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raffells said:
Hi, Just to let you know that I totally agree with your opinions re sacd/vinyl and have said so in a few post over the years including on this forum.. except for comments re Bass....Then I do have a Rock turntable on a seismic sink stand.
I would suggest that before you get rid of your cds in haste...try converting one to 24/96 in a DAD or dvda and you will be quite suprised that some of the difference . Dave
I would not have believed it if I had not heard it, but on my amplifier, which can automatically upconvert any stream to 24/88 or 24/96, the difference can be astounding switching between setting this off and on, depending on the CD.
Even DTS sounded better, though upconverted CDs still sound better than upconverted DTS, in my opinion.
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Post by gfresh January 18, 2005 (12 of 89)
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I've been bouncing back between DVD-A and SACD alot and have compared them extensively. I'm always surprised by how good DVD-As sound, but SACD usually seems better. However, what I have noticed is that both have strengths and weaknesses.
I believe that SACDs tend tobe very weak in the high frequencies which seem to get dull and smeary. They also seem to have less overall dynamic range, and less subtle dynamic variation compared to 24 bit PCM.
And yet SACD has perfect impulse response so the 3d sound staging is amazing, and the sound is always very full and realistic. You can really feel the music. DVD-A in comparison seems flat, cold and sterile. Like the music simply lacks a dimension to it.
The explanation I can figure is that DSD's perfect impulse response and high time resolution give it that realistic, airy and warm sound. But DSD seems to have a harder time capturing subtle waveforms, particularly transients, in the high frequencies. When graphing a shorter waveform the 1 bit stream has less room to move. PCM however can capture all frequencies with the same dynamic resolution.
PCM also a larger dynamic range and a more constant bit resolution. DSD could be 32 bit 88k, or 16/174. From it's alleged dynamic range and my own listening DSD seems to about in the equivalent 18-20 bit range, which is better than CD, but not as good as DVD-A.
Part of this may also be as result of mastering or processing. You simply can't do the things on DSD you can on PCM. I've heard some pure DSD recordings (Telarcs and Alison Krauss) and they further reinforce my feelings about DSD.
I do think that SACDs are far better than CD. What often happens is that cheap record labels make their stereo SACD layer from the 16/44.1 PCM master (like with Norah Jones) and so all you are hearing IS the same as the CD. Also, since the CD layer on alot of hybrid discs is a Bit Stream transfer from the DSD it actually sounds pretty close to the real thing.
My overall opinion: Both formats beat CD by far, DVD-A is dead, I like SACD a little better, but DVD-A does excell in other ways it does not. I wish they would come out with a 256f DSD disc, or a 24/384 PCM disk, that way there would be no compromises.
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gfresh said:
I've been bouncing back between DVD-A and SACD alot and have compared them extensively. I'm always surprised by how good DVD-As sound, but SACD usually seems better. However, what I have noticed is that both have strengths and weaknesses.
I believe that SACDs tend tobe very weak in the high frequencies which seem to get dull and smeary. They also seem to have less overall dynamic range, and less subtle dynamic variation compared to 24 bit PCM.
And yet SACD has perfect impulse response so the 3d sound staging is amazing, and the sound is always very full and realistic. You can really feel the music. DVD-A in comparison seems flat, cold and sterile. Like the music simply lacks a dimension to it.
The explanation I can figure is that DSD's perfect impulse response and high time resolution give it that realistic, airy and warm sound. But DSD seems to have a harder time capturing subtle waveforms, particularly transients, in the high frequencies. When graphing a shorter waveform the 1 bit stream has less room to move. PCM however can capture all frequencies with the same dynamic resolution.
PCM also a larger dynamic range and a more constant bit resolution. DSD could be 32 bit 88k, or 16/174. From it's alleged dynamic range and my own listening DSD seems to about in the equivalent 18-20 bit range, which is better than CD, but not as good as DVD-A.
Part of this may also be as result of mastering or processing. You simply can't do the things on DSD you can on PCM. I've heard some pure DSD recordings (Telarcs and Alison Krauss) and they further reinforce my feelings about DSD.
I do think that SACDs are far better than CD. What often happens is that cheap record labels make their stereo SACD layer from the 16/44.1 PCM master (like with Norah Jones) and so all you are hearing IS the same as the CD. Also, since the CD layer on alot of hybrid discs is a Bit Stream transfer from the DSD it actually sounds pretty close to the real thing.
My overall opinion: Both formats beat CD by far, DVD-A is dead, I like SACD a little better, but DVD-A does excell in other ways it does not. I wish they would come out with a 256f DSD disc, or a 24/384 PCM disk, that way there would be no compromises.
Thank you gfresh, you summarized nicely similar thoughts that I have been having about SACD, that though I prefer DSD, hi-res PCM definitely has some strengths as well and it would be nice to have a format with the strengths of both...
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Post by jerwgar February 21, 2005 (14 of 89)
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gfresh said:
I've been bouncing back between DVD-A and SACD alot and have compared them extensively. I'm always surprised by how good DVD-As sound, but SACD usually seems better. However, what I have noticed is that both have strengths and weaknesses.
I believe that SACDs tend tobe very weak in the high frequencies which seem to get dull and smeary. They also seem to have less overall dynamic range, and less subtle dynamic variation compared to 24 bit PCM.
And yet SACD has perfect impulse response so the 3d sound staging is amazing, and the sound is always very full and realistic. You can really feel the music. DVD-A in comparison seems flat, cold and sterile. Like the music simply lacks a dimension to it.
