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Chris said:
someone claimed his SACD DSD sounded "superior".
I would like to withdraw the comment. I had listened to the whole blu-ray through and really liked it, and then just sampled the SACD. I thought I liked it better, but on re-listening I found that, while the loud notes on the SACD are very impressive, the soft notes are superior on the Blu-ray.
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Post by Panaeff June 17, 2014 (22 of 31)
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what about the medium notes?
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Post by YvesC June 17, 2014 (23 of 31)
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Panaeff said:
what about the medium notes?
Hahaha !
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Panaeff said:
what about the medium notes?
I think the medium notes were just fine in both formats. It's just the very quiet ones where the Blu-ray pulled away.
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Post by Fugue June 17, 2014 (25 of 31)
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Joseph Ponessa said:
I would like to withdraw the comment. I had listened to the whole blu-ray through and really liked it, and then just sampled the SACD. I thought I liked it better, but on re-listening I found that, while the loud notes on the SACD are very impressive, the soft notes are superior on the Blu-ray.
In way(s) are "the soft notes superior on the Blu-ray"?
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Fugue said:
In way(s) are "the soft notes superior on the Blu-ray"?
I mean no criticism of 2L, which does fine recordings. I am deeply grateful for their chant recording, because there is so little medieval music on SACD. I have had some training in chant, and have paid two visits to the Abbaye de Saint-Pierre-de-Solesmes, the mother ship of chant. (The Spanish monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos are a daughter house from Solesmes, for example--and I have visited there, too.) I find the 2L performers' technique very fine and would not say so otherwise.
I am happy to have the chance to compare two different kinds of discs taken from the same master files of Death and the Maiden. I say that I find the string textures (interaction of melody and harmony) to be smoother, silkier on the Blu-ray. The SACD is rougher all told, but this does not hurt the dynamically loud passages. In fact it is quite exhilarating, and that is what led me to my initial preference for the SACD. The dynamically soft passages, however, are disadvantaged by the more rough-edged SACD signature, and the Blu-ray has a really exceptional presentation of authentic string sound that would be hard to beat.
Let me say that I hear the smoothness in the softer phrases of the Mandelring SACD of the same piece, which I acquired specifically for the purpose of comparison. The Blu-ray is a tad smoother, but the Mandelring strings come across in the same league. I am also very pleased with the sound on the Quartetto Classico recording of the same piece on DVDA.
I have all these--the Blu-ray, the two SACDs and the DVDA -- repackaged together in a blu-ray quad case that I bought specifically for the purpose. Am gradually doing this to the whole collection, both to save space and to be able to make comparisons without having to look all over the house. We are under siege here, with technologies old and new crammed into every available space.
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Post by AmonRa June 17, 2014 (27 of 31)
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Joseph Ponessa said:
The dynamically soft passages, however, are disadvantaged by the more rough-edged SACD signature, and the Blu-ray has a really exceptional presentation of authentic string sound that would be hard to beat.
Achille's heel of DSD (and thus SACD): due to heavy noise shaping DSD starts to loose dynamic range above 10 kHz quite fast. WIth PCM DR is not frequency dependent.
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Post by Chris June 18, 2014 (28 of 31)
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AmonRa said:
Achille's heel of DSD (and thus SACD): due to heavy noise shaping DSD starts to loose dynamic range above 10 kHz quite fast. WIth PCM DR is not frequency dependent.
Imo that "Achilles heel"can sometimes be noticed,especially with percussion instruments like cymbals and triangle which produce a lot of high frequency energy above 10khz when things get very busy in very densely scored orchestral pieces. Unlike you I am not at all an expert at digital recording neither in theory nor in practice.But I know what I hear live and how recordings at different rates reproduce that live sound.
If I have understood him correctly,according to Rob Watts,the designer behind the new quite amazing little Chord Hugo DAC ,Philips had F256 capable dacs before the launch of SACD but limitations related to reading at that rate off a physical disc made them and Sony settle for the SACD standard F64 which was what could be done then.
So in a way one might claim that just as with rbcd in the 80s, SACD in the late 90s was also a bit of a compromise at launch,I suppose?
Well with downloads no such compromises are necessary any longer and judging from what I have heard so far,one and only one example, "A Far Cry's" binaural recording of Beethoven's "Heiliger Gedankensang eines Genesenden an die Gottheit" from his heavenly Opus 132 string quartet,that Achille's heel could possibly be eliminated from DSD F128?
On the other hand Morten Lindberg has been able to record in DSD at 128 for quite long with his Sphynx,but still prefers DXD!
All I can hear from the very limited material of one track in two versions DSD 64 and 128, so far is that via headphones the 128 binaural track,sounds ever so slightly more open and clear and absolutely noisefree to me compared to the standard 64 one.
Thereby not implying that I hear any noise from the downsampled 64 version either.But the 128 digs a wee bit deeper into the church acoustic's depth and height,and strings sound a tad more realistic to me.
Apart from being one of the most moving pieces of music ever composed imo and also one of the most moving performances of that masterpiece,it is in fact also one of the very best recordings of a string ensemble I have ever heard.
Absolutely captivating and hypnotizing in its beauty and realism I think.I am eagerly awaiting the release of the full album as 128 download soon.
It is also wonderful via speakers but via headphones and binaural you also hear an aspect of reality,no speakers system I have yet heard can do,namely the addition of the height dimension!
Anybody who has ever been to a live performance in a church,will know what I am talking about.
I know Morten and some other labels too are experimenting with that via speakers and mch too, but I have not heard how it sounds that way.
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Dear Chris, I always enjoy your posts, but could I ask a favour pls.? Could you put a paragraph break between paras for ease of reading. My eyes arent what they used to be and get a bit confused by closely typesd text. Many thanks, paul
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Post by Fugue June 19, 2014 (30 of 31)
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My copy arrived today. Wow, that is some recording and performance! I think I prefer the SACD audio--it sounds a bit richer and warmer. Not night and day, but noticeable nonetheless.
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