Thread: How many of us are listening to SACD only because it has multichannel playback capability?

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Post by bmax March 27, 2009 (71 of 93)
I'm old enough to be with Tourboots on this. ( I even have a few quad. discs around). I only buy multichannel discs nowadays.Beware offerings like "Living Stereo" (only 2 channel)

Bmax

Post by Kal Rubinson March 27, 2009 (72 of 93)
bmax said:

I only buy multichannel discs nowadays.Beware offerings like "Living Stereo" (only 2 channel)

Bmax

Strange. The majority of the ones in my collection have 3 channels.

Kal

Post by Windsurfer March 27, 2009 (73 of 93)
A lot of the older ones are two channels.

Bmax,
As someone very committed to multi-channel sacd, I have to say that the reason for buying Living Stereo SACDs is not really for the latest in sound quality, but rather to have the performance/recording in the finest iteration possible.... though there are those who would argue that Classic Record's vinyl actually grabs the brass ring there.

That issue resolves into a question of philosophy some years ago explored by Stereophiles' Art Dudley. He was involved in a question of "What is high fidelity?". His thesis was that we should insist on fidelity to the image we have of what the sound should be like rather than what it actually did sound like - in other words he apparently did not think recording engineers or your Hi Fi should attempt to make the sound "transport you into the concert hall" rather the sound should be tailored to "what you like".

To quote the Flying Dutchman in another post on a different subject:

"Snake oil crapola. Pure idiocy"!

Post by hiredfox March 29, 2009 (74 of 93)
The whole point of SACD for me is higher resolution and greater fidelity than has ever been possible with RBCD, so I bought the best SACD player out there that met those criteria and use it in my high-end system. The player is a stereo only but the sonic quality is immense. To go to multi-channel at this quality would be financially ruinous for me, how could I afford to drop such amounts of money on three new equally performing channels (excluding woofer considerations)?

This is exactly Ken Ishiwata's rational for not making his flagship Marantz players MCh, he just does not wish to encourage customers to substitute quantity for quality at this level or leave them disaffected because 'he' provided a high level MCh capability that could not be enjoyed fully by most Marantz customers.

The surround experience is something else, I grant you and very enjoyable to boot just so long as you are not an ultra- critical listener with near perfect-pitch.

Post by trntbl March 29, 2009 (75 of 93)
This is utter nonsense, but I can understand why people think like this. It's not simple to get an audition of proper mch-system, nor is it easy to expand a stereo system to mch without sacrificing something. It can be done, but it is just not easy.

kristian

Post by hiredfox March 29, 2009 (76 of 93)
trntbl said:

This is utter nonsense, but I can understand why people think like this. It's not simple to get an audition of proper mch-system, nor is it easy to expand a stereo system to mch without sacrificing something. It can be done, but it is just not easy.

kristian

I not sure what you are saying. It is not nonsense to say that I cannot afford to drop another donkey load of money on extra matching equipment, it is also that processors of that quality do not exist. Not even ARC or Krell or Conrad Johnson make a MCh processor of reference quality.

Post by wolf359 March 29, 2009 (77 of 93)
I am somewhat schitzoid on this. I orginally bought quad vinyl back in the 70's thinking that it would lead me to audio fidelity nirvana, as that faded I reverted to RBCD in the early 80's. beliving the hype of the time about "perfect sound forever". When SACD was first intoduced, I had not heard much about it as many of the early SACD's were single layer stereo. I could not see what all the hype was about surely it could not be as good as RBCD, and why would why I want a stereo disc in a differing format when I already had a copy. When I realised about the possibilities of multichannel sound again, I became intrested in SACD for that reason. The up to date picture is that I still prefer multichannel sound over stereo but that is as the result of my personal musical /hi fi journey. However despite all of the above the journey is actually about realism. A single mono speaker and amplifier can portray sound with a high degree of realism if the original sound is of mono orgin. In that type of scenario the question of multichannel vs stereo is irrelevant it is the system that provides the most realistic approximation of the original sound that counts and that can be anything from 1 speaker to as many as it takes. There are a great many posters on this site with high end Stereo SACD players who claim that it is better than multichannel at imaging. Not having heard a really high end stereo SACD setup I cannot comment but if I won the lottery I would love to give it a go. I of course like many others have a few stereo SACD's in my collection and I am mightly impressed by them and would consider a high end system to hear them at their best. But if there was a really high spec multichannel Sacd/Stereo SACD only player (none universal) I would consider a purchase. The machine I actually first wanted was a Marantz SA8400 (stereo/Mch machine)but I came too late to SACD it had been deleted and I had to settle for a DV7001(universal). I am considering the new UD9004 (but it is universal) so I cannot agree with Ken Ishiwata Why can't I have high end multichannel as well as stereo I may not be able to afford it but I would love to able to aspire to it

Post by Windsurfer March 29, 2009 (78 of 93)
hiredfox said:

I not sure what you are saying. It is not nonsense to say that I cannot afford to drop another donkey load of money on extra matching equipment, it is also that processors of that quality do not exist. Not even ARC or Krell or Conrad Johnson make a MCh processor of reference quality.

Meitner DAC 6 but you need the special Meitner optical interface which means the Meitner transport. Meitner would do us all a favor if he modded those DAC 6s to accept HDMI.

Meitner equipment is what Polyhymnia and others use for recording and monitoring.

Also I think that there is a VERY expensive mch transport and dac from Esoteric.

Post by trntbl March 29, 2009 (79 of 93)
hiredfox said:

The whole point of SACD for me is higher resolution and greater fidelity than has ever been possible with RBCD, so I bought the best SACD player out there that met those criteria and use it in my high-end system. The player is a stereo only but the sonic quality is immense. To go to multi-channel at this quality would be financially ruinous for me, how could I afford to drop such amounts of money on three new equally performing channels (excluding woofer considerations)?

This is exactly Ken Ishiwata's rational for not making his flagship Marantz players MCh, he just does not wish to encourage customers to substitute quantity for quality at this level or leave them disaffected because 'he' provided a high level MCh capability that could not be enjoyed fully by most Marantz customers.

The surround experience is something else, I grant you and very enjoyable to boot just so long as you are not an ultra- critical listener with near perfect-pitch.

Two last paragraphs of your post are the nonsense part. Ishiwata knows quite well that audiophiles listening to classical music are not going to bring in enough money to support mch audio-only player. That's pure economics, and to say anything else is BS.

Integrating mch-system to ultra-high-end stereo rig, you just need to say magical words: "processor loop". It's not hard to find esoteric preamp with processor loop these days. Heck, my friend had one made (extra input that bypasses potentiometer) to his beloved vintage tube preamp. Adding even cheaper processor, mch-player and couple of surround speakers gets you so much closer to nirvana, without touching your stereo-playback abilities.

kristian

Post by tailspn March 29, 2009 (80 of 93)
trntbl said:

Adding even cheaper processor, mch-player and couple of surround speakers gets you so much closer to nirvana, without touching your stereo-playback abilities.

kristian

AMEN!

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