Current state of SACD

[NOSValves]

When I think about all the crappy sounding CDs and LPs I have, I doubt any of them are mostly crappy due to the "limits of the medium." IMO, they are crappy because the engineering is lousy. Out of focus instruments, muddy or non-existant bass, strident distorted strings, wobbly vocals, bizarre fading and wandering stereo images, weird tonal balance and all the rest are artifacts of the recording engineering process. From time to time I put something on and get that "wow" factor, and I realize it is because the recording engineer really got it right. Last night it happened with "American III - CASH." I slipped it into my CDP and sort of walked away and then I heard that opening guitar on Solitary Man from Ricky Scaggs (I think) and WHAMO I walked back in, sat down and thought now there's a nicely recorded piece. If all my CDs came up to that level, I'd be reasonably delighted with the medium. But the opposite is more the case. Most of the 'music' I enjoy, is simply so poorly done I can't see where the medium really has anything to do with it. It's like buying a beautiful hand-made Zeiss lens, then having the resulting photos developed at the drug store - you just wasted the money spent on the lens. Of course all audiophiles want to push the envelope on sound quality of the medium, but I really think the place where pressure COULD be applied is with the recording engineers. I'm darn sure music executives ain't gonna listen to our grumblings about formats and media types. But recording engineers think of themselves as artists (I suppose) and perhaps would be more responsive to praise and or damnation. Imagine if all your current material on LP and CD was REALLY at the limits of those media? md

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This is an excellent post and hits the nail on the head about the entire problem. The biggest reason I'm a fan of the SACD format has nothing to do with the superiority of the format! It has to do with the fact that the music has been remixed usually from the original master tapes and for the most part they got it right (but not always mind you). This is the same reason when I see a CD that I like and it say's "remastered" I buy it without question even though I already may own it on the original recorded medium. This usually ends up being the winning situation. LP's, CD's, SACD, DVDA and <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />DVD Video's all equally sound great if mastered properly. The reverse is true in every case.

This all has very little to do with the medium.

Craig

[Mallette]

I totally concur with mdeneen and Craig. I won't add much as there is not much to add except how I arrived at this same conclusion.

After going all-CD in the early 80's I noted I listened less and less and didn't know why. When I "rediscovered" my 2000 lps in the mid-90's I realized there was something amiss. As an early adopter and strong believer in technology, I rather doubted that analog was in any way inherently superior to digital but my ears were saying otherwise, so I set to work to find out what was up. So I set out to make my own recordings. To learn anything, I knew I needed a minimalist approach, so I used the analog "direct-to-disk" model pioneered in radio days and brough to near perfection by Crystal Clear and others in the 70's. By 1998 I had a chain of my own design mike>preamp>AD>HDD>CD that could not be simplified further with existing technology. About this time I had the opportunity to record Stewart Wayne Foster, winner of the first Dallas Internation Organ Competition, in a piano recital in a building with near-perfect acoustics. Everyone who has heard this recording, especially his " Clair de lune," has declared it marvelous. One "golden-eared" audiophile wandered out into the hall on his first audition and I wondered if he had lost interest already. When it was done, he said "The best way to judge a piano recording is to go out into the hall and see if it sound like a recording or someone playing a piano. This is the first time I've ever done this and would have been fooled if I didn't know it was a recording."

Since then, I've made recordings up to and including 24/196X4 channels. I've found that LP's recorded to 24/96 or higher are indistinguishable to most from direct playback of the LP. I've found that, while a 24/88.2 recording sounds better than a 16/44.1 downsampling of that same recording IN THE ROOM, it is indistinguishable from the hall. What I am saying about that is that, while the downsampling costs some detailing, what remains is unchanged and still more than adequate to provide a completely satisfying musical experience.

Dave

[MarkBK]

Guys,

All great comments and I agree. When I started this thread, I was really curious to see if the format was widely adopetd, readily available, etc. I did so, because in my area it seems as though availability is very limited at best.

I too ,had hoped that if and when old recordings were reissued to this format, remastering would occur as needed to correct any engineering flaws that were able to be corrected, thereby improving the recording. In some cases, it seems that has happened, in others if appears not.

BTW, I DO listen to my Vinyl collection quite actively, as well as CD and SACD. Have not doe much with DVD-A.

Mark

[edwinr]

From time to time I put something on and get that "wow" factor, and I realize it is because the recording engineer really got it right.

Well said, Mark. I own several hundred CD's - I've never counted them. Maybe 5% are outstanding in sound quality, and I play them over and over. The rest, well they could be on MP3 for all intents and purposes. They suck. I've recorded the better tracks of the poorly recorded CD's onto metal cassette and I listen to them that way. There does seem to be, however, more CD's with outstanding sound quality available these days. The format hasn't changed, I reckon it's just that the engineers seem to have learnt how to best utilise that medium.

