Question Relating To SACD

[20thcentury]

I have a question that I have wondered about for awhile and thought to ask here, and it is regarding the SACD releases.

If one of those SACD discs was ripped as wav, would that wav file retain the SACD quality performance, in other words would the wav files remain as SACD sounding as opposed to a normal produced disc.

I understand there has been much debate about whether these Super Audio Compact Discs actually sound any different to non SACD, but just wondered if a rip to wav would make any difference to the sound quality.

 

[Harry]

I would say that the answer is a qualified "No". I'm basing this on my own experiences.

First off, we must determine just which SACD you're referring to. Carpenters have had two and they are very different in their technology.

The first SACD was of SINGLES 1969-1981, released around 2004. It was a hybrid SACD, meaning it had three "layers", if you will. If you put the disc in a standard CD player, you had just one set of tracks to listen to, a redbook CD layer with stereo audio.

If you placed the disc in a specialized SACD player, you then had two choices of programs, one which yielded the same mixes as on the redbook layer, but in higher-quality SACD sound. Finally, there was the surround layer, which featured the tracks in full 5.1 surround sound, and was the only one of the layers to feature all new mixes by Richard and Al Schmitt made specifically for the SACD. As a bone to non SACD owners, two songs, "Superstar" and "Top Of The World" were given new stereo mixes on the stereo layers, based on the new surround mixes.

Now, if you were to put that disc into a computer to rip it with standard ripping software, it would make WAV files of the stereo redbook layer. I personally am not well-versed in all technology to know whether or not there is software to delve into the SACD layers. I would think that would require an SACD drive in one's computer to accomplish that, and I don't know if those exist, and if they did, what kind of software would "rip" it.

Secondly, Carpenters this past year released an SACD from Japan of THE SINGLES 1969-1973. This one differed in that it was ONLY an SACD (and pressed on SHM material). So there is no redbook layer on that disc for a standard computer to read. You'd need an SACD drive to try to rip it (with probably dedicated software), and again, I don't know if such a thing exists. This SACD was ONLY in stereo, not surround.

I used an analog solution to sort of attempt what you seem to be trying to do. I played the SINGLES 1969-1981 SACD on my Sony Blu-ray player that plays SACDs; fed the audio into my Sony surround sound receiver, and let it downmix the 5.1 channels into two-channel audio. Then I fed that analog signal into my CD recorder to capture the two-channel downmix of the 5.1 mixes. These sound different than the standard stereo mixes, so it was a way of making the new mixes, albeit collapsed to two channels, available easily on any CD player.

Harry

 

[20thcentury]

The Carpenters / Singles 1969-1981 SACD.

 

[20thcentury]

The Carpenters / The Singles 1969-1973 PT-SHM, on this one it has the mix of We''ve only just begun with separation.