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rammiepie said:
But the beauty of a hybrid SACD disc is the option to either access the STEREO or Multi-channel (or stereo CD) layers (with the exception of the early SACD discs playable on SACD only players).
I agree totally. Having, and being able to make the choice must be the important thing. That way, it should be possible to please everyone. That is one of the beauties of this format.
The other thing that I've found, and it has really surprised me, is that one doesn't need to spend a fortune on speakers to hear the difference between a CD and an SACD. I've done the experiment with an SACD (as it's a bit easier than with a DVD-A), and changed mid-play from the MCH HD layer of a Hybrid to the CD Layer. I've done this with the sound coming out of all speakers in HD MCH mode, all speakers in HD stereo and CD mode - and front speakers only in both stereo modes. The difference was easily noticeable to me. Obviously, "expensive" and "cheap" are relative terms when it comes to things, but my speaker system cost me £1000.00 new, which in speaker terms is quite low in price. I know also that I could get more performance out of more expensive speakers, but they'll have to wait!
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Post by mx2005 May 31, 2008 (92 of 94)
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Hi all - just been catching up on this thread - lots of reading! Sorry about the long post...
On the subject of speakers: I use one of those B&W centre speakers that's a 2-way 2-driver type thing (it's a CDM CNT pictured above). I think these are superior to the twin-midrange types that are quite good for home cinema to help the dialogue cut through the bombast, but not always best suited for music. Now for most of us, using an identical centre speaker is going to be impossible - for better or worse we need to accommodate a TV of some description in our multi-purpose systems. In these circumstances, an as-identically-as-possible voiced speaker, I believe, is the best idea -- where the same drivers, or drivers of similar construction are used and the speakers are designed as a system. This would of course be coupled with identical power amplification. In these days of relatively inexpensive LCD TVs that can hang on the wall, your centre channel can sit on a proper speaker support and a balance can be struck between speaker height (not too low) and TV height (not so high as you get a stiff neck from looking up at it). Sadly, I still have a hulking great widescreen CRT TV, with the centre speaker perched atop it, so that the tweeter and midrange are significantly higher than those on my FL/FR pair, and yet the centre channel still effectively disappears into the soundstage - you can certainly tell its gone when you switch to phantom centre mode but it is very difficult to localise on surround music program.
The other thing I did when choosing my speakers is that I decided that I wanted a 5.0 system - partly because I have neighbours downstairs but mostly because the systems I've heard with subwoofers installed have never pressed my buttons. I must say that my systems lacks nothing with movie content, nor with music - the speakers do a good job of energising the room with the right type of bass whether it's Star Wars or Dark Side of the Moon or the Verdi Requiem. Particularly for music reproduction I would consider whether full range (large) loudspeakers might be better suited than a subwoofer type 5.1 installation.
All in all I'm thrilled with multichannel SACD, but still love my stereo and even mono music. The particular kind of involvement of a good multichannel disc is quite unique and different to stereo. It still surprises me though, with a good stereo disc (be it SACD, CD or LP) how three-dimensional and enveloping that can be. Discs like 'The Intimate Ella'(Ella Fitzgerald, Verve CD), or Holst's 'The Planets' (Vienna Philharmonic/Karajan, original Decca SXL) have a physical, real sound that for me challanges or maybe even surpasses the best multichannel. There may be many reasons for that (the disparity in the quality of my sources for one!) but it leads me to conclude that if you're listening to a high end stereo SACD player feeding one of the better valve/tube amps into some high sensitivity speakers (preferably large old fashioned types - something from Audio Note maybe!) that you're probably not going to gain much from going multichannel - however there are some wonderful experiences in the mch world that maybe you would like to have a go anyway!
For now, my system will suit me just fine, at least until I win the lottery and I can get those 5 B&W 802Ds.... and a clutch of power amps from Musical Fidelity to go with them! ;-)
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mx2005 said:
Hi all - just been catching up on this thread - lots of reading! Sorry about the long post...
