Thread: SACD & Amplifiers

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Post by Kal Rubinson October 15, 2009 (11 of 27)
FullRangeMan said:

Well remembered! I will remove the screw to use the Custom filter output on my SCD-1. AS the regular CD performance is not affected.

I am not warranting you against equipment failure. ;-)

Post by Paul Clark October 15, 2009 (12 of 27)
FullRangeMan said:

Dear Egay,
Just as a ilustrative, I will tell a real history happen to me already 3 times:
I already damage my equips just for listen the redbook CD: Dig It (Klaus Schulze, Brain 811632-2, barcode 04228116322) in hi SPL,
first time was a output transistor in the power amp, second time was a other transistor, third time was a diode in the preamp.
The reason is this wonderful music are entire played with eletronics keyborads simulating piano solos etc, and have a strong content of mid/hi freq square waves and this square waves heat up
certain cheap parts that do not resist and fail.........The first track is a warning: The Death of an Analogue...

This would be a good CD for RammiePieInTheSky to "break"-in his new cyrogenic Five Nines Yellow Brick Road® speaker cables.

Post by dcramer October 15, 2009 (13 of 27)
Paul Clark said:

This would be a good CD for RammiePieInTheSky to "break"-in his new cyrogenic Five Nines Yellow Brick Road® speaker cables.

Actually, Hagerman Technologies (www.hagtech.com) has several very good burn-in devices that can break in your audio and speaker cables FOR you. They have several models but I would suggest the "FryBaby" is the most suitable for you since you're just getting started, then you could move on up to the "FryDaddy" so you could break in numerous cables at once. Your friends will be eternally grateful.

Post by hiredfox October 16, 2009 (14 of 27)
krisjan said:

Back when the Sony SCD-1/777 players came out (I used to own the SCD-777), there was a switch on the back of the player that allowed the user to select "Normal" versus "Custom" (if I recall rightly). The user manual warned that selecting "Custom" would allow all the ultrasonic content that MAY be on an SACD (up to 100 kHz) to pass to the preamp/amp and that some amps might expereince unstable behavior when ultrasonic frequencies are present. Hence, the units were shipped set to Normal (which is essentially a filter) and the user had to actually remove a screw to allow the "Custom": setting on the unit. I always ran my 777 on custom and never had any issues with the few amps that were in my system during the time I had the 777. Nevertheless, this is the reason that some amps might advertise they are "SACD-ready" - they won't misbehave when ultrasonics are present.

That's correct and there were strong rumours at the time that some very high end expensive amplifiers had been fried by SACD's ultrasonic content. Hence (presumably) Sony lawyer's insisted on the locked switch so they were absolved from any responsibility should the customer remove the screw voluntarily and encounter damage.

Before removing the screw on my SCD 1, I contacted all the suppliers of equipment in my playback chain for their confirmation of suitability. Only Krell were equivocal but that was simply down to their not understanding what I was asking them about! Needless to say my Class A Krell has behaved impeccably - except - it runs much hotter on SACD than on RBCD. This is not imaginary and is ever repeatable. It is fact, so something is going on in there and I hope it isn't shortening the amps life.

Post by Paul Clark October 16, 2009 (15 of 27)
dcramer said:

Actually, Hagerman Technologies (www.hagtech.com) has several very good burn-in devices that can break in your audio and speaker cables FOR you. They have several models but I would suggest the "FryBaby" is the most suitable for you since you're just getting started, then you could move on up to the "FryDaddy" so you could break in numerous cables at once. Your friends will be eternally grateful.

Actually, all my speaker cables are pre-broken in because they were used as AC power zip-cords in a previous life. They are very smooth and warm.

Post by Kal Rubinson October 16, 2009 (16 of 27)
Paul Clark said:

Actually, all my speaker cables are pre-broken in because they were used as AC power zip-cords in a previous life. They are very smooth and warm.

They should sound great at 60Hz.

Post by canonical October 16, 2009 (17 of 27)
rofl

Post by amatala October 16, 2009 (18 of 27)
I am using veeery old Harman/Kardon Citation 22 and 24 power amplifiers - these models came out around 1987 - long before SACD was ever mentioned, so I'm sure that they were not designed or optimized for SACD in any way.
However, I have never had any problems when playing SACDs - the amps stay quite cool even at relatively high volumes.

There are the specs mentioned in the owner's manual for these amps:

Power Bandwidth, at half-rated output, 8 ohms: 10 Hz - 100 kHz
Frequency Response, at 1 Watt output, +0/-3dB: 0.1 Hz - 250 kHz

I guess these specs should be pretty good for playing any hi-res format...

Post by Paul Clark October 16, 2009 (19 of 27)
Kal Rubinson said:

They should sound great at 60Hz.

50Hz actually - LOL!

Post by rammiepie October 16, 2009 (20 of 27)
Paul Clark said:

50Hz actually - LOL!

I'd hate to be your significant other. You probably have them squeezing orange juice every morning (which I admit IS better, but OH, so much work) the ole-fashioned way. BTW, my interconnects ARE sounding better every day as they're getting an extraordinary workout, thank you, and thankfully, all my lamp cords are where they should be: attached to lamps. Let there be light!

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