Post by zeus August 31, 2010 (21 of 289)
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Ernani71 said:
To me it rather matters a lot. I love my music.
Then it behoves you to at least give it a try. You may be surprised to learn that many here share your passion for music.
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Post by sweetji August 31, 2010 (22 of 289)
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Hello.
I'm essentially a newcomer to DSD and therefore I'd rather ask: Where can I find sounds to test? To clarify, I live in the Czech Republic where things like SA-CD or DSD are more or less unknown so I can't find someone "near me" who would have some DSD recordings.
First, I downloaded the WMP plugin for converting DSD to PCM. Then, I tried Wheatus and I downloaded the music both in DSD and in FLAC. After hearing 4 tracks distorted, I loaded the FLACs into a sound editor. Surprisingly, even though the peaks never get to 0 db, much of the sound is recognizably overloaded even in some unexpected places (careful listening reveals this even at the beginning of track 3 where there's certainly no obvious reason why this should happen). Because it's the property of the actual waveform, scaling the volume down can't help fixing this.
Later I wanted to try David Elias "The Window". Unfortunately, after clicking "Submit" on his webpage, the Paypal webpage popped up saying "Sorry, your last action could not be completed" (I then tried to log into my account and do it again but that didn't work either, even though I had much more money on my account than the required price).
So, if one source offers distorted sound and another one is inaccessible, where do I get some DSD stuff to listen for myself.
Thank you in advance.
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Ernani71 said:
People still failed to hear the difference.
Are you Petrus in Disguise ?
Does it Matter what a set of tests reveal.? ie If you take the 50 per cent of the listeners who could identify the difference in that test, then just retested them and they came up 100 per cent accurate then you would have all the proof you needed. It doesnt mean YOU could benefit.
Personally I never mix listening sessions of cd and sacd or DVDA.Quick sampling is another matter but this is not the way I listen to music normally.
One disc I found abysmal was recently given away as a free download 24/96 by a Danish company and when I reported back to them that the download was as bad as the sacd and had examples of less than 44.1khz sampling plus artefacts they agreed and stated they would look into it.
Note this disc currently not been reviewed on this site however a similair sounding one has been reviewed possitivly?.
The fact that people within the industry have less than stellar hearing abilities is no suprise,its almost a guarantee. We have one poster on this site who regularly advertises his poor quality hearing of higher frequencies.He is the CEO of a major sacd releasing company.
This just proves he believes others have his same hearing deficiencies.Possibly very true in older listeners.
Generally the reviews on this site also clearly indicate some listeners who regularly play CDs have a high tolerance for frequency restricted sacds of which there are quite a few.
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Post by emaidel August 31, 2010 (24 of 289)
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AS others have advised, listen for yourself. I truly believe that the SACD format as "the best there is," but there are times when I compare the CD to the SACD layers on a hybrid disc for guests who can't hear the difference, even though I can. To this day, I'll still make the following statement: if I were to walk into a room where a disc was playing, and was asked to identify it as a CD or an SACD, without comparing the two, I probably couldn't tell which was which, unless the CD was recorded poorly.
I've now owned an SACD player for 2 1/2 years, and am more attuned to the superior qualitites of the SACD format. Some CD's I own, which I always thought sounded pretty good, now have a bit of a harsh, "edgy" quality to them, that none of my SACD's do. Still, that's not always the case, as some CD's still sound awfully good. In a DIRECT comparison between the two, the SACD layer (to me) always wins out. Whether it's worth it to you, or anyone, is not for me to decide, but only yourself.
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sweetji said:
where do I get some DSD stuff to listen for myself.
Thank you in advance.
/titles
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Post by zeus August 31, 2010 (26 of 289)
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sweetji said:
So, if one source offers distorted sound and another one is inaccessible, where do I get some DSD stuff to listen for myself.
SA-CD is an optical music carrier, not a download format. I'd be very surprised if there were no SA-CDs available in at least some stores in the Czech Republic as quite a few discs are single inventory. You'll need a player as well.
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Post by Ernani71 August 31, 2010 (27 of 289)
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TROLL-Buster said:
Are you Petrus in Disguise ?
Does it Matter what a set of tests reveal?
Petrus? Nope.
Your question also speaks to what Zeus said about not being academic. As a phenomenologist, I know that what matters is what you hear and experience, not what the numbers say. Anyhow, I'll be checking later to see if anybody has any advice for me regarding SACD players and particularly the OPPO, which I think is the one I want.
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Post by hiredfox August 31, 2010 (28 of 289)
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Does the SE vesrsion of the Oppo have balanced analogue outputs or just single-ended? Also HDMI connectivity (?) - if so is that pure DSD or PCM via a digital processing
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Post by stvnharr August 31, 2010 (29 of 289)
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Ernani,
You've been given a rough reception, and your title didn't help you any. Everyone here is sure about SACD. That's why we are here.
It's really quite simple. All sacd titles are listed on this site. If the music you like is available on sacd, then find a player, give it a go and decide for yourself. No one can really know but you.
Steve
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Post by DSD August 31, 2010 (30 of 289)
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sweetji said:
...where do I get some DSD stuff to listen for myself.
Original DSD and DXD Recordings are listed here: /dsd
In the Recording type it will specify if it is DSD or DXD. DXD is short for Digital eXtreme Definition which is 24/32 Bit 352.8kHz PCM.
My favorite DSD recordings are from Telarc, however PentaTone, Channel Classics, BSO and others are also excellent.
It's too bad you couldn't get David Elias' site to work as "The Window" is a great recording. Perhaps email them with details of the problem?
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