Post by enos August 13, 2007 (21 of 24)
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Julien said:
That is mainly because we are much more advanced in terms of player technology for CD than SACD. The fair comparison would be between the best SACD players we have now and the best CD players from 1990 (10 years of development).
Hi again,
Well, I partly disagree with your statement. As far as I understand, SACD playback is based 90% on the same technology as CD playback (transport, analogue outputs, feeding...).
The only difference consist in D/A conversion, and it looks as if the DSD flow was not handeled before because chipset were not powerfull enough. The technology itself as theory looks indeed almost as old as the current D/A conversion for CD. So I am not so sure about comparing 20 years old CDP performance with todays best SACD players...
But the real question is: can a current 3.000 euros SACD players playing SACD equal a 10.000 euros CDP. Or same excercice for a 1.000 SACD players and a 5.000 euros CDP. Even for a 300 euros SACD player and a 2.000 euros CDP. If the answer is yes, this is good news for our wallets !!!
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Post by RedFox August 13, 2007 (22 of 24)
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enos said:
As far as I understand, SACD playback is based 90% on the same technology as CD playback (transport, analogue outputs, feeding...).
The only difference consist in D/A conversion, and it looks as if the DSD flow was not handeled before because chipset were not powerfull enough.
i should disagree with you. the technology is far from being the same.
you are kindly recommended to read trough, at least partly, the frequently
asked question on this homepage (see the menu item FAQ above).
i have also made a comparison with a friend of mine using the Audio Note
CD player II. (the price is about 4000 USD in Hungary) and the marantz sa-15s1
SA-CD and CD player (1800 USD). we played hybrid SA-CDs.
the marantz was significantly better if we played the sa-cd layer.
this is only one comparison and i would not brave enough to generalize the
result. however i was convinced that in the category under 5000 usd an
sacd player can provide a much better performance than an rbcd player
for the very same price.
the hungarian hi-fi piac (hi-fi market, a bimonthly) has recently reviewed
the linn akurate universal player (this is a new player, its price is about 7500 usd in hungary).
their conclusion: the player is still much better if you
play a hybrid disc as an sacd (in comparison to the cd layer of the same disk)
though the reviewer praised the rbcd playback as well.
their review seems to contradict the statement "it is also true that the
higher you go in range, the gap between SACD and CD playback tends to diminish
drastically, up to the point where differences are rather subtle or even not
detectable by untrained ears" made by amatala.
i should add something to this: i myself have no experience in comparisons
of high end cd and sa-cd players.
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Post by amatala August 13, 2007 (23 of 24)
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enos said:
Hi Amatala,
I agree that CD playback on entry-level universal player is not the best you can get, but can be surprisingly good sometimes. Indeed, I have realized that my Philips 763SA plays SACD better than my dedicated CDP (2.000 euros) plays CD layers. Much better 3D image, upper and lower frequencies clearly extended. Just seem to sound a bit lean compared to my CDP and lacking emotions... Still, overall, a very good performance that stunned me for the price I paid it completely new (160 euros !!!).
If improvements can be noticed easily with dedicated SACD players in SACD playback, I just can not imagine how good it can be.
Since I am very happy with my current CDP, I will just look for auditioning some SACD players for SACD performance only. And if a 160 euros entry-level universal SACD players is almost as good as a dedicated 2.000 euros CDP, then some average (and not so expensive) dedicated SACD players should clearly outperform my CDP. For example, I would like to listen to the Marantz SA7001 and SA7001KI on my system to assess the real potential.
My system is pretty transparent (Sphinx and Stax) and differences can be easily noticed, so I expect to benefit from the upgrade.
I understand that going higher in the range do not make a lot of sense unless you want to replace your current CDP. In that case, yes, I would choose a Marantz SA-11S1 for example. At this point, I agree that your system need to be excellent to let you listen differences between CD and SACD playback.
Thanks a lot to all of you for sharing your thoughts.
Hello,
I have to admin that I am very surprised by some of your affirmations. Of course, everything is possible in Hifi and everyone hears things differently, but until now I have rarely heard an entry-level universal player costing under $500 playing SACDs better than a reasonably good $1000 CD player plays CDs.
The only cases when this happenned was when the rest of the system could not keep up and was not able to show how good the more expensive CD player could really sound.
In the past I used to have a Marantz DV6400 universal player (I paid for it around 400 euro) connected to a Harman/Kardon AV receiver. The differences between SACD and CD playback were so huge than I sweared never to listen to a CD again. Later on I decided to get a dedicated stereo SACD/CD and I chose the Marantz SA-8400 because of the excellent reviews it had for its SACD performance (which I have to admit they were all true). When I connected it to my AV Receiver I was less than impressed by the improvement it brought over the DV6400 (even for SACD...).
So I decided to get all the way up to a dedicated stereo system: I bought a dedicated stereo preamplifier and two mono power amps (200W each). On this new setup SACD sounded so good on the SA-8400 that it completely blew away both CD playback on the SA-8400 and SACD on the DV6400.
Even so, the CDs on the SA-8400 sounded MUCH better than the SACDs on the DV6400 (both connected to my stereo system) and I understood that the entry level universal players are only good at creating an illusion of good sound, but when connected to a good system they quickly show their limits.
Today I am using the SA-8400 as a stereo SACD player and as a CD transport (connected to my Marantz CDA-94 DAC) and I have to admit that, in my current setup the SA-8400 + CDA-94 playback CDs almost as well as the SA-8400 alone plays SACDs. Of course there still some extra sweetness to the SACD sound which makes it even more pleasant, but differences are not that easy to tell without repeatedly performing A/B comparisons.
So, to answer your question: for me the Marantz SA7001 is a good SACD player, but no more than this. The SA-8400 was much better at playing SACDs. Objectively speaking I do not think the SA7001 should play SACDs better than a $2000 CD player plays CDs - the best option is to try one in your own system and see how it performs comparred to your current CD player.
Of course if you can afford a Marantz SA-11, you should get it without hesitation - this IS a major upgrade for both CD and SACD playback...
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Post by amatala August 13, 2007 (24 of 24)
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RedFox said:
their review seems to contradict the statement "it is also true that the
higher you go in range, the gap between SACD and CD playback tends to diminish
drastically, up to the point where differences are rather subtle or even not
detectable by untrained ears" made by amatala.
i should add something to this: i myself has no experience in comparisons
of high end cd and sa-cd players.
Hello,
Maybe I should have been more exact and specify that this is not necessarily true on the same player. It is not easy to find SACD/CD player which plays both formats equally well. Most (if not all) players tend to prefer one format over the other.
Either the player is a very good CD player and SACD playback is average, or the other way around: it can be an excellent SACD player but only good in CD playback. In this last case, the differences between SACD and CD are huge, even if we are dealing with an expensive player.
I personally think that the best way to achive both wihout having two different players is to choose a very good SACD player and link it to an external DAC for CD playback. If the player and the DAC are well chosen and matched the results can be pretty impressive in both SACD and CD playback.
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