Thread: With Hi-Res downloads looming; physical Super Audio is still around, alive and kicking

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Post by Adrian Cue August 21, 2015 (1 of 54)
For years people have been predicting the demise of SACD. 8 Years ago Steve Guttenberg said on CNet under the title ‘Are SACD and DVD-Audio dead yet?’: “the record labels' half-hearted release schedules doomed the formats from the get-go. They never got their rosters of big-name artists to release 5.1 versions of their new titles. Surround releases were for the most part restricted to reissues of back-catalog titles. Most 5.1 mixes were pretty lame and failed to exploit surround's ability to create a more believable three-dimensional soundstage’. I won’t quarrel with that; it was, indeed, self-defeating, the Philips re-issue of Scheherazade-Gergiev, being a case in point. (“I can't believe professional musicians and recording executives would allow this junk to be put on the market” commented Tom Ernst on this site). One company after the other bowed out. But that was not the end of Super Audio. Many gurus failed to see that smaller companies picked up this niche market.

Last month the same author said: “Both formats (SACD and DVD/A) sounded better than CD, there's no doubt about that, but not better enough to woo huge numbers of music lovers (or mainstream record companies) to commit long term. The SACD is still around, serving the niche classical music market; music-only Blu-ray discs are rarer still”, thus admitting -half-heartedly- that, 8 years since, SACD is still alive, with Blu-Ray Audio joining in the advent of High Resolution.

And, lo and behold, what did happen, too? The big boys are back, re-issuing back catalogue on SACD, albeit in stereo only, as well as with a growing number in multi on Blu-Ray.

SACD doomsday prophets have, however, another trump upon their sleeves. This one is called: Vinyl. “… well recorded LPs still sound great today, even when compared with SACD, DVD-A, Blu-ray, or for that matter, with high-res FLAC files.” Comparing Hi-Res with Vinyl they hold the view that “Music's naturally occurring soft-to-loud dynamics are better preserved on LP than most standard or high-res digital formats” irrespective of the “clicks, pops, warps and speed irregularities like wow and flutter.”
With some kinds of music, like jazz, this may be so, but I certainly do not agree on the dynamics. Limiters were generally used to avoid groove jumping, like I experienced almost half a century ago (!) with an excellent Mercury recording of Strauss’ ‘Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks’ (Antal Doráti / Minneapolis Symphony). Probably in an attempt to attain the promised ‘Living Presence’; the stylus could not hold its track, jumping to the previous or the next one.

Reading about vinyl production one wonders, indeed, how Hi-Res this process is: “The source material, ideally at the original resolution, is processed using equalization, compression, limiting, noise reduction and other processes. More tasks, such as editing, pre-gapping, leveling, fading in and out, noise reduction and other signal restoration and enhancement processes can be applied as part of the mastering stage.” “If the material is destined for vinyl release, additional processing, such as dynamic range reduction or frequency dependent stereo–to–mono fold-down and equalization, may be applied to compensate for the limitations of that medium.”

I think that much of the vinyl hype has more to do with nostalgia than Hi-Res.

In view of the now abundantly available standard and more ‘daring’ repertoire on SACD, the only credible discussion focusses on ‘stereo’ or ‘multi’ Hi-Res. I am a confirmed multi-man, but it is clear that others, also given room sizes, are quite happy with stereo only. It’s a choice, but Super Audio it is in both cases.

And what about future development? As long as (multi-channel) FLAC file downloads are big & expensive and are, as far as I am concerned (and have been able to establish), not quite up to the quality of DSD SACD’s, the latter remains my prime choice for at least some time to come. But I will refrain from any predictions. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Post by Disbeliever August 21, 2015 (2 of 54)
Room size should not necessarily restrict audiophiles to only listening in Stereo. As can be found In The Penguin Guide to the 1000 finest classical recordings, the back speakers can be very small or even hidden, for their purpose is only to add a subtle background ambience to the recording. The official stance that 5 equal size floorstanding speakers are required for mch is totally ridiculous and has probably put a lot of people off from going mch. I have heard mch demonstrations by both Sony & Marantz using 5 floorstanders & sub-woofers and each case the sound was dire and for me unlistenable.

Post by Iain August 21, 2015 (3 of 54)
Adrian Cue said:

...

SACD doomsday prophets have, however, another trump upon their sleeves. This one is called: Vinyl. “… well recorded LPs still sound great today, even when compared with SACD, DVD-A, Blu-ray, or for that matter, with high-res FLAC files.” Comparing Hi-Res with Vinyl they hold the view that “Music's naturally occurring soft-to-loud dynamics are better preserved on LP than most standard or high-res digital formats” irrespective of the “clicks, pops, warps and speed irregularities like wow and flutter.”
With some kinds of music, like jazz, this may be so, but I certainly do not agree on the dynamics. Limiters were generally used to avoid groove jumping, like I experienced almost half a century ago (!) with an excellent Mercury recording of Strauss’ ‘Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks’ (Antal Doráti / Minneapolis Symphony). Probably in an attempt to attain the promised ‘Living Presence’; the stylus could not hold its track, jumping to the previous or the next one.

