Let’s talk about SACD

Kal Rubinson · Jan 3, 2019

Grayson Dere said:
Are DVD-Audio surround mixes superior sounding to SACD multichannel?

The mix is an entirely different parameter than the data format. Most of the recordings that are available in both formats are the same mix.

CAAudiophile · Jan 17, 2019

travis gidcumb said:
How many of you still use or buy SACD’s?
I still play mine thru my OPPO 203 and still check eBay for any deals. In this streaming world we now live in is something anyone still drags out and plays. I love the format and wish it was still relevant. Oh, and if anyone has Beck-Sea Change I would love to score one.

I still buy SACD/CD and just about all the format that are available HDCD, CD, SACD .. I do like the SACD very much, however what I am finding is all format are ok it depends on the recoding equipment used and the engineer behind them, I have CD sounds like LP and SACD sounds average if not bad .. i.e. Dark Side of the moon in SACD .. someone told me that you really want to be careful what version of it to buy, there are version of it that is really good and others bad. As for Tidle I have not used it yet.

travis gidcumb · Jan 17, 2019

I also failed to mention the satisfaction of physical media. I like getting up, thumbing through disc and watching it disappear into the player. The tactile feel of it makes me feel a part of the process. The ownership of a LP or CD for me trumps 1’s and 0’s floating around. With that being said, you can’t beat the ease of use and library that streaming offers.

NBPK402 · Jan 17, 2019

I still pick up SACDs when I see one I want. I love the 5.1 SACDs. I know they are mixed differently, and after listening to some sacds I have noticed instruments, chattering from people etc. In the mixes. One in particular was in a Dire Straits mix, and I heard someone say something in the track background I had not heard before. I then went and cued up the same track on the CD, and heard it again. I showed this to a friend, and he went home to see if he could hear it, and he could too (we had similar systems). My friend then went to a local Hi End Store, and told them about it, and the salesman (who had never noticed it, but was sure their setup would reveal it) said let's play it on our setup... their setup did not reveal it. LOL

simplex · Nov 19, 2020

Todd Anderson said:
I have a few SACDs on hand. I can't honestly say that I've found them to be noticeably better than regular CDs. I have several of the same albums on both SACD and CD... I just can't hear an immediate difference.

When I started buying and listening to SACDs I was absolutely disappointed at first. I simply ripped the 44.1 layer to my Daphile server and compared it to the DSD layer.

Technical setup: Daphile delivers the digital signal to my Rotel RC-1570 preamp via USB, while my Yamaha BD-A1020 multiplayer is limited to analog output for the DSD layer by design. All discs sounded audibly better via Daphile. I can only assume that in the end the DAC and analog section of the Rotel preamp are much superior to the ones built in my Yamaha player.

To overcome that situation, I learned (in another forum) how to rip the DSD layers into 88.2 / 24 bit PCM FLAC files and stored these on my tiny Daphile server. Now that step really was a game changer! Those generated 88.2 files are clearly superior to their 44.1 / 16 siblings (well, at least most of them). At the moment this is my standard procedure when listening to SACDs: rip them to 88.2 / 24 bit FLAC, import them into Daphile, and enjoy!

And as long as I legally own the physical discs, there should not be any copyright issues to consider.

NBPK402 · Nov 19, 2020

simplex said:
When I started buying and listening to SACDs I was absolutely disappointed at first. I simply ripped the 44.1 layer to my Daphile server and compared it to the DSD layer.

Technical setup: Daphile delivers the digital signal to my Rotel RC-1570 preamp via USB, while my Yamaha BD-A1020 multiplayer is limited to analog output for the DSD layer by design. All discs sounded audibly better via Daphile. I can only assume that in the end the DAC and analog section of the Rotel preamp are much superior to the ones built in my Yamaha player.

To overcome that situation, I learned (in another forum) how to rip the DSD layers into 88.2 / 24 bit PCM FLAC files and stored these on my tiny Daphile server. Now that step really was a game changer! Those generated 88.2 files are clearly superior to their 44.1 / 16 siblings (well, at least most of them). At the moment this is my standard procedure when listening to SACDs: rip them to 88.2 / 24 bit FLAC, import them into Daphile, and enjoy!

And as long as I legally own the physical discs, there should not be any copyright issues to consider.

What player do you use for ripping SACDs... I use a Pioneer player. I am not sure if mine is ripping 88.2 or not, but they sound great.

simplex · Nov 20, 2020

I use a Sony BDP-S490 multiplayer. Details are described here, including links to required scripts and software:

Rip SACD with a Blu-ray player

Welcome to the HiFi Haven Rip SACD with a Blu-ray player thread! This thread does not intend to rehash or further detail the well established PlayStation 3 SACD ripping method, nor the more recent Blu-ray player method, that in each case typically involves use of a command line interface (CLI)...

hifihaven.org

There's also a compatibility list of players supporting the ripping procedure, mostly some older, cheaper types. Got mine from ebay for about 30 Euros. This one is connected to my PC permanently for ripping only.

Basically you'll have to connect the player to your network via Ethernet. Store a small script on a USB flash memory and power the player up so the script will run after startup. This puts the player in server mode after a disc is inserted and the player is switched off.

With the player switched off, the contents of the disc can be accessed by the software via Ethernet. I'm using:

sacd_extract-0.3.9.3-75-win64
SACDExtractGUI.jar

It may be a bit of a hassle to set this up and make it run, but after everything is installed and connected, it works like charm. If you don't follow a routine which is at least similar to the above described I'm pretty sure that your current SACD rips are addressing the standard CD layer only.