On the subject of speakers: I use one of those B&W centre speakers that's a 2-way 2-driver type thing (it's a CDM CNT pictured above). I think these are superior to the twin-midrange types that are quite good for home cinema to help the dialogue cut through the bombast, but not always best suited for music. Now for most of us, using an identical centre speaker is going to be impossible - for better or worse we need to accommodate a TV of some description in our multi-purpose systems. In these circumstances, an as-identically-as-possible voiced speaker, I believe, is the best idea -- where the same drivers, or drivers of similar construction are used and the speakers are designed as a system. This would of course be coupled with identical power amplification. In these days of relatively inexpensive LCD TVs that can hang on the wall, your centre channel can sit on a proper speaker support and a balance can be struck between speaker height (not too low) and TV height (not so high as you get a stiff neck from looking up at it). Sadly, I still have a hulking great widescreen CRT TV, with the centre speaker perched atop it, so that the tweeter and midrange are significantly higher than those on my FL/FR pair, and yet the centre channel still effectively disappears into the soundstage - you can certainly tell its gone when you switch to phantom centre mode but it is very difficult to localise on surround music program.
The other thing I did when choosing my speakers is that I decided that I wanted a 5.0 system - partly because I have neighbours downstairs but mostly because the systems I've heard with subwoofers installed have never pressed my buttons. I must say that my systems lacks nothing with movie content, nor with music - the speakers do a good job of energising the room with the right type of bass whether it's Star Wars or Dark Side of the Moon or the Verdi Requiem. Particularly for music reproduction I would consider whether full range (large) loudspeakers might be better suited than a subwoofer type 5.1 installation.
All in all I'm thrilled with multichannel SACD, but still love my stereo and even mono music. The particular kind of involvement of a good multichannel disc is quite unique and different to stereo. It still surprises me though, with a good stereo disc (be it SACD, CD or LP) how three-dimensional and enveloping that can be. Discs like 'The Intimate Ella'(Ella Fitzgerald, Verve CD), or Holst's 'The Planets' (Vienna Philharmonic/Karajan, original Decca SXL) have a physical, real sound that for me challanges or maybe even surpasses the best multichannel. There may be many reasons for that (the disparity in the quality of my sources for one!) but it leads me to conclude that if you're listening to a high end stereo SACD player feeding one of the better valve/tube amps into some high sensitivity speakers (preferably large old fashioned types - something from Audio Note maybe!) that you're probably not going to gain much from going multichannel - however there are some wonderful experiences in the mch world that maybe you would like to have a go anyway!
For now, my system will suit me just fine, at least until I win the lottery and I can get those 5 B&W 802Ds.... and a clutch of power amps from Musical Fidelity to go with them! ;-)
Lovely speakers you've got! I'm sure they do much more justice to hi-res music than my Bose AM15 set. I was looking at replacing them for something far more fitting to my Arcam DV137 and AVR350, but finances won't allow it at the moment.
Good luck with the lottery! If you win - or when you win - I'll happily give your speakers a good home!
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Paul Clark said:
And so, there's the rub.
If it wasn't for the fact that Oppo manufactures a very affordable, decent SACD/Universal player and mainstream HDMI recevier/amps are also NOW affordable to the mass marketplace, I would still be ignoring the SACD medium.
The money I have spent purchasing SACD's in the last few weeks could feed a small (OK, tiny) army. Whereas, prior to the Oppo it was nil.
Now, how to afford decent speakers, 5.1 x $ ?
I don't know what SACD's you are buying but most of mine run at $15.00 at Frys.
The ones that have cost me more have been specialized sets (Genesis first boxed set, Moody Blues "Days of Future Passed")
I still have really old speakers, you don't need new speakers.
My right and left channel are 20 years old. In fact I just dropped a Sony MEX-DV2000 in my car to listen to the SACDs and no change out on the speakers..no problem..sounds great (on a few discs better than my in house system..no Oppo player yet)
I am only noticing a problem with the sound from my computer, which is not surprising as the sound cards are really not setup for this yet and the out put to the amp does not seem to be processing the Subwoofer effects properly when outputting them and the soundcard tools to not seem to allow turning off the subwoofer output. Need to check this some more.
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