...

I think that much of the vinyl hype has more to do with nostalgia than Hi-Res.

...

When I had my LP12/Ittok/Karma, I discovered the achilles heel of vinyl; classical symphonic musik. Vinyl is incapable of reproducing the dynamic range of that musical genre without massive amounts of distortion.

Quite right WRT paragraph 2 above.

Post by hiredfox August 21, 2015 (4 of 54)
Iain said:

When I had my LP12/Ittok/Karma, I discovered the achilles heel of vinyl; classical symphonic musik. Vinyl is incapable of reproducing the dynamic range of that musical genre without massive amounts of distortion.

Achilles Heel? That'll be the deck and arm combo then. On modern decks and arms of decent quality but not obscene price classical music can be reproduced to full scale without distortion other than the usual 'vinyl sound' caveats. Nothing on digital disc has yet come close in terms of instrument timbres.

Post by hiredfox August 21, 2015 (5 of 54)
Disbeliever said:

Room size should not necessarily restrict audiophiles to only listening in Stereo. As can be found In The Penguin Guide to the 1000 finest classical recordings, the back speakers can be very small or even hidden, for their purpose is only to add a subtle background ambience to the recording. The official stance that 5 equal size floorstanding speakers are required for mch is totally ridiculous and has probably put a lot of people off from going mch. I have heard mch demonstrations by both Sony & Marantz using 5 floorstanders & sub-woofers and each case the sound was dire and for me unlistenable.

Bold claim Gerald with which not everyone here will likely agree. It seems unlikely such a cheapskate solution will lead to better sound.

Post by rammiepie August 21, 2015 (6 of 54)
hiredfox said:

Bold claim Gerald with which not everyone here will likely agree. It seems unlikely such a cheapskate solution will lead to better sound.

A claim, hiredfox, from the man who likely has his tea bags 'restrung.'

Post by bmoura August 21, 2015 (7 of 54)
Adrian Cue said:

And what about future development? As long as (multi-channel) FLAC file downloads are big & expensive and are, as far as I am concerned (and have been able to establish), not quite up to the quality of DSD SACD’s, the latter remains my prime choice for at least some time to come. But I will refrain from any predictions. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Of course you don't have to choose between SACDs and Multichannel FLAC Downloads. There are over 1,400 DSD Downloads available today - including almost 800 Multichannel DSD Downloads as well.

Also of note, a growing number of these DSD Downloads have never been released on SACD. To me, it makes sense to check out and enjoy both SACDs and DSD Downloads. Especially those in the "never on SACD" category. In fact, the top 2 sellers on the Top Downloads list at NativeDSD.Com (8 Ensembles in 1 Bit and Bach Keyboard Concertos) are in fact Multichannel DSD Downloads. Apparently I'm not the only Multichannel fan following this strategy! :)

Post by Fitzcaraldo215 August 21, 2015 (8 of 54)
hiredfox said:

Achilles Heel? That'll be the deck and arm combo then. On modern decks and arms of decent quality but not obscene price classical music can be reproduced to full scale without distortion other than the usual 'vinyl sound' caveats. Nothing on digital disc has yet come close in terms of instrument timbres.

Vinyl, full scale dynamics? I have never heard it happen even remotely on any vinyl front end, even some costing several hundreds of $thousands. Vinyl = superior tonality? Perhaps it is your digital playback gear that is not "modern" and "of decent quality". Really, you should investigate why your hi rez digital sounds so inferior to you. It just ain't so in my book.

Here is one benchmark I have cited before. I have the justly iconic Solti Ring on LP, on CD and on the Decca BD-A remastering at 48k/24. The BD-A is head and shoulders above the others in terms of dynamics, tonality, detail, spatiality, and everything else. That was true even on my old $500 Oppo 93 feeding an Integra prepro via HDMI, both of which are now long gone from my system.

Post by james_joyce August 21, 2015 (9 of 54)
bmoura said:

...To me, it makes sense to check out and enjoy both SACDs and DSD Downloads...

I agree completely. I prefer physical media for a lot of reasons, not least of which is buying and selling used, but I think if you care about hirez music you are going to need to adapt to changing times. I waited to upgrade my disc player until I found one that would play DSD files as well as SACDs and now that I have it (a Yamaha CD-S2100) I've been dipping my toe into downloads. I'm not going to get into whether they sound any better or worse than SACDs (or vinyl for that matter) but they sound great and I'm not going to fight "progress."

Post by krisjan August 21, 2015 (10 of 54)
james_joyce said:

I waited to upgrade my disc player until I found one that would play DSD files as well as SACDs and now that I have it (a Yamaha CD-S2100) I've been dipping my toe into downloads.

james_joyce - please tell me about your Yamaha SACD player. What did it replace, how do hi-rez downloads sound on it, etc. I do not have the capability of playing hi-rez d/l's at this point, but that seems like a relatively painless way to achieve it (if the player does well with SACD's and RBCD's that is). TIA!
Mark Novak

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