| Please note: Special SACD player NOT required!!!! (review from amazon.com) |
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This disc does NOT require "special SACD" equipment to be played. It has a Redbook Layer--i.e. "regular" CD--that ANY CD player (and there are said to be over 600,000,000 of them in use around the world) can play it.
I own two from this series and they are both CD/SACD "hybrids". So don't be put off by the information given in the "Tech Specs" box. Someone at Amazon simply entered partially incorrect information.
You do, however, have to have an SACD player in order to enjoy the astonishing clarity that the Super Audio CD brings to audiophiles for such a low price. (Even with lower-end receiver/speakers, the difference is palpable, with mid-to-upper end equipment the sound is stunning.)
There are several versions of SACDs out there. Most are like this one from the outstanding Royal Philharmonic line: basically three discs in one. A two-channel SACD layer, a 5.1 channel layer (most SACD players cannot decode separate bass info, the ".1", though my SACD player CAN output bass from discs from this series, the only SACD Surround Sounders that do so) and the aforementioned Redbook CD layer.
You DO need the regular CD layer if you want to transfer the songs to your iPod, Zune or other personal music player; or just to back up the disc.
Unfortunately--but hardly surprisingly--Sony has wrapped the SACD layers in an anti-consumer encryption scheme (so-called "DRM"). So there's no way (except the "analogue hole") to make LEGAL back-ups of SACD (layers).
Due to the failure of the SACD to do what it was intended to--replace the standard CD and give Sony a complete monopoly such as the one they now enjoy with Blu Ray in hi-def home video--there's little interest in creating technologies to restore Americans' legal right to make personal copies of SACDs. This right is enshrined in the American Home Recording Act passed by Congress, in several versions, in the '90s.
Compare the price of many SACD's to that of Mobile Fidelity's Gold CDs (the best sounding, highest quality Redbook CDs available, so much so that many out-print of Mo-Fi discs go for up to $300, depending upon title of course; to see for yourself, type in an album name, e.g. "Who's Next Gold CD" to be directed to the respective Amazon page).
New Mo-Fi CDs usually go for the $26-$30 range. (And they are worth every penny IF no SACD version exists.) Contrast that with the under $15-$20 price tag for a great many SACDs and Hybrid SACDs.
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