Post by Kutyatest September 5, 2008 (21 of 45)
|
|
Windsurfer said:
If you have more to add - tell us because as a "classical music" person, I am unaware of what mch sacd offers non-acoustic music and I would like to be in a position to make the argument for it when the occasion arises.
Thanks,
Bruce
I consider myself to be extremely lucky, as my musical tastes are extremely varied. With music (just like many other things), it helps enormously to actually like the music to appreciate it. I suppose I "asked" for a response by posting that PS, but it was "off-topic" to the main thrust of The Seventh Taylor's original post.
When I first discovered the hi-res formats, my initial thoughts were that it would probably only benefit classical/orchestral music. That would have been fine by me, as I like (in general terms) this genre. My first hi-res MCH purchases were classical, and I was amazed by them, even though I wasn't able to play the hi-res layers until the beginning of 2007, when I had my DV137 properly set-up. I was making a mistake though by thinking that, and later DVD-A and SACD purchases have only confirmed this to me.
Each to their own, but in my opinion Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, Buena Vista Social Club, Kraftwerk's Minimum:Maximum, Kitaro's The Sacred Journey of Ku-Kai, Dire Straits Brothers in Arms all benefit enormously from hi-res MCH. Strangely enough (at least for me), my very first SACD "The Carpenters Singles" also benefits from MCH. Perhaps not as much as other types of music, but I prefer it in MCH to 2CH.
I don't feel I should use this thread to continue, but the list goes on and on. I dare say that there are many classical music fans that don't appreciate audio quality, and would think that there's no point to the hi-res formats.
|
|
|
Post by rammiepie September 6, 2008 (22 of 45)
|
|
I totally disagree that a lack of video caused the demise of the SACD format. If we learned ANYTHING from DVD-Audio, it was the licensing of the video portion that kept many a title from seeing fruition. SACD could've been a single inventory item from the beginning with only an SA on the spine to indicate that it was indeed high rez. Whenever you splash DVD-A or SACD all over the disc, the general public is confused as to whether it will play on their boom box or car stereo. Unless you are an audiophile and would be aware of the high rez nature of the disc, less would've been more. Just like Video killed the radio star (or, at least it did for a time), the lack of a true standard from the beginning of SACD's genesis (single layer, only playable on SACD), and the lack of substantive hardware doomed the mass-acceptance of the format.
|
|
|
|
|
|
rammiepie said:
and the lack of substantive hardware doomed the mass-acceptance of the format.
I don't follow you here, could you elaborate? What exactly do you mean by "substantive"? I think for example that my SONY SCD XA9000 ES is very substantive. The Meitner gear even more so, and there are others in the same rank.
|
|
|
Post by rammiepie September 6, 2008 (24 of 45)
|
|
Windsurfer said:
I don't follow you here, could you elaborate? What exactly do you mean by "substantive"? I think for example that my SONY SCD XA9000 ES is very substantive. The Meitner gear even more so, and there are others in the same rank.
I was referring to the early players....which were quite costly and did not sound substantially better than RBCD, AT THE TIME. I recall an early Robert Harley Review in either stereophile or the Absolute Sound (and I quote), The Meridian 800 plays CDs better than the $28,000 Accuphase plays SACDs. If the vinyl pressings of yesteryear were as carefully manufactured as the high quality vinyl made today, there would've been no need to replace that medium. If one recalls, the early SACDs were single layer only, playable on an SACD player and were stereo. Then they added multi-channel (still playable on an SACD player), then Sony came out with the hybrid disk and even toyed with adding full-motion video. If that wasn't schizophenric and confusing to non-audiophiles, what was? Like a good wine shouldn't be served before its time, nor should a new format be introduced before it's MATURE! (BLU-RAY, anyone????????)
|
|
|
Post by RWetmore September 6, 2008 (25 of 45)
|
|
rammiepie said:
I was referring to the early players....which were quite costly and did not sound substantially better than RBCD, AT THE TIME. I recall an early Robert Harley Review in either stereophile or the Absolute Sound (and I quote), The Meridian 800 plays CDs better than the $28,000 Accuphase plays SACDs. If the vinyl pressings of yesteryear were as carefully manufactured as the high quality vinyl made today, there would've been no need to replace that medium. If one recalls, the early SACDs were single layer only, playable on an SACD player and were stereo. Then they added multi-channel (still playable on an SACD player), then Sony came out with the hybrid disk and even toyed with adding full-motion video. If that wasn't schizophenric and confusing to non-audiophiles, what was? Like a good wine shouldn't be served before its time, nor should a new format be introduced before it's MATURE! (BLU-RAY, anyone????????)
Interesting points. I actually think SACD would have done better without multichannel and with mandatory hybrid discs. The 1 bit thing was a big mistake too since it can't be edited in that form.
Had they gone with something like DXD (352.8khz/24bit) stereo only with mandatory hybrid discs, the improvement over regular CD would have been greater and everything would have been simpler. They could have left multichannel to DVD-Audio.
|
|
|
|
|
|
RWetmore said:
Interesting points. I actually think SACD would have done better without multichannel and with mandatory hybrid discs. The 1 bit thing was a big mistake too since it can't be edited in that form.
Had they gone with something like DXD (352.8khz/24bit) stereo only with mandatory hybrid discs, the improvement over regular CD would have been greater and everything would have been simpler.
Had they gone with stereo only, the target group for appreciating SACD would have been an ever smaller niche than it currently has.
|
|
|
Post by Ear September 7, 2008 (27 of 45)
|
|
I agree.
|
|
|
|
|
|
RWetmore said:
Interesting points. I actually think SACD would have done better without multichannel and with mandatory hybrid discs. The 1 bit thing was a big mistake too since it can't be edited in that form.
Well many labels and artists clearly disagree with you about the MCH aspect (having never used DVD-A for their MCH releases), as does at least this listener!
Also, it is factually incorrect to say that DSD cannot be edited: http://www.superaudiocenter.com/images/Sonoma32.pdf
http://www.sadie.com/downloads/sadie5p3p0_dsd.pdf
|
|
|
Post by RWetmore September 7, 2008 (29 of 45)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
RWetmore said:
I meant that is can't be edited in its 1 bit form (at least to my knowledge). Those tools don't say how it's edited...whether it's converted to multibit or PCM. Do they?
From Sonoma:
"The Sonoma recorder/editor keeps the audio at the DSD sample rate of 2.8 million samples per second at all times. When used as a recorder, the original DSD one-bit stream recorded is played back through the EMM Labs converters. When edits are made, the audio is crossfaded in real time using special signal processing at the same DSD sample rate. Real time level manipulation and audio layering inside the Sonoma work the same way. The Sonoma never down-samples to a lower sample rate for signal processing, so the time domain integrity is maintained." - so it would appear that it can be edited in 1 bit form without conversion.
From Sadie:
"DSD Mode uses the DSD8's dedicated DSD processing hardware for editing and audio processing. In DSD mode, the audio signal is DSD throughout... All crossfades, level controls, EQ's and dynamic processes are performed in real-time and at 2.8224MHz sample rate (known as 64fs) DSD, without conversion of the audio to PCM. Process calculations in the mixer are performed in professional DSD-Wide which is 8 bits at 64fs, thus allowing for more resolution, but avoiding the need for sample-rate-conversion." - this would appear to be using DXD but only if one is doing something beyond basic/purist editing.
In either case it is possible to edit DSD in it's native 1 bit form.
|
|
