel to use some variant of the 64bit Itanic (Itanium) chip, for which even HP has pulled the plug and Intel desparately needs a customer! - as the full blown Mac on Intel will coincidentally coincide with the full blown 64 bit version of OSX next year - thus effectively keeping it 'proprietary' on the hardware side while allowing 64 bit Windows to run - it will be the biggest hacking target since MS introduces the XBox and the Linux folks made it the biggest hacking target, rendering it a full blown $150 graphics optimized Linux PC). And if they do not enable OSX to run on non-Mac hardware, I fully expect it to be the next hacker target non-pereil!!! Just tell someone they can't run it on a PC!!!! Besides all those guys who like UNIX done the Windows way - ouch! - called Linux will have to do SOMETHING!!! So Apple may well succeed in spite of themselves!!!!

Well, enough, but this should give you pause as yet another technologically superior product gives way to mediocrity!!! So thank the marketing geniuses at Sony and all those (you!!!) folks who think that MP3s are 'all that'!!!!!

[psg]

Well it sure looks like Sony is shooting themselves in the foot with it...

Do either or both of the HD formats (Blue-Ray and HD-DVD) include sound specs that are sure to kill SACD/DVD-A when they come out?

[dragonfyr]

To my knowledge there is no new audio format! And with all due respect, we don't need any more as we have proven ourselves incapable of handling the ones we have!

And I would NOT wait for either format. The industry is not looking for another format to duplicate inventory or to wait for the critical mass penetration!

If you want a very good CD/DVD/SACD/DVD-A player, go get the Pioneer DV-578A or whatever model is current from them. They work great and for the price savings, use it to buy the few titles available.

Oh, and if I may, definately check out the DVD-A American Beauty by the Grateful Dead!! ESPECIALLY if you are familiar with the original!!! It is like a totally unique release! And you will literally hear things as NEVER before! And you won't even have to 'take a trip without leaving the farm'! Mickey Hart has done an INCREDIBLE job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And Roxy Music's Avalon isn't bad either! Now if they would just do the same for their Flesh & Blood!

Oh, and just to get off on one more issue to rile everyone - especially all the record junkies - I wish they would genuinely remaster more classic titles! (Besides, it would give the market a needed kick over the dearth of worthwhile new stuff coming out!) A case in point is the remastering of Jonny Winter's Second Winter. The additional included CD (Live at Royal Albert Hall) is incredible!!! The bass - which is all but absent as a defined instrument in all but a very few of the classic records, is back with a vengence! Now, if they could just do the same to Johnny Winter Live And - the live versions of several of the same songs (done a bit differently) a few months later!!! (Especially Mean Town Blues!)

Say what you will, but the bass is all too often lost in so many classic rock recordings issued on records. (and I am especially a Casady and Entwistle nut as well- not to mention the many other bassists! Clarke, Jaco,et al - But I would love to hear Casady and Entwistle's stuff pulled out of the mud!)

((oh and while I am on tangents, do NOT waste your money on the 2004 Clapton Dallas Guitarfest! This is perhaps the worst job of recording/engineering/mixing I have ever seen/heard! The bassists are pantomime! Good only if you want to see/hear ZZTop as a guitar only band!!!))

Ok, now we can listen to the folks who have recently discovered records tell me I am wrong. But you are welcome to all come over and AB them and see! As the last 15 years have been primarily spent replicating my record collection with the CD equivalents! And unfortunately, most of the CDs are simply digitized copies of the same muddy mess as the record!

But now that the catalog holes left by Broken Barricades(ProcolHarum), On the Beach(NYoung), Everything Stops for Tea (Baldry) have been finally filled with their release on CD, as well as having copies of ALL (plus a few board tapes) of Mark-Almond (Jon & Jonnny! not Mark Almond!!!!), it is time to get Capitol to FINALLY release Recall the Beginning: Journey from Eden by Steve Miller on CD!

[skonopa]

----------------

On 8/11/2005 2:01:42 PM dragonfyr wrote:

On the other hand, JVC (who owned the rights to VHS) said, wisely: if you want to make a VHS player, go ahead!!! No Charge!!!! They wisely (and to the detriment of users) put the licensing fee on every videotape you bought - for life! So

you

never stopped paying!!!! The advantage and the incentive was, the manufacturers didn't see the one time cost at the end of the year! It was shifted to

you

. And rather then pay the additional (say) $1 for the technology,

you

ended up paying many many times that over the life of the technology, and the manufacturers paid zero for it. JVC wisely used the Gillette strategy of essentially giving away the razors and charging you for the blades. And the public jumped at the chance! (Pat yourselves on the back!!!! And then you ran out and bought a Windows PC!!!!...And then these same 'victims', I mean,

intelligent consumers

ran to the government for protection from Microsoft who they said

forced

them to buy their lousy PC as they had

NO CHOICE!...

He said even

MORE

sarcastically as the sappy violin music played in the background!!!)

----------------

In some cases, there truly was no choice. In the case of the VCR, by the time I've seen my first VCR, pretty much everything that was worth watching was on VHS format. There was practically nothing available in BetaMax format. So, guess which VCR was bought? A VHS one (an old Montgomery Wards model around 1983ish or so, which I still got in the basement, and still works to this day).

As for Windows PC, since just about everything that I was interested in was only available for DOS/Windows, well, guess what I ended up with (to be honost, I really wanted an Amiga)? Even today, to play any of the current games and such, you pretty much have to get a Windows box. However, it will be very interesting to see what happens once Macs have moved to the Intel camp. And yes, I am also very familier with the IBM PowerPC based chips, as I've done some development on the very expensive Concurrent PowerMAXION platforms here at work, which are based on the PowerPC technology.

And as for the MP3s, I like them purely for the convenience factor (pretty much the same with cassettes). For listening on my cheap MP3 512meg solid-state (non-harddrive) player, through a cheap pair of clip-on Sony headphones, while working out at the gym, I really don't need that high of a fidelity, opting to get as much music as I can fit in that player (using 192kbps). They are also nice for just queuing up a whole bunch of music and letting it play. However, For listening on the "good" equipment, I much prefer listening to an original CD.

[dragonfyr]

Some folks were actually around to watch and participate in the advent of these technologies.

And with the advent of these technologies there was plenty of choice!

I know, as I distinctly remember the Wolly Mammoths and the Saber Toothed tigers as we walked to school and then came HOME for lunch as we trudged 22 miles through the 15 foot snow drifts!! Oh, and then they finally got that electricity stuff!!!! Gosh things have changed!

Oh, and I heard the damnedest rumor, I couldn't help but LMAO! I heard that there was something BEFORE CDs!!!!! Those fools! Go figure!

Oh, and the poor Windows folks in the suit claimed they had no choice! The poooooor pooor victims! What they meant was, they were too stupid to think for themselves and to EXERCISE their choice!

[Allan Songer]

I just read though every post and I can honestly say I feel like Alice lost in Wonderland. I didn't even recognize any of the album titles, let alone any of the history of the VHS tape and the SACD and the follies of Sony!

And yet we all love Klipsch Speakers. Incredible.