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SHMCD : Second thought on buying SACD player

So it has been said, the Super High Material CDs (SHMCD)close the gap by 80-90% between CDs and SACDs on top audiophile machines.... Just curious, for those having listened to SHMCD, do you have second thought on buying SACD players ? Why and why not ?

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue39/shmcd.htm
greeni
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,453 posts
 
Drubin - Absolutely right. CDs will disappear. Current attempts to introduce new formats (CODE on DVD 20bit/96kHz) are going nowhere. Article in Stereophile suggested that SACD is dead as well - many new BlueRay players don't even support it. Everything will be as servers/downloads but not in 24bit/192kHz quality (sane people wouldn't release master).

New formats like HDCD or SACD have strong copy protection (SACD cannot be copied at all - pit modulation) and it probably turned off a lot of people who did not want to spend over $30 without option of backup.
audioholik
90 posts
 
Kijanki,

I don't think that 24/96 downloads will ever become popular, people are happy with mp3s and hi-res files are 1,5GB, it will be a niche just like SA-CD and since the price of a hi-rez download is equal to physical SACD, I prefer physical SACD ...

PS SMH-CD is still low resolution CD
drubin
3,285 posts
 
True that 24/96 downloads will not become mainstream. But they will be more available (more titles) than SACD and, in all likelihood, will sound better, at least on the more modest playback systems most of us have.
audioholik
90 posts
 
currently there are more SACD's than 24/96 albums and 24/96 doesn't sound better than DSD, actually DSD sounds more musical to my ears and I like it more than PCM. There are almost 6000 SACD titles to chose from and about 50 24/96 titles do download, and prices of downloaded files are the same as SACD discs :( I prefer real SACD disc with cover and 30 pages booklet than a file for the same price...

PS when do you think that 24/96 PCM downloads will be more available than SACD? in 5 years, in 10 years? I wouldn't wait for that...
drubin
3,285 posts
 
I'd say 2-3 years if there's decent demand for it. Agree with you about the 30 page booklet. A PDF version isn't as useful. Then again, CD packaging doesn't compare to LPs.
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