Most audio server software like Daphile or desktop players like foobar will show the details and metadata of an audio file so you can distinguish between 44.1 / 16bit and 88.2 / 24bit clearly.

The software will also extract the .iso file from the disc and allow to extract DSD files. I do not use this feature at the moment because until now I failed to make my Daphile server stream DSD.

Have fun!

simplex · Nov 20, 2020

After installation, the software GUI looks like this.

Kal Rubinson · Nov 20, 2020

NBPK402 said:
What player do you use for ripping SACDs... I use a Pioneer player. I am not sure if mine is ripping 88.2 or not, but they sound great.

You rip SACDs to ISO or DSF. If necessary, you can convert them to FLAC or other PCM at 88.2 or any other chosen bitrate.

Kal Rubinson · Nov 20, 2020

simplex said:
After installation, the software GUI looks like this.
View attachment 37075

I hope not, if the display ends with a [FAILURE].

simplex · Nov 20, 2020

You're right, Kal! This is just the first screenshot I stumbled upon, and it appears to be a work in progress from the other forum ... If you're interested I can make a screenshot of my own installation in working condition.

Kal Rubinson · Nov 20, 2020

simplex said:
You're right, Kal! This is just the first screenshot I stumbled upon, and it appears to be a work in progress from the other forum ... If you're interested I can make a screenshot of my own installation in working condition.

Not for me. I've been doing this since there was a necessity for the PS3!

NBPK402 · Nov 21, 2020

Kal Rubinson said:
You rip SACDs to ISO or DSF. If necessary, you can convert them to FLAC or other PCM at 88.2 or any other chosen bitrate.

I rip to dsf and then flac as I recall.

w_sizer · Mar 4, 2021

Kal Rubinson said:
That wide range of treatment is more common in non-classical, non-jazz recordings and can result in great experiences as well as strange and puzzling ones.
QED!

This seems to coincide with my experience. I’m a classical music enthusiast and have a number of SACD discs. On modern recordings, they tend to sound smoother, more “lush” than average commercially available CDs but not better than top-quality CDs from labels such as Hyperion, Harmonia Mundi, or the best of Deutsche Grammophon. On remastered older recordings (e.g., from the ‘50s and’60s), SACD coding smooths out some of the strident, grainy texture of the original master tapes, particularly in the higher frequencies, albeit at the expense of some minor rolloff. A good example of this is the RCA “Living Stereo” series. Bottom line: my experience with classical SACDs has been entirely positive.

Kal Rubinson · Mar 4, 2021

w_sizer said:
This seems to coincide with my experience. I’m a classical music enthusiast and have a number of SACD discs. On modern recordings, they tend to sound smoother, more “lush” than average commercially available CDs but not better than top-quality CDs from labels such as Hyperion, Harmonia Mundi, or the best of Deutsche Grammophon. On remastered older recordings (e.g., from the ‘50s and’60s), SACD coding smooths out some of the strident, grainy texture of the original master tapes, particularly in the higher frequencies, albeit at the expense of some minor rolloff. A good example of this is the RCA “Living Stereo” series. Bottom line: my experience with classical SACDs has been entirely positive.

My comment was specifically about the distribution of instruments/voices/ambiance in multichannel recordings and not about differences between SACD and CD.

w_sizer · Mar 4, 2021

Kal Rubinson said:
My comment was specifically about the distribution of instruments/voices/ambiance in multichannel recordings and not about differences between SACD and CD.

Understood. I responded to your post because you noted that SACD treatment of "non-classical, non-jazz recordings...can result in great experiences as well as strange and puzzling ones." My purpose was to draw a contrast between SACD treatment of those recordings on the one hand and classical or jazz recordings on the other. My point was simply that the effect of SACD on acoustic recordings seems less dramatic and more consistently positive to me than its effect (as you described it) on non-classical, non-jazz recordings. In giving my response, I somewhat conflated your comment with those of others who specifically addressed SACD sound quality. Sorry for the confusion...

Marcus DiBenedetto · May 9, 2021

This conversation spans a couple of years and veered across several topics. I do have a number of SACDs, mostly for multichannel classical music. Over the past several years, I have moved away from the actual physical disc to DSD downloads (most notably from Native DSD). Interesting that many reviewers and commenters on HRAudio.Net still prefer the actual disc. Personally, I find that with the right DAC and sound system, a DSD file sounds pretty good. For multichannel, it is a great solution. CDs are fine, although I download most CD albums in 24 bit and 96 - 192KHz.

As an aside, the engineering team at Native DSD, if they can get ahold of the DXD master file, will "re-modulate" the file in to DSD 64,128,256 & 512. The consumer gets to choose. This is NOT upsampling. Rather, it is the same process the actual album's mixing engineers used to create the SACD. The technology available to us today compared to just 10 years ago is, in my opinion, astounding.

Marcus
Las Vegas, NV

Kal Rubinson · May 9, 2021

doctor speakers said:
In my system Quboz was too bright and I got listening fatigue.

On my system, Qobuz sounds fine depending, of course, on the quality of the source material.

Sonnie · May 9, 2021

Never been able to tell a difference between CD, qobuz or Tidal on anything I've listened to...although that's not saying much with my old dude ears. :olddude:

Marcus DiBenedetto · May 9, 2021

@Sonnie Having read your reviews, I'm sure your "old dude ears" are working just fine.

@Kal Rubinson I downloaded Van Baerle Trio's recording of Beethoven's Septet and the Triple Concerto based on your brief review. Excellent. The straight string piano is interesting. Oh yeah, I'm streaming with Amazon Music HD. Pretty much just playing CDs without buying CDs.

Marcus

Let’s talk about SACD

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