Thread: SACD vs. CD (my conclusion/opinions after a week long test)

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Post by aristoteles December 30, 2009 (201 of 234)
urbo73 said:

2. The OPPO BDP-83 does not upsample 16/44.

Well if it doesn't I wouldn't buy it... Any descent CD is doing that now days.

Post by urbo73 December 30, 2009 (202 of 234)
aristoteles said:

Well if it doesn't I wouldn't buy it... Any descent CD is doing that now days.

Don't buy it. I can care less to be honest. You asked me a question, and I answered it. I'm not looking for opinions on the hardware I use. I think you don't understand the differences between oversampling and upsampling. People love to make small simplistic comments. Just do a Google search for oversampling vs. upsampling. Here's the first hit - I recommend you read it:

http://www.audioholics.com/education/audio-formats-technology/upsampling-vs-oversampling-for-digital-audio

And I have zero interest in discussing it, because quite frankly there's nothing to discuss and it's way outside the scope of this thread. I'm perfectly fine with answering questions regarding the methods I used, equipment I used, but I'm not interested anymore in discussion how audio works, heavy theories, etc. No point. Enjoy your player and I'll enjoy mine! Stop trying to look for faults. Look for the positive things. Both formats have them, and both PCM and DSD have their pluses and minuses. Neither is a perfect system.

Post by aristoteles December 30, 2009 (203 of 234)
urbo73 said:

Don't buy it. I can care less to be honest. You asked me a question, and I answered it. I'm not looking for opinions on the hardware I use. I think you don't understand the differences between oversampling and upsampling. People love to make small simplistic comments. Just do a Google search for oversampling vs. upsampling. Here's the first hit - I recommend you read it:

Oops, I meant upsampling. Was not my intention to offend you by my previous post. I'm sure the Oppo is a great player ( it's seems so after reading some reviews).

Post by Myrantz December 30, 2009 (204 of 234)
aristoteles said:

Well if it doesn't I wouldn't buy it... Any descent CD is doing that now days.

Well, bully for you. I have a Rega Saturn cdp. It doesn't upsample and I've listened to quite a few that do. The Saturn run rings (pun intended) around every cdp I heard, including the upsamplers. I suggest you go out and listen to a few quality cdp's regarless of upsampling abilities.

Back to the Oppo, I recently sold my Marantz Dv-9600 and now have the Oppo BD-83. It's a great machine, but CD and SACD playback is only fair (but good for it's pricepoint) and you'll be hard pressed noticing much difference between them. I may get the SE upgrade if and when it become avaialble here, but with the lousy amount of SACD available, it will depend on the cost (which is usally sky-high in Aus compared to elsewhere on the planet).

Post by Disbeliever December 31, 2009 (205 of 234)
Myrantz said:

Well, bully for you. I have a Rega Saturn cdp. It doesn't upsample and I've listened to quite a few that do. The Saturn run rings (pun intended) around every cdp I heard, including the upsamplers. I suggest you go out and listen to a few quality cdp's regarless of upsampling abilities.

Back to the Oppo, I recently sold my Marantz Dv-9600 and now have the Oppo BD-83. It's a great machine, but CD and SACD playback is only fair (but good for it's pricepoint) and you'll be hard pressed noticing much difference between them. I may get the SE upgrade if and when it become avaialble here, but with the lousy amount of SACD available, it will depend on the cost (which is usally sky-high in Aus compared to elsewhere on the planet).

I found upsampling degrades the sound at least it did on the expensive dCs P8i
player. I also found the Marantz DV-9600 to be a very unreliable machine and returned mine for a refund.

Post by Myrantz December 31, 2009 (206 of 234)
Disbeliever said:

I found upsampling degrades the sound at least it did on the expensive dCs P8i
player. I also found the Marantz DV-9600 to be a very unreliable machine and returned mine for a refund.

Actually I goofed, I had the DV-9500. It was okay for SACD, very average for CD. But never had problems.

Post by tream December 31, 2009 (207 of 234)
I'm coming to this thread pretty late - frankly I wasn't sure I really wanted to read it given the agonies of other threads we have suffered on this forum, but I wanted to chime in on one element, which was the use of headphones for this test. I don't often use headphones myself - they give great detail, but I personally find I can't hear the forest for the trees when I use them - in other words, I really don't find headphones to give a "being there" experience the way speakers do.

