Stereophile "confirms" Moncrieff's SACD comments ?


You folks remember a thread about SACD that mentioned J. Peter Moncrieff's comments about SACD being "junky" at higher frequencies ? Well, if you read the September issue of Stereophile's review of the $16,500 Accuphase SACD player, you will see that John Atkinson somewhat confirms Moncrieff's statements. Here is a direct excerpt from the test results that JA published in that specific Stereophile review ( pages 115-116 ):

"Again, the player's excellent dynamic range is revealed, at least in the low treble and below. Note, however, the rise in the noise floor above 2 KHz, this due to the aggressive noise-shaping used by the SACD's DSD encoding. By comparing fig 4 with fig 3, you can see that SACD has less inherit dynamic range above 10 KHz than CD, though this is largely academic, i feel."

Since you can't see the graphs without looking at the actual magazine, i'll try to sum it up. CD shows a rise in noise above appr 2 - 3 KHz. The slope climbs at a gradual rate as frequency rises. On the other hand, SACD shows the same rise in noise at about the same frequency point, but the slope is much faster and sharper. By the time we get to 20 KHz, standard "redbook" CD is actually about 15 db's quieter in terms of the noise floor and increased dynamic range.

Besides all of the above, which some "might" say justifies Moncrieff's opinions of poorer high frequency performance on SACD, JA goes on to show the spectral analysis well beyond the 20 KHz range. The rising noise level that begins at about 2 - 3 KHz continues to rise until we hit appr 70 KHz. Using a dithered 1 KHz tone as a reference, the noise level climbs to a point that is PHENOMENALLY high i.e. appr 80+ dB's noisier than it is at 1 KHz !!!

While i don't know if this phenomena is directly related to the Accuphase design being used or can be found in all SACD players due to the wave-shaping taking place, it makes me wonder if this is what has given me a headache aka "listening fatigue" on a few occasions when listening to some SACD's ??? Is it possible that the level of ultrasonic noise and ringing is high enough to the point that it can ruin what might otherwise be a pleasureable experience ?

As a side note, the jitter on this machine is PHENOMENALLY high. JA measures it at 4.26 nanoseconds of peak to peak jitter while running in redbook format. He comments that this is "more than 20 times higher than i have found in the best cd players and processors". He then goes on to "feed a signal into the DAC section of the player via the DP-85's S/PDIF data input with 16 bit data of the same signal, the measured jitter level dropped to a respectable 311 picoseconds." As such, the phenomenally high level of jitter is directly related to how they are transferring signal from the transport into the DAC. For a "lowly" $16.5K, you would think that they might be able to do a little better. Even the "respectable" 331 picoseconds of jitter is quite high in my opinion. Sean
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sean
Bomarc, he loved the SACD playback but was disappointed with it's Redbook performance; he prefered his reference MF 3D for Redbook.
A new revelation! maybe the idea of a combination isn't so great, what do you know! We all pretty much agree that on our combination players SACD is superior and redbook is lacking, but I challenge ANY SACD player to do what the Capitole does on XRCD2's(I gotta have my over priced software as well, to keep the challenge fair) it is truly amazing and any one who has expereinced this knows what I am talking about- SACD doesn't come close; or at least if it does I haven't heard it or rumor of it. ~Tim
Tswhitsel and Rcprince:

Don't come over here much, but just happened to look at the thread and saw your mention of Jerry and AudioLogic. I've got a 2400 and my transport is a CEC TL-1X (just back from Richard Kern who installed the Reference mod - clock, etc.). Man oh man! Talk about life, musicality, dynamics, soundstage, emotion, smoothness, clarity, extension at top and bottom, incredible midrange - etc. I honestly think it outperforms my Basis 2500, Graham 2.2, Graham Nightingale, Rowland Cadence vinyl front end - no, I'm not kiding.

Have been playing around with a Marantz 8260, which I bought used on Audiogon for $650 so I could try SACD. For the price I'm very impressed with the Marantz on both CD and SACD, although it comes nowhere close to the Audiologic. Would love to know how it would sound on SACD with Richard Kern's mods and Jerry's analog output stage. Last time I talked to Jerry he was no longer doing output stages for SACD players, but that was over a year ago.

If more players and transport/dac combos had approached what Jerry achieved with redbook, nobody would even be talking about SACD.
I agree that SACD is a superior format more information is more information and one step closer to pure analog. This is obviously an over simplified comment but true non the less. The decimation and interpolation filters used on many pure redbook players try to create something that is not there. I have heard most of the top gun redbook players the capitole included and while they are very good (IMO) SACD is still superior.

As far as price of the software it appears to be coming down as more labels and releases are created. You can now buy hybrids for around $17.00 and in some cases less. I guess I have strayed away from the original topic but.... my two cents worth. However, most important irrespective of which format you prefer (enjoy the music).
It seems that some people are using the comparison of SACD to redbook based on results of listening tests of the two formats on their SACD players.
I find it hard to believe that Sony, Marantz or anyone trying to sell a SACD machine is going to focus as much attention to the Redbook side of their machines playback.
I have heard the cd playback from the Marantz and Sony and think it is terrible. My $1500 Redbook only machine kills both of them on this format.
As a matter of fact, I have heard Redbook systems beat the tar out of even the SACD portion of these players.
I felt the format was cold and uninviting.
Maybe I just read it wrong but felt the impression given was that SACD is better than Redbook should not be based on playback from these machines. Also comparing SACD to one of the older generation Redbook machines is not valid in my opinion either as many older machines were hard and analytical compared to the better players today.
Just my opinion.