Thread: Basic Question

Posts: 3

Post by jhett December 4, 2003 (1 of 3)
I'm totally new to SACD and have a very basic question. I'm going to hook up a new SACD player in my living room setup which currently has only 2 Polk bookshelf speakers, even though my receiver has 5.1 analog input. Will a SACD disk sound any better with 2 speakers than a regular CD? Or do I need to add the additional speakers to get any noticable difference when playing SACD or DVD-Audio disks?

Post by Dan Popp December 4, 2003 (2 of 3)
jhett said:

I'm totally new to SACD and have a very basic question. I'm going to hook up a new SACD player in my living room setup which currently has only 2 Polk bookshelf speakers, even though my receiver has 5.1 analog input. Will a SACD disk sound any better with 2 speakers than a regular CD? Or do I need to add the additional speakers to get any noticable difference when playing SACD or DVD-Audio disks?

Jhett,
I only have 2 speakers, and I hear a noticeable improvement over CD. So do most people who hear it on my modest system, including elderly parents and in-laws. I'm not sure I even want more speakers, but that's a subject for another thread.

Of course, there are some excellently-recorded CDs and I'm sure there will be some poorly-recorded SACDs, so anything could happen in individual cases. But generally, SACD has the capability, at least, to sound better.

Be sure you get the speaker jacks in the right holes, and be sure you're listening to the Stereo layer, not 2 channels of the Surround layer. (This is kind of a pain on my player, that's why I mention it).

Dan

Post by beardawgs December 5, 2003 (3 of 3)
jhett said:

I'm totally new to SACD and have a very basic question. I'm going to hook up a new SACD player in my living room setup which currently has only 2 Polk bookshelf speakers, even though my receiver has 5.1 analog input. Will a SACD disk sound any better with 2 speakers than a regular CD? Or do I need to add the additional speakers to get any noticable difference when playing SACD or DVD-Audio disks?

Being complete surround devotees, we would highly recommend you to get 5.1 speaker setup, if you have enough room for all those speakers, and especially that you already have a surround amplifier. We recently moved to a new flat and had to look out for the place with a lounge big enough for 6 speakers and a good surround setup, so you might end up with more audio kit than living space.
You can still hear the difference in stereo (as Dan explained) but we definitely prefer surround sound and IMO that’s the main feature that justifies buying again some old recordings we already have on CD and spending more and more money on discs we otherwise wouldn’t consider. The best thing, of course, would be to hear the surround setup somewhere before you decide to invest further and see/hear it for yourself.

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