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I auditioned SACD today

After reading all the positive reviews and posts on SACD I decided to take a serious look at this format. I have 22 dual layer SACD in my collection so I took 4 SACDs of music I know the best. To my surprise one of the local dealers still had a demo Sony SCD 1. The sales person led me to the room and said take as long as I would like and left. Since I read all the reviews on the SCD 1 I was able to operate it without difficulty.

There was no question that the SACD layer had a bigger soundstage and better detail than the Redbook layer but the difference were not as great as I expected. I wondered how the Sony compared next to my Audiomeca Mephisto 11.X CDP. Then a strange thing happen, I noticed a Linn LP 12 turntable to the side of the equipment rack. I cued up one of the lps and played it. As a former owner of 2 LP 12 over the years I had a good idea what to expect, the sound was full , warm , detailed and most of all musical. I should add that I have over 7000 lps and 5000 cds and listen to both, prefer the sound of vinyl but love the convenience and catalog selection of cds.

To make a long story short I decided to forgo the purchase of a SACD player and continue to ad to my vinyl and cd collection and just enjoy the music. I may look at SACD again in the future as the hardware improves and the software growa in numbers.
rec
nrchy's avatar
nrchy
2,124 posts
 
I enjoyed your summary of your experience. So many of these threads are just blind praise or hatchet jobs. You recounted your valid experience and come to a thoughtful conclusion.

While I have and enjoy a decent SACDP and have chosen another course, I respect the way you handled your expereince.

P.S. Albert is a vinyl junkie, if you send that stuff to him you will only encourage his weakness. For the love of humanity don't send anything to him!!! Send it to me.
calanctus
151 posts
 
The improvements of SACD over CD to my ears are small, incremental differences. I did not expect night and day, so I was not disappointed, but I do like what I'm hearing with them.
sogood51
2,157 posts
 
So let me ask, do you think vinyl is still better than digital? Of course you do or you would not have posted this SACD/REDBOOK shoot-out. Let me make a guess, you were listening to all this through a tube system and that just brought it all home!!!
darrylhifi
498 posts
 
I want to go halfsies with Alpert Porter.
rsbeck
887 posts
 
If the SCD1 can make redbook CD's sound almost as good as SACD, I
would say that is a point in favor of the SCD1. I have the Emm Labs Dac6. This CD/SACD player also makes redbook CD's sound almost as
good as SACD -- that's one of the reasons I bought it. But, almost as good is never quite as satisfying as the incremental step upwards -- that's why the word "almost" was coined in the first place, isn't it?
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