Yesterday I was at a friend's who has a fantastic headphone setup. He was looking at my Technics RS1520 tape deck for me, and I was listening to Tape Project tapes on his Technics RS1500, which has a special head optimized for Tape Project tapes, running through a Bottlehead Repro tape head amp, and then into a high end dedicated headphone amp. These are tapes I'm familiar with, of course, and most who have heard them believe they represent two channel sound as good as it gets. I heard great detail through the headphones, but again, the experience for me misses the sense of being there that I get when I listen to the same material using my speakers. The tapes sound way better over loudspeakers, comparatively, than they do using headphones (and I have heard them at the mastering studio as well, using VERY high end equipment)

A couple of the benefits that I see of SACD over RBCD are bloom and headroom - bloom is in fact that very sense of presence, and headroom is all about it sounding better when you turn the sound up. Both of these factors are negated by the use of headphones, which tend to flatten everything out. I also cannot imagine someone using headphones to try to reproduce realistic concert hall SPLs. When I first received the SACD of Mahler's 3rd conducted by MTT, I sat and listened to it at very high volume - but I had been there for the recording, and I was merely attempting to reproduce what I had heard at the concert. There was no distortion at high volume, something that I have heard from RBCD as volume levels are increased. I can't imagine someone using headphones to reproduce these volume levels - one's ears would get fried - but the space absorbs the sound.

So bottom line - I am not at all surprised that someone might come to the conclusions that the original poster did when using headphones, since the use of headphones takes away a few of SACD's advantages in two channel.

I have been listening to SACD for 7 years now...and before that I listened to RBCD for at least twice that long. In general, for me, SACD simply sounds better, and more accurately reproduces what music sounds like live.

Post by Disbeliever January 1, 2010 (208 of 234)
I agree with you re headphones but SACD does not ALWAYS sound better, although it usually does in MCH which the backward members of this Forum ignore.

Post by urbo73 January 1, 2010 (209 of 234)
I also used speakers and still do most of the time. From post #19 in reply:

"1. I did both, but found to get more detail from the headphones. I'd need upgraded B&W 803s speakers to get close to that detail - maybe not even. Now again, most time I DO listen via speakers. And I did in this case as well, but I focused more on the headphones since they are superior for monitoring/comparing closely - the type of analytical listening one normally doesn't do unless doing such a comparison or recording work. The imagery is different, but any difference should be apparent via the headphones more easily."

The benefit with the headphones is exactly that they do extract more detail. Sometimes I don't care for that, as you say about the "forest for the trees", but in this case, I thought if there's a difference in sound quality, that's the best way to go. I also listened via my B&Ws for the other effects (soundstage, depth, etc.), but still have not found anything.

I don't know what "bloom" is...

As for the extra dynamic range and SACD sounding better at loud volumes, nobody has the equipment that's able to reproduce 120dbs..or even close to anything like that as I've commented on before. And yeah, I can listen very loudly via either the AKGs and the B&Ws (and often do when I can!), and I don't hear anything that tells me SACD sounds better "blown up". But "loudly" never replicates a concert hall SPL. It simply can't for reasons stated and the obvious. You're telling me you can listen to concert hall SPLs in your home? That's amazing and hard to believe....

If you can hear the difference, great. But don't blame my using headphones for a reason not to hear a difference. Because that's a cop out, and also partially incorrect as I stated I also used my B&Ws. My question was, do I need to upgrade them to $10,000 B&Ws? I don't buy it, sorry. I know you're not suggesting that, but some have. The player was attacked, headphones, etc. The reality I believe is different.

Now are you talking about 2CH SACD as I have been? I do think many here relate or talk about their SACD experiences but listen to MCH. And that's obviously a plus for SACD and not even a point for comparison.

Post by Fitzcaraldo215 January 1, 2010 (210 of 234)
urbo73 said:


Now are you talking about 2CH SACD as I have been? I do think many here relate or talk about their SACD experiences but listen to MCH. And that's obviously a plus for SACD and not even a point for comparison.

I agree with you completely. To me, with a good RBCD player, stereo differences between RBCD and SACD are small and not really worth arguing about. The main reason for my intense enthusiasm about SACD is MCH. Now there is a difference in terms of greater truthfulness to the musical source that is exponentially huge.

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