[Rivendell61]

All this is exactly on the money--

Re-mastering is certainly one of the primary factors in what people hear as an improvement in SACD vs CD sound. The intrinsic SACD (or 192) technology has virtually no sonic advantage over even 16/44 (as mentioned above there is not more detail, etc).

But there is also a trick up the SACD sleeve regarding mastering--which as noted by others can make or break a recording.

According to the 'rules' for SACD ('scarlet book') some of the compression, limiting, normalizing, etc., so often used to the detriment of CD from an 'audiophile' perspective (but for improved sound in cars, radio, or just to be louder) is considered an 'illegal' signal--and rejected. So an engineer remastering for an SACD project is essentially forced to produce a better product. We then hear the attributes--more dynamics, range, air, etc--and attribute it to the SACD technology. Well....sort of. But it could have been that way on the CD.

Mark

[Speedball]

Lately I've been suprised to find that a lot of stores do not even have a section for SACD, or carry them at all.

[Fish]

This is a really great thread.Since it started I have purchased 3

sacd's and 1 dvda.I could be talkin'out of school but I think the

reason dvda and sacd aren't just remastered cds is all the info needed

for dsd, 192/24 x2 and 96/24 x5 can't fit on a cd.Thus giving more

options and 5/6 channels of quality audio instead of compression to

compensate.So,the point is a well mastered/manufactured cd in 2 ch can

sound great.A disc w/more storage is required for more options/channels

and still have fidelity,enter(or exit,lol) dvda/sacd.

[33klfan]

I was thinking about getting into sacd a year ago but then bought a better av receiver, and during the summer started to really get into 2 channel. I know sacd is different than like the dsp modes on my nad but the one mode called 'EARS' gave me a general idea of what sacd would be like. I prefer hearing music just from the fronts. It's more accurate and just simply better. SACD can be fun, but it's going to be fad i think. I never did get into sacd other than pink floyd's dsotm, and norah jones come away with me which i have in case of me buying a future sacd machine, but i got into strictly 2 channel, so i am not going to spend money towards the sacd thing anymore. Most people aren't going to replace their huge collection of cd's with sacd's that aren't even replacing most cd's, and a special player to play them, imho.

[Mallette]

"I prefer hearing music just from the fronts. It's more accurate and just simply better."

Be careful about absolute statements. Is applause coming from the same point as the music "more accurate?" I don't think so. What about an antiphonal organ coming from the front? For many of us, just the hall ambience that should be behind coming from the front is, well, disconcerting (as it were).

The vast majority of the recorded repertoire, i.e., pop, rock, country, comes across just fine in 2 channels, but a significant body of very important music simply cannot be accurately heard this way.

Dave

[Rivendell61]

Dave,

OTOH.....I sort of regret the rapid dominance of the somewhat clumsy multiple 'surround' channel concepts which suppressed the (IMHO) more elegant 2 channel technology that was then emerging--in the few examples I've heard, quite effectively--re HRTFs in Roland RSS10 and Q Sound.

Is anything still done in it?

Mark

[Mallette]

O, the majority of surround sound releases are a travesty on the order of the "ping-pong" stereo of my youth-and for the same reasons, IMHO. My own "Virtual Presence" process is specifically designed to produce a no-further-manipulation required image of a space and the sound within from a single perspective.

There is nothing in my recording chain that could be pulled out and still have a recording...no mixers, no nothing. Though the requirement to earn a living has slowed my progress, I still hope to record a great space with instruments, voices, organ, and percussion sometime next year to prove the point (or shut me up). Series title (if there should be more than one!) will be "The Exploration of Space."

Dave

[Parrot]

O, the majority of surround sound releases

are a travesty on the order of the "ping-pong" stereo of my youth-and

for the same reasons, IMHO.

I don't know what titles you've been listening to, but they can't be

the many that I have heard. At least 90% of the 100+ multichannel

titles I've heard have hall sound ambience in the surround channels.

I've heard only several pop discs that have instruments mixed

aggressively to the surrounds, and there's nothing wrong with that as

these pop recordings are more about artistic creativity than pretending

they are arranged like a band on stage (a position that never happens

in a studio).

[Parrot]

One of the main attributes of SACD that Sony and Philips promoted to

other music labels was that the SACD layer could not be ripped onto

computer. So when the first discs came out, the non-hybrid ones, they

could not be copied unless you wanted to do it the way it was done in

ancient history, in real time through analog outs. Even though there

were many individuals who were adamant that the SACD would be hacked

(how come they have never paid me the money they bet me?) the SACD

layer remains unhacked even though it has been out since 1999 (in

Japan).

This lack of ability to copy was not a mistake, it was planned, part

and parcel of the original concept. Adding the hybrid CD layer was

defeating one of the main points of SACD, companywise, that it could

not be copied and passed on to friends.

