SACD Format

[Rudy]

Yes I know what You mean! I learnt my lesson and now I buy new releases / imports as soon as I see them! I am also a fan of Eric Burdon ( The Animals ) and saw a U.S release called " Retrospective " which was not available over here even as a import.

I picked that one up locally myself. Not sure if you are SACD capable, but it does sound pretty good. (I'm not sure if later issues of this disc have the SACD layer or not: ABKCO also did the Rolling Stones, and the second pressing run eliminated the SACD layer. )

What Imports were You looking for? Were they from the U.K.? What other artists are You into apart from Herb?

Like Mike says--I'm into just about anything! My want list at Amazon is over 400 items long. Actually, a lot of the high-res and/or surround titles that were out on SACD and DVD-Audio are on my short list. Starting in March (?) this year, the first of the three Genesis surround disc releases will be coming out in the UK. (IIRC, the first run includes everything from 'Trick Of The Tail" through "Abacab".) Fortunately, shipping from the UK via Amazon is quite affordable. I bought three Adam & The Ants remasters a few years ago that cost me about $37 total, for all three discs, including shipping. From Japan, there are a few SACD titles by Miles Davis I've wanted, along with "Caravanserai" by Santana.

 

[lonely bull]

To be totally honest Rudy I don't even know what SACD means or what it does - but I just love that album - SKY PILOT is my favourite. I also have " STAR PORTRAIT " on CD which I bought from some guy in Alaska on eBay.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

SACD = Super Audio Compact Disk. As for what it does - there's plenty of info on the net about it, but let's just say it sounds better IF you have the stereo to support it.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

NOTE: This discussion had turned to Lani Hall reissue possibilities, so I moved the Hall discussion into its own thread. Please see the new thread in this same forum.

Now, back to Herb!

 

[Rudy]

SACD = Super Audio Compact Disk. As for what it does - there's plenty of info on the net about it, but let's just say it sounds better IF you have the stereo to support it.

The cost of entry is cheap, too: something as simple as one of Pioneer's "universal" players, which can be had on eBay for $60-$80 these days, can play back SACD and DVD-Audio. Models DV-563A, DV-578A, and DV-588A are all universal. They are cheap enough that I tell everyone not to buy a standard DVD player anymore--the later models (like the 588A) can even play MP3 and WMA discs.

 

[lonely bull]

So would my PC be SACD compatible? I have a PC which is less than 1 Year old, so the DVD / CD ROM is pretty much up to the minute stuff. ?????

 

[Rudy]

Actually, no. SACD is a format that Sony and Philips co-developed much like they did with CD. But, the only way to play it is via an audio component that can play SACDs. DVD drives, and standard DVD players, do not recognize the data stream on the disc, and don't know what to do with it. And Sony does not allow anyone to license it out to be used in computer drives.

That's what kills me, too, about the industry. Here, Sony has created a disc that cannot be digitally cloned (pirated), and yet their software division (the music end of Sony) has pretty much dropped it in the U.S.. As much as they complain about the sorry state of the industry, they have the ideal anti-piracy solution right in their hands...and don't do anything about it.

You might be able to play the CD layer of an SACD in most computer drives. Most SACDs are hybrids, meaning they have a dual-layer configuration where one layer can be ready by a standard CD player, and the other can contain the "high resolution" SACD portion. SACD's layer is much like a DVD, with the ability to store a few gigabytes of information on it, but the format is different. During playback, the laser can focus on whatever layer it needs to play back. In some computer drives, though, they attempt to read what LOOKS LIKE a DVD layer on the disc, but it is actually reading the SACD layer; the player then gets confused, not recognizing the data and ejecting the disc. Other players just try for a second layer (the CD layer) if the first read attempt fails. So, if you find that your Animals SACD is playing back OK in your computer drive, then it can easily read the CD layer.

Somewhere on your packaging, you should see a small SACD logo if it is indeed an SACD release. With the Rolling Stones discs that ABKCO reissued, they originally came out as SACD hybrids, but it did not say this on the external packaging. If the discs came in DigiPaks, then they are the SACD hybrids. For the second pressing run, ABKCO gave up on the SACD and issued them as standard CDs, but in jewel cases this time. So, I'm wondering if/when you purchased your Animals "Retrospective" if it was indeed a hybrid disc or not. You can tell on the shiny side of the disc--you will often see two sets of matrix numbers in the middle of the disc. Each layer would have one. The shiny side may also look more like a DVD than a CD.

 

[lonely bull]

Thanks for the info Rudy - there does not appear to be a SACD logo on my Animals CD and it's not packaged as a DIGIPAK . The only logo's on the disc are DSD and direct SAM - What do they mean ? HA HA HA! I can play the disc in my PC DVD player with no problems! I bought the disc in the U.S in March last year.

 

[Vinylalbumcovers]

DSD's gotta be SACD, no?

Ed

 

[Rudy]

DSD's gotta be SACD, no?

Ed

A lot of reissue CDs are sourced from DSD masters. IOW, they are transfered from the analog masters to DSD, then would be converted to PCM 44.1/16 for the CD. From what I understand, Sony came up with DSD (Direct Stream Digital) as a way of archiving recordings in a high-resolution digital format, and the SACD is the only disc format that can provide DSD directly to the end user. Sony has archived a lot of their tapes in-house with DSD, such as their "Legacy" reissues. Since RCA is a part of Sony now, I would imagine a lot of their tapes are getting a similar treatment.