The explanation I can figure is that DSD's perfect impulse response and high time resolution give it that realistic, airy and warm sound. But DSD seems to have a harder time capturing subtle waveforms, particularly transients, in the high frequencies. When graphing a shorter waveform the 1 bit stream has less room to move. PCM however can capture all frequencies with the same dynamic resolution.
PCM also a larger dynamic range and a more constant bit resolution. DSD could be 32 bit 88k, or 16/174. From it's alleged dynamic range and my own listening DSD seems to about in the equivalent 18-20 bit range, which is better than CD, but not as good as DVD-A.
Part of this may also be as result of mastering or processing. You simply can't do the things on DSD you can on PCM. I've heard some pure DSD recordings (Telarcs and Alison Krauss) and they further reinforce my feelings about DSD.
I do think that SACDs are far better than CD. What often happens is that cheap record labels make their stereo SACD layer from the 16/44.1 PCM master (like with Norah Jones) and so all you are hearing IS the same as the CD. Also, since the CD layer on alot of hybrid discs is a Bit Stream transfer from the DSD it actually sounds pretty close to the real thing.
My overall opinion: Both formats beat CD by far, DVD-A is dead, I like SACD a little better, but DVD-A does excell in other ways it does not. I wish they would come out with a 256f DSD disc, or a 24/384 PCM disk, that way there would be no compromises.
I enjoyed your post and was suprised by your inharent knowledge of the difference between sacd and dvd-a. Thought you might enjoy this link, as it explains and interesting experience of the author as to why Sacd is more natural than Dvd-a. http://www.diamondcenter.net/AR-HumanStress.html
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Post by mdt February 21, 2005 (15 of 89)
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jerwgar said:
I enjoyed your post and was suprised by your inharent knowledge of the difference between sacd and dvd-a. Thought you might enjoy this link, as it explains and interesting experience of the author as to why Sacd is more natural than Dvd-a. http://www.diamondcenter.net/AR-HumanStress.html
Interesting article, i've made similar experiences with the tiring effect of CDs. What made me wonder about the seriosity on the other hand was the presenting of a "herbal and supplemental formulation used to alleviate many of the negative effects of the PCM digital process" on the same site.
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Post by Dan Popp February 21, 2005 (16 of 89)
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jerwgar said:
I enjoyed your post and was suprised by your inharent knowledge of the difference between sacd and dvd-a. Thought you might enjoy this link, as it explains and interesting experience of the author as to why Sacd is more natural than Dvd-a. http://www.diamondcenter.net/AR-HumanStress.html
gfresh and jerwgar:
The "more natural" myth again.
Hear what you hear, folks, but don't try to enlist science (or Life Energy) to back up your subjective opinion. That's bad science, and in this case, bad superstition.
The issue is never "no compromise" as gfresh put it. The issue is always "cost/benefit." There is not one recording method that's inherently "more natural" than another. If there were, you would all be visiting a website devoted to microcassettes or a wax cylinders. Those are both analog, you know - "more natural" than all this digital nastiness..
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Post by mandel February 21, 2005 (17 of 89)
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gfresh said:
The explanation I can figure is that DSD's perfect impulse response and high time resolution give it that realistic, airy and warm sound. But DSD seems to have a harder time capturing subtle waveforms, particularly transients, in the high frequencies. When graphing a shorter waveform the 1 bit stream has less room to move. PCM however can capture all frequencies with the same dynamic resolution.
I am intrigued what you mean by 'dyanamic resolution'. PCM definitely has inferior resolution at high frequencies than low resolution. Just see what CDs do to a 10kHz sine-wave. SACDs insanely high sample rate I'd have thought would have been ideal for high frequencies. (Not trying to argue with you on this, my technical knowledge is moderate at best, just wondering).
Jerwgar> A lot of that smells like pseudo-science to me but I think there is a fair level of truth in some of what he says. Be interesting to know what he thinks of mp3s :)
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Post by zeus February 21, 2005 (18 of 89)
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jerwgar said:
Thought you might enjoy this link, as it explains and interesting experience of the author as to why Sacd is more natural than Dvd-a. http://www.diamondcenter.net/AR-HumanStress.html
I think you'll find that all this is simply a manifestation of PCM's pre-ringing on transients, which is probably only negligible at sampling frequencies above 96kHz. There's plenty of discussion on this elsewhere.
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Post by mdt February 22, 2005 (19 of 89)
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zeus said:
I think you'll find that all this is simply a manifestation of PCM's pre-ringing on transients, which is probably only negligible at sampling frequencies above 96kHz. There's plenty of discussion on this elsewhere.
where is elsewhere ?
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Post by zeus February 22, 2005 (20 of 89)
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mdt said:
where is elsewhere ?
Ringing is what people describe as "hard", "glassy", "lifeless" and likely results in increased tension for the listener. Everybody has their own tolerance to this. There's so many different filter implementations these days (ranging from no filters at all, asynchronous upsampling, in band roll-off etc) that it's hard to generalize but in the early days of digital when this paper was written it was very evident. Such an artifact is discussed in SA-CD promotional material, AES submissions etc. You can read Ed Meitner's patented solution here:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/srchnum.htm
Enter patent number 5,499,315.
Here's an extract:
"The Gibbs Phenomena is the ringing effect which can be observed on transient responses of digital filters due to a finite window of points used to perform the multirate filtering. Gibbs phenomena creates a ringing distortion before and after a sharp transient. ... The pre-ringing distortion is highly audible in music passages and is the major audio difference between analog processed playback and digital playback."
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