[Mallette]

While I stand by that statement, I will add that the reason is that I can always detect the manipulation, whether by phase manipulation, mixing, or whatever method and find that it does not allow me to "suspend reality" and fully experience the space-time event. This may not bother you or many, and that is cool.

It is the same principle that kept me using the passive Hafler circuit for 30 years to provide ambience recovery instead of active circuits. Pro Logic II is the first I've heard that minimizes the "steering" effects and often sounds very natural. It also has good enough logic to basically "leave things alone" when the engineering of a surround recording is good enough to begin with.

Dave

[Parrot]

"(a position that never happens in a studio)."

===========

Good point. And one that is probably responsible for the generally

"weird" sound of so much popular music. Here we are trying to get a

sense of say, "space" and "depth" and such on our rigs, when in fact,

one track was layed by a guy in London, another by a guy sitting in a

phono booth in Nashville, and the other guys isolated in little

soundproof rooms in the first studio. What space?

md

Engineers put the musician anywhere in the sound field that they

choose, creating a totally make-believe arrangement. Hardly any groups

even have the musicians playing all at the same time, even if they

would be in separate booths wearing headphones. Now they even make fake

vocal duets with dead people.

Too bad it can't be like the old Vanguard folk recordings, with one

microphone hanging down from the ceiling, capturing all the voices,

acoustic guitars, and room sound.

Similarly, Mercury Living Presence made numerous orchestral recordings

with just one microphone, and then later some superb stuff with three

microphones feeding three channels. The conductor was responsible for

balancing the orchestra levels. I prefer that to the alternative of

having microphones in 40 different sections so that any part can be

unnaturally highlighted during mixing.

[Parrot]

While I stand by that statement, I will add that

the reason is that I can always detect the manipulation, whether by

phase manipulation, mixing, or whatever method and find that it does

not allow me to "suspend reality" and fully experience the space-time

event. This may not bother you or many, and that is cool.

I don't know how you can stand by your statement when it is

demonstrably wrong. Are you even standing by your statement? You went

from ping-pong effect to talking about phase manipulation, mixing, and

anything else that does not make you feel like you are there. Those are

very different criteria. I submit to you that there are only a handful

of ping-pong effect discs, and those represent the artists' intentions

(for example Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon"). I have never heard

anything remotely ping-pongesque in a classical recording.

[Parrot]

Some people have too much expectations for SACD as a format. Just

throwing any old average recording on SACD does not transform it from

mediocrity. Think of a DVD and a VHS: You could make a DVD-R of

something you taped

on VHS, and it wouldn't be any better looking than your VHS was.

SACD has the potential to be excellent but isn't automatically

significantly better than a CD because it can still have bad

engineering that will negate any of that potential. When it all clicks

is when you have a superbly engineered recording session to work with

in the first place. Then you should be able to notice that the SACD has

more air and presence and natural decay than the CD layer. Nothing that

will knock you out of your socks, just the normal kind of stuff

audiophiles listen for.

[Jeff Matthews]

From what this appears, and I haven't heard SACD (at least not to my knowledge), it sounds like it might be good if not overdone and you play around with speaker positions (many of them) until you get it the way you like it. Then, a new song comes along, and you want to readjust your many speakers again - maybe.

But I totally agree that the engineering among normal CD's is so hit and miss. Out of a huge collection, probably 5% or so have really great engineering.

Rush did it in some of their later CD's. And if you haven't heard Santana's Moonflower double CD, it was put together great. They even have a good handful of live tunes on there that have much better sound quality than many studio recorded CD's. Supertramp also did well as did Steely Dan in some of their albums.

Why don't they engineer them all to those standards?

[maxg]

"This lack of ability to copy was not a mistake, it was planned, part and parcel of the original concept. Adding the hybrid CD layer was defeating one of the main points of SACD, companywise, that it could not be copied and passed on to friends."

Agreed - but this is exactly what doomed the format to mass market failure. The inability to copy your music onto a format for personal use elsewhere - other than on your main system, combined with the inability to use existing digital connections made SACD a format for die-hards only.

This was Sony trying to kill 2 birds with one stone and failing on both counts.

Oh - and the reason SACD has never been cracked has little to do with the difficulty in doing so and everything to do with the lack of gain. I do not know of any music that is SACD only. Just too easy to copy the CD. Who is going to bother attempting to crack SACD for the measely selection of titles out there that are all easily available elsewhere?

[Parrot]

Jeff, no, you don't have to move your speakers around for different

multichannel recordings, although there is some variation in position

of the surrounds in mixing studios. Plus many titles are strictly two-channel anyway (usually reissues).

Max, SACD hasn't been hacked because nobody can hack it. The challenge

has been out there for six years. I agree that it isn't nowhere near as

big of a deal as cracking Microsoft code or DVD whatever, there still

are enough hackers out there to have made the attempt just for bragging

rights. And they've failed.