 

[Vinylalbumcovers]

Doesn't this 44.1/16 conversion cancel out the advantage that DSD produces?

Ed

 

[Dore Adler]

Hey all!!

I just came back and saw the good news! Hooray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Doesn't this 44.1/16 conversion cancel out the advantage that DSD produces?

Ed

It wouldn't cancel out the advantages, but it IS lower resolution. All cd's are 44.1/16. What would be cool is if someday we see hi-rez versions of these albums!!! I wouldn't even bitch if they left Vol. 2 out!!!!! (although, I'd be sad )

As for new remixes, I hope they go back and try some surround mixes for the old stuff. Imagine Marching Through Madrid with the clip-clop sounds moving around the room! Some of the later tunes, like Flamingo, might really be incredible!

OK, I forgot already -- are the Hugh Masekela duet albums in the pipeline?

 

[Rudy]

Doesn't this 44.1/16 conversion cancel out the advantage that DSD produces?

Ed

To a point. At least they have it on high-res in digital for whatever future formats come along. There are very few engineering and mastering tools out there for DSD. One that comes to mind is Sony's "Sonoma" workstation. It's almost like the CDs you see now that are "24 bit remastered"--same concept. The one advantage to DSD workstations is that they do not as of yet have digital noise reduction or brick-wall compression available.

The advantage you get to working at higher resolution is that you reduce rounding errors. If you tried to work on files at 16 bit, every time you do an operation on your digital music file, the rounding errors make the file worse with each pass. The accuracy is much improved at higher resolutions: 24 bit isn't 50% better than 16 bit...it is 256 times more accurate than 16 bit. (Think binary. )

The whole idea behind high-resolution seems to be that you do all of your editing and (horrors) digital filtering or compression at the higher bitrate, then downsample as the final step before dumping it onto a CD. I'm doing all of my needle drops that way--I record at high resolution, and I have the option to burn them out to a DVD-Audio disc at 24bit/96kHz, or downsample to 16-bit/44.1kHz for CD.

I'd say that if you were mastering directly from an analog tape to CD, it's actually less accurate to record at 24/96 and bounce back to 16/44.1. But if there is any editing to be done, it's better to do it at the higher resolution and downsample later.

 

[Vinylalbumcovers]

Gotcha. When I do my restorative work, the analog masters are transferred to 24/96 .wav files. When I'm ready to burn them to CD (after editing/remastering), then I downsample. I wait until the last possible moment. I've been quite pleased the results thus far. Still, though, it's far more enjoyable for me to hear the 24/96 .wav files.

Ed

 

[Rudy]

Gotcha. When I do my restorative work, the analog masters are transferred to 24/96 .wav files. When I'm ready to burn them to CD (after editing/remastering), then I downsample. I wait until the last possible moment. I've been quite pleased the results thus far. Still, though, it's far more enjoyable for me to hear the 24/96 .wav files.

Ed

We're on the same page.

I'm still debating if I should make video DVDs at 24/96, or just burn them as DVD-Audio. They would sound the same, but anyone with a recent DVD player could play back the full 24/96 resolution (in PCM, not LPCM) without needing to do anything but hook the audio outputs to the audio system. It's part of the DVD video spec. The difference is that the audio would be stored as part of the program in the VIDEO_TS folder, vs. an AUDIO_TS folder that is used for DVD-Audio. There is software to make "audio DVDs" like that, or my Wavelab program has the ability to author true DVD-Audio discs.

I wonder, too, if I got an outboard DAC, if it would properly decode 24/96 if the format is PCM. That would be sweet. I've been looking at getting an Entech 205.2 Number Cruncher. It's gotten raves as a good, warm-sounding DAC at a decent price. (I think Monster used to sell them.)

 

[Captain Bacardi]

I've split this into another thread since the subject has gotten waaaay off.



Capt. Bacardi

 

[Vinylalbumcovers]

This is a musical discussion, isn't it? If so, how come it's down here?

Ed

 

[Mike Blakesley]

It's turned into more of a technology topic, hence it deserves to have its own thread.

 

[Captain Bacardi]

This became a technical discussion on SACDs, which makes it off-topic, which is why it's here.



Capt. Bacardi

 

[Rudy]

Ed and I hijacked the thread with tech-speak.

 

[Vinylalbumcovers]

We're on the same page.

I'm still debating if I should make video DVDs at 24/96, or just burn them as DVD-Audio. They would sound the same, but anyone with a recent DVD player could play back the full 24/96 resolution (in PCM, not LPCM) without needing to do anything but hook the audio outputs to the audio system. It's part of the DVD video spec. The difference is that the audio would be stored as part of the program in the VIDEO_TS folder, vs. an AUDIO_TS folder that is used for DVD-Audio. There is software to make "audio DVDs" like that, or my Wavelab program has the ability to author true DVD-Audio discs.

Wow. I figured something like that must exist but I'd never done the research to find out for sure. For ease of use, I say try DVD-Audio. I'd be curious to know how it went..

Ed

 

[Vinylalbumcovers]

 

[Dave]

_________________
Goodnight, sweet friend.
Mel (1994-2006)

_______ :cat:


...My Words, Egg-Zactly!!!



Dave

 

[Vinylalbumcovers]

LOL! That was an unintentional double post. I tried to delete it but you can't delete posts here...

Ed