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Shanling T100 to the T200 shootout

I got a chance to listen to these two players today and was wondering what others think about these. First these are both really good players. I was listening to them on a really high end Krell (not sure the models .. really big monoblocks) and B&W signature 800 system. For me, I did not hear any memorable difference between the two for redbook CD. Some people have stated the T100 sounds better but I liked them both. SACD was quit interesting... I used the following disks: Chick Corea Rendezvous in NY, Moussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition (telarc), and Monty meets Sly and Robbie (telarc). The last disc showed very little difference between CD and SACD I think do to the heavy bass like that dominates the recording. The CC showed little difference in instruments like the vibraphone and vocals (which surprised me) but a significant difference in the Piano. In CD mode the Piano seemed to be almost secondary to vocals and the vibes. In SACD mode the piano really stood out. It became really obvious that he was playing really fine grand piano and not something smaller. looking back at the liner notes it turns out to have been a 9 ft Yamaha concert grand. You could really hear the hammer hit. On the Moussorgsky the whole orchestra was bigger, more dynamic, and cleaner..

The one thing that did not really change was the imaging, both imaged well. The soundstage was not much bigger or wider it was just cleaner somehow. I'm thinking about picking up the T200 but I can get the T100 at a great price.

I only spent a couple of hours and would like to hear from someone that has spent some time with these players...
Thanks
Bruce
btrvalik
bluefin
111 posts
 
In the beginning, I try to A/B same versin of SACD and CD. Not impressed by remastered recording from 10 or 20 years ago. Then, try DSD recording Mahler symphony by TELARC. Don't even need to bother A/B, that's something I can only hear from LP. Since then, I have been trying to convince people to give SACD chances.

As far as some people has very advanced CD player upsampling like crazy or adding tube to the output. Some companies try to push the sound quality based on existing CD source people have. However, I think, you can have the same or better quality at SACD at lower lost.
Using tube preamp and a mid priced SACD player would be cheaper at this point, although I agree we need more software. "Tube" is still the same "dirty trick" by many CD player makers now. It smooth out the sound, I am not surprized by the comment of "not much difference between CD v.s. SACD on tube based machines", especially on Krell/B&W type of setup(these things usually need tube somewhere in the link to warm things up). It is the "tube" dominate most of sound. Besides the magic of "tube", my ears told me that SACD is better format than CD. All those CD machines upsampling to high frequency, aren't they trying to design a CD player sound like a "more true&honest" SACD?
trelja
3,223 posts
 
Yes, I definitely wanted to make a point and not flame. My list said people who do not prefer SACD to CD fall into ONE of those categories, not all. And, yes, I truly come across peole who lie about the sonics.

I use SACD in my second system, and while I am comfortable with its performance, it is no better than snayone else's on the site. SACDs do sound better than CD. Perticularly in the area of the foundation of music, which is where CD most bothers me. Also, there is a sense of the music flowing(as opposed to chopping the event into tiny, tiny frames), which I also fault CD heavily on. Those 2 things are why I like vinyl better than CD. I usually say to myself, "Hey, this disc/my system sounds really good!" when listening to an SACD.

One more thing, in no way do I feel SACD is superior to vinyl!
jetter
2,969 posts
 
Like many, I have a decent collection of CD's and records. Not thousands of cd's and records, but a lot of music nonetheless. Lately I find it hard to listen to many of my old favorites as I have heard them just too many times over the years. So if all they do is re-release old tunes, its not going to make it by me, no matter if its at half the price and no matter how wonderful the latest and greatest sounds. But my real fun is is stopping at the Salvation Army on the way home from work and picking up five or ten new records and experimenting with completely new sounds.
bluefin
111 posts
 
Add two more facts:
(1)
Some high-end redbook machines converts PCM(CD) to DSD(used in SACD) and have good result simply because coding/decoding/tranmission on DSD is simply better.
(2)
New high end CD players tend to play games on upsampling to smooth out the sound and increase the dynamic. Some upsamples at almost 5 to 10 times than orignal data. SACD used higher sampling and bits in original as is.

Today's CD machine maker is borrowing the technology from a newer SACD format. You tell me why! Are those engineers nuts?
ben_campbell
1,169 posts
 
Trelja,
I've no doubt there is a large amount of truth in what you say however I simply cannot accept that any failings on SACD must be down to something on your list.
Consider this.
There are have been several posters recently on the Miles Davis mailing list who state that both Kind Of Blue and Black Beauty sound worse on SACD than they do on the last remaster--this shows to me at least there are some flaws in SACD,they find others marginal in comparison to CD and some have a list of about half a dozen that sound superior to CD in their systems.
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