Post by AmonRa January 18, 2013 (21 of 358)
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windhoek:
SHM-SACDs? Would a DSD file sound better
No, same data, just marketing BS.
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Post by tailspn January 18, 2013 (22 of 358)
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Hitters said:
If I get what you are saying, the conversion of the .dff file to the .dst file is necessary because it is too heavy for the SACD to carry? That's why it must be compressed?
A stereo 70 minute .dff file averages about 1.5GB in size. A .dff multi-channel file of the same program material is about 5GB. The DVD media a SACD is made of accommodates 4.7GB, so lossless compression is used to fit both the stereo and multi-channel .dff files into that layer's capacity.
.dst authoring does not treat the stereo file differently than the mult-channel. They're compressed the same. Stereo only .dff files on the other hand could easily fit into the DSD layer of an SACD. I do not know how stereo only SACD's are authored.
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Post by AmonRa January 18, 2013 (23 of 358)
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old-dog-newtricks said:
variability in the results of transferring and playing a sound file to and from CD/SACD.
No such thing, this is digital audio. It is just data, bit perfect. Forget LPs.
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Post by Hitters January 18, 2013 (24 of 358)
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tailspn said:
A stereo 70 minute .dff file averages about 1.5GB in size. A .dff multi-channel file of the same program material is about 5GB. The DVD media a SACD is made of accommodates 4.7GB, so lossless compression is used to fit both the stereo and multi-channel .dff files into that layer's capacity.
.dst authoring does not treat the stereo file differently than the mult-channel. They're compressed the same. Stereo only .dff files on the other hand could easily fit into the DSD layer of an SACD. I do not know how stereo only SACD's are authored.
Thank you, Tom, for the crystal-clear explanation.
It is, after all, a matter of capacity. Just as it was when the 16/44.1 sampling rate was established.
Is this correct?
Best wishes from Buenos Aires
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Post by tailspn January 18, 2013 (25 of 358)
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Hitters said:
Thank you, Tom, for the crystal-clear explanation.
It is, after all, a matter of capacity. Just as it was when the 16/44.1 sampling rate was established.
Is this correct?
Best wishes from Buenos Aires
Hi Juan,
That's a good analogy. Producers of any kind are always facing the current limitations of their art. Allot people in the industry pressured Sony to wait until 128fs could be accommodated with both media, and consumer electronics. Had they waited, there would be no SACD today.
Best from freezing Boston
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Post by Hitters January 18, 2013 (26 of 358)
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tailspn said:
Hi Juan,
That's a good analogy. Producers of any kind are always facing the current limitations of their art. Allot people in the industry pressured Sony to wait until 128fs could be accommodated with both media, and consumer electronics. Had they waited, there would be no SACD today.
Best from freezing Boston
Sure! I am definitely not a purist, so better to have compressed high res files than none at all! It simply sounded so interesting for me to know the difference between the master tape and what we actually get on an SACD.
I am puzzled this issue had never popped-up in this Forum before.
I mean, among so many DSD purists, nobody had asked this simple question.
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tailspn said:
They aren't the same. There are probably nine or more different DSD capable DAC chips used throughout the industry, each with their own characteristic sound signature.
NOPE, they are exactly the same DAC chips as the ones employed in SACD and universal players. They are implemented in different devices (using different power sections, analog sections etc), but the DACs at the heart of these devices are the very same chips employed in SACD players and universal players, hence the claim that DSD DACs can decode DSD directly but SACD players and universal players can not is total horseshit.
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Post by singlung January 18, 2013 (28 of 358)
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there is an article on audiostream dealing with a similar phenomenon:
http://www.audiostream.com/content/qa-barry-diament-soundkeeper-recordings
barry diament talks about why self-burnt cd-r might sound better than factory-pressed cds, maybe some of this is applicable to sacd as well:
"From my earliest days in CD mastering, I always noticed that the finished CDs from different replication facilities all sound different from each other and none sounds indistinguishable from the CD master used to make it. Often, CDs made on different production lines within the same plant don’t sound like each other either. In all cases, there is a loss of “focus” and fine detail, usually subtle, sometimes not so subtle.
When it came time to choose a plant to do Soundkeeper’s CDs, I spoke with a few dozen facilities. The one I ultimately chose was the only one which, without any prompting from me, did not claim their CDs sound exactly like the masters. It turns out, their CDs are the closest in my experience. I can still distinguish between the CD and the master from which it was made but with their discs, I need a synchronized playback against the master to discern the differences.
This plant cuts the glass master (the first step in CD production) in real time, instead of the more typical 4x or faster used by most other facilities nowadays. They also use a ~9 second injection molding cycle, rather than the more common ~4 second cycle. Whether these account for why their discs are more faithful, I don’t know. Some say procedures like this make for better formed “pits” in the disc, making it easier for the player to read the disc with less “jitter” (i.e., timing errors). I don’t know if this is the case but I do know I like the results.
With a well made CD-R (burned at relatively slow speed on a high quality blank), I find the results of playback in a CD transport or player sound closer to the CD master than even the best pressings in my experience.
I think something similar occurs with processes such as SHM, Blu-Spec and HQCD, where the processes are different from usual and sometimes the materials in the disc itself are different. I recently compared some of these with their plain CD counterparts. I was pretty surprised by the degree of difference I heard and found it to be so obvious, I would have bet I was listening to two different masterings, with different EQ!
To “prove” this, I extracted both the “special” disc and the plain CD to computer hard drive so I could perform a “null” test. In a null test, two digital files are synchronized (to the sample) and mixed together. The polarity of one of the files is reversed. What results is that everything the two files have in common, i.e., what is the same in the files, is cancelled (or “nulled”), leaving only what is different between the files. To my surprise, the result of the null test was dead silence. Listening to the two files from the computer resulted in both sounding indistinguishable from each other. It was a slightly clearer version of the “better” disc heard from the CD player. Whether commercial CD, “special” material or process CD or a fine CD-R, my experience has consistently been that extraction to computer and playback from there (as a raw PCM file in .aif or .wav format) gets me the true sound of the master. "
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singlung said:
"To “prove” this, I extracted both the “special” disc and the plain CD to computer hard drive so I could perform a “null” test. In a null test, two digital files are synchronized (to the sample) and mixed together. The polarity of one of the files is reversed. What results is that everything the two files have in common, i.e., what is the same in the files, is cancelled (or “nulled”), leaving only what is different between the files. To my surprise, the result of the null test was dead silence. Listening to the two files from the computer resulted in both sounding indistinguishable from each other. It was a slightly clearer version of the “better” disc heard from the CD player. Whether commercial CD, “special” material or process CD or a fine CD-R, my experience has consistently been that extraction to computer and playback from there (as a raw PCM file in .aif or .wav format) gets me the true sound of the master. "
Thanks for this - a fascinating account of the placebo effect writ large.
Notice how he actually proves that his brain is misleading his ears but he purposefully ignores that and comes up with some hocus-pocus to suit his preconceived ideas. He is not alone amongst "audiophiles" to do such "thinking"...
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audioholik said:
NOPE, they are exactly the same DAC chips as the ones employed in SACD and universal players. They are implemented in different devices (using different power sections, analog sections etc), but the DACs at the heart of these devices are the very same chips employed in SACD players and universal players, hence the claim that DSD DACs can decode DSD directly but SACD players and universal players can not is total horseshit.
Hmm, get out the shovels. Is it not true that some DAC chips convert to PCM before the analogue conversion?
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