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
Sean, correct me if wrong, but the numbers from the measurements you quote are from the the CD playback of the Accuphase, not SACD; correct? (At $16.5k this shouldn't be, I am just clarifying things.)
I thought I would pass along part of Fremer’s conclusion of the DP-85 to keep things in perspective. “In any case, in every performance parameter you can think of, the SACD layer through the DP-85 positively smoked the CD layer through my reference Musical fidelity Nu-Vista 3D player, though I preferred the CD layer through the 3D. But forget about comparisons – the DP-85’s SACD performance set a new standard for digital anything in my system and in my experience.”

I agree with Sean that at 16.5k, the CD playback should be stellar as well. It appears this player has a high jitter rating for some strange reason. I am not sure about the 17ps that you mention Sean for the Audio Alchemy, in comparison to the players I list below, this is quite low. (Then again, measurements are not an area I have knowledge of.)

Wadia 850 -- 167.6 picoseconds peak-peak
Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista 3D -- 156.3
Meridian 508.24 -- 144.2
Sony XA-777ES -- 171
Sony SCD-1 -- 146.8

Here is another quote, this from JA, that I came across when looking at his measurement testing of the SCD-1. “As a conventional CD player, Sony's SCD-1 features state-of-the-art technical performance. Even if it didn't handle SACDs, the SCD-1 would be worth buying for its CD performance, in my opinion.—John Atkinson”
Hmmm. All those jitter figures sound high, except for the Audio Alchemy player at 17 ps. Are these just being measured differently?

My trusty EAD T-7000 transport produces less than 10 ps of jitter. I don't know enough about how jitter is measured to know if there are different ways of doing it that will generate significant differences. However, the EAD T-7000 Combined with a Sonic Frontiers SFDII MkII DAC (and an Assemblage DSD-1 in-between for good measure) sounds absoultely fantastic. I'm waiting to recieve my super-modded S9000ES from Mod Wright (goes beyond Level III mods) to see how SACD compares. The DVD-Audio out of my (un-modded) Technics A-10 sounds nice, but unconvincing and a bit flat compartively on Redbook. I'm wondering if the modded Sony S9000ES will be as good as the EAD/Sonic Frontiers combo on Redbook so I can have a single player for both audio and video.
Heres a parapraph no ones mentionned in the DP85 review which i think puts things into perspective:

"its very possible that the DP85's CD performance was actually so highly resolving and transparent that it passed on CDs inherent flaws along with the abondance of detail. Whatever the cause, as a CD player, the DP85 beat what i heard with the Marantz SA-1 or Sony SCD1 playing plain ol CDs, but i guess i prefer a bit less information".

And i agree with this paragraph. I have both the DP85 and the AA Capitole MkII in my system and on CD playback, i prefer the DP85 sound. But on certain CDs, the MkII is more pleasant because it has less resolution and so reveals less flaws in the recording. Again IMHO it could come down to your personal taste, your CD collection and your system.

As far as the jitter is concerned, how would high jitter manifest itself in the sound reproduction ?

Cheers
would be good to 'resurrect' this thread 8 years later- I think SACD has come a long way- I find the EMM Labs CDSA-SE not to exhibit these high-frequency aberations, at least not that I am noticing anyways...