Post by jruhnke June 1, 2005 (21 of 24)
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DrOctodivx said:
That's silly. A lot of people use their computers as their entertainment centers - which makes perfect sense in this digital age. I use a computer to play back all of my DVDs since it does a better job of upscaling resolutions than most dedicated units.
As far as audio goes, in the age of MP3 many computers are attached directly to the hifi systems and are thus in a perfect position to be used to play back just about anything. The audio quality also cannot be snubbed so easily as you seem to suggest - there are plenty of audio cards with excellent sound capabilities, though of course PCM based.
Just have to say: "Hear, hear!" I want to echo the good Doctor's comments that Home Theater PCs (HTPCs) are becoming more prevalent in home theaters, at least among the DIY/computer enthusiast crowd. For those whose priorities weigh system integration through their HTPC comparably to pure sonic quality, a system that allows SACD / DVD-A playback via the HTPC's disc transport could be a very desirable solution.
One should also not discount the desire to play SACDs in other rooms in the house, even at the cost of lower fidelity. How many folks have a nice multichannel home theater in their living room, but a simple TV with a $50 DVD player in the bedroom? Does anyone belittle them for wanting to curl up under the covers in the evening and watch a movie using that horribly inferior setup? Of course not.
So why is the argument made that no one would want to listen to an SACD via their crappy PC speakers? Maybe the answer is simply, "Because I'm in the computer room and I want to listen to that disc, this is my only option, and it's better than not being able to listen at all."
There's no sin in wanting to listen to music in a non-audiophile setting, even if the media source is capable of audiophile quality reproduction.
Jim
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Post by csuzor June 2, 2005 (22 of 24)
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I believe we are very close to having DSD encoding/decoding on PC, as announced by Sony recently (see below). However, no SACD drive announced yet, probably to avoid copying / redistribution.
I would like to listen to my SACDs in surround sound in my computer room (office) from time to time, where I have a multichannel amp connected to the PC and surround speakers. I guess that if I really wanted to, buying a cheap SACD player (available from EUR100 nowadays) would do the trick.
But I haven't, because the convenience of losslessly storing CD on the hard disk is great, and I'd like the same convenience for SACD. For now, I store the CD layer losslessly, but the enjoyment is not the same as on my surround HiFi system, so those disks don't get much airtime in the computer room.
I am proud to say, I have never provided to / received from anyone, copied CD nor DVD. peer2peer, what is that?! No reason to change my habits for SACD.
http://www.highfidelityreview.com/news/news.asp?newsnumber=14655563
A One-Chip DSD Processor and DSD Upsampling
Sony says that the Sound Reality by VAIO PC will include a one-chip DSD processor. This will offload the DSD audio processing to minimize the impact on the PC's CPU performance.
Also included will be a new edition of Sonic Stage Mastering Studio software from Sony. According to Sony, the new version "empowers the user to record, playback and edit music in both DSD and PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) audio formats. Its PCM recording capability is critical since this is CD’s core enabling technology. Users can take a standard stereo CD, rip it to their PC hard drive and then use their Sound Reality PC to up-convert the audio signal to a fully uncompressed DSD audio stream."
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Post by mandel June 2, 2005 (23 of 24)
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I wonder what they'll provide to allow you to store a sensible amount of DSD material. Would be nice if you could burn to DVD and make your own single layer SACDs. The ability to convert 16/44.1 to DSD at high quality on a non-realtime system would actually give a sonic benefit for a lot of people if they could then burn them to SACD. Ah well, back to reality :)
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Post by deckerm June 2, 2005 (24 of 24)
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mandel said:
I wonder what they'll provide to allow you to store a sensible amount of DSD material. Would be nice if you could burn to DVD and make your own single layer SACDs. The ability to convert 16/44.1 to DSD at high quality on a non-realtime system would actually give a sonic benefit for a lot of people if they could then burn them to SACD. Ah well, back to reality :)
The reason I want to be able to copy a SACD for my personal use is my car doesnt have a SACD Player in it, nor would i bet any of your cars have a SACD in it. I sure would like to be able to hear some of my original Sony single layer SACDs that I purchased and the only way to do that is copy from SACD to PCM.
I have no intentions of stopping my purchasing, in fact, I have bought more CD media (in SACD and DVD-A) form the last 2 years then I have in the last 10, but these early non hybrid SACDs as well as my DVD-A are missing on my road tunes.
edit: The only way to get music on your Ipod is thru a PC as well, so yet another reason to bring the PC into the equation
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