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Super Audio CD.

 

Analogue is a perfect smooth wave.

CD is digital and is like a bunch of steps, that combine to create a jagged wave if you look closely. So it will never be as crisp as analogue wave.

SACD is just made more little steps so the jagged line gets smoother and closer to a pure analogue wave.

In fact its 64times better than CD, CD is 44Khz and SACD is 2.8Mhz. So its pretty much a perfect analogue wave as perceived by the human ear. A CD is not quite good enough for human hearing, you can tell the difference between the digital wave and the analogue. SACD is the bomb in that respect it is perfect sound to the human hear as perfect as listening to an orchestra. Purists can tell the difference.

 

 

More info means bigger files so a SACD is 4.7GB, the same as a DVD!

 

SACD uses Direct Stream Digital (DSD) signal processing technique.

 

SACD players are bloody expensive but you can play every other format on them SACD / DVD-Video / SVCD / Video CD / CDDA / CD-R / CD-RW playback etc

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There are two enhanced audio formats. SACD, Sony's format and DVD-A (DVD Audio). You can playback 5.1 surround sound mixes on these formats, so many albums are now being mixed not only in stereo, but in surround (not to mention in enhanced bitrates).

 

Audio quality sounds much better on these formats when listening thru a good system. Think of the difference like listening to music thru a getto blaster vs a megadollar hi fi system.

 

All the digital audio I did on my album was recorded in 24 bit 16k, and it will be mastered at this level, but will ultimately wind up on CD format - 44.1k 16 bit. Lots of people are recording digital audio at 24 bit these days before mixing down to CD. There is a noticable difference, but not on cheap speakers. I would have liked to have done a 5.1 mix as well as a stereo mix, but the cost was beyond me as it would have had to be done in a dedicated 5.1 studio, however in the future you will see more and more albums coming out on 5.1 as more and more people get home entertainment systmes with surround sound. I may get the album remixed in 5.1 someday way off in the future.

 

At the moment, on high end Protools systems digital audio is capable of being recorded at 196k, though it's more common to use 96k, which other digital audio equipment are now supporting. This makes for very very large sound files as they carry a lot more information. Recording at the higher fidelity makes a difference to the ultimate sound, even though, at the moment, it gets mastered down to regular CD. Some of this extra information is simply harmonics that the human ear can't hear, but these harmonics affect the actual sound of the music, which the human ear CAN hear. If you master at higher bitrates to enhanced CD formats and don't have to mix it down to regular CD format there will be even more information that is available for your ears to hear. In the analog days you didn't have that problem as studio analog equipment could pick up all those frequencies. But digital recordings are a series of ones and zeros, giving a representation of sound rather than the actual sound itself, which analog reproduces.

 

If you sit down in a studio with good monitors you can certainly hear the difference between CD format digital audio and a pure analog 24 track tape recording. Much thinner for starters. Also, 'warmth' is often the word used to describe analog recordings. Even if mixed down onto (digital) CD some of that warmth is retained when compared to something recorded purely in the digital realm. Digital is great because it's very clean and clear, but lack of warmth has been an issue once the novelty of lack of tape hiss wore off. Nowadays there is a lot of eqiupment and software dedicated to 'warming up' the sound of digital recordings. Although they've stopped manufacturing hi end analog 24 track audio equipment there has been a rennaissance toward recording on analog to bring that warmth back into the sound, especially for recordings using acoustic instruments. I recorded part of my album, which is mainly acoustic rather than electronic, onto analog 24 track (in Sydney) to try and maintain as much warmth in it as possible, though all the overdubbing here in Tokyo went down onto Protools in the digital domain.

 

By the way, here's a little quote off a random website:

 

"There are two formats competing to replace the standard audio CD, the SACD and DVD-Audio (DVD-A), remember the Betamax and VHS battle that split the market. Right now most of the industry is backing DVD-A, with Philips and Sony being the major exceptions." (I think this depends on what region you're in as to which one is more popular right now).

 

PS - I don't have an SACD or DVD-A player, and probably won't bother until the market for 5.1 grows and I one day decide to get a surround setup. By then prices will have gone down as well as more consumers buy the equipment. The nice thing about DVD-A is that you can watch a movie and have all the sound in surround on your home entertainment system. From what I can gather SACD is purely audio, though don't quote me on that, I haven't read up on it enough to say for sure.

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Well digital is just sooo cheap these days. You can buy a sound card that records 24bit for under $100. 5 years ago that would have cost you $1000s.

 

Philips and Sony are the two biggest players in the audio format world so we'll see who comes out on top (but remember Sony did lose the betamax race). Like most standards battles these days it will certainly be a long long time before a format becomes the clear winner. More than likely you'll find dual format players considerably more common than seeing a company take sides.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've got a SACD system, it does make a different. Excellent sound. The only problem is I don't live in a detached house, so have to be careful about volumes sometimes (they go away quite a lot). Drowning in the sound is just intoxicating.

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all of this really falls in the realm of psycho-acoustics more than anything...and that is a very subjective science at the best...

 

Just because SACD records at a higher bit-rate does not neccessarily mean that it has a significant increase in psycho-acoustic information, which in my opinion, is much more important. If kamos stats are right, 2.8MHz is waaaaay beyond the capabilities of the human ear. Sunrise has good points relating to how we "feel" the music (like warmth...). Unfortuntaley, the "psycho" part in psychoacoustics makes all this a wash...

 

My guess is that for an "average" ear listening through an "average" sound system, they would probably not be able to hear the difference between normal cd and sacd. How many people here can tell the difference between 128kb/s and 256 kb/s mp3s?? Psychoacoustically speaking ,that is a much bigger step than 44.1khz cd to 2.8MHz sacd.

 

my .02

 

danz

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  • 2 years later...

Some of my fave albums are getting remastered in 5.1 and put on SACDs and so I'm kinda interested in this subject again.

 

Anyone with any updates since 2 years ago? I quickly looked at Amazon and prices still seemed to be really high, though some of them seemed to be DVD players as well which confused me more.......

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I used to think I was imagining that there was a difference in quality between CD and Vinyl. if what Snowglider says is true then the music played on an high quality record player could be more pleasing and not simply the result of Luddite age bias

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There is a difference. Though I dont have a record player here in Japan.

 

I'm just so looking forward to getting these remastered albums though. Must be great for the band hey, people buying your (same) music all over again. confused.gif

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