SACD & other Formats

SACD hasn't failed. As a matter of fact, with the right rig, SACD is awesome. From a guy that started with records in the late sixty's until the ninety's, and migrated to CDs because of convenience, SACDs are the perfect format for great sounding tunes and still fulfill the habit of loading and changing physical media. Old habits die hard, and as the vinyl crowd was rewarded with a total resurgence of high quality new pressings with all the ancillaries, liner notes, pictures, a physical, storable, collectible form of music which still appeals to us old timers, SACD provides all that in a digital, compact form. And now that is "dying", you can buy disc's at ever lowering prices.
What's better than that?

So what is the right equipment to make SACD sing? Some people say the Oppo is good, others say it needs to be modified and I see SACD players $10K +. Is a dedicated SACD the better route?

My TT is DV XV-1s, TW 10.5 arm, TW Raven One, Tron Seven phono. It sings and I play everything from Led Zep/Faith No More to Blue Notes to Mozart. My TT rig does not impose on any music style, that's the vinyl advantage IMO.

Being an old guy now I will never buy downloads especially at the $18-$30 price quoted. The music companies can deliver a physical product to market for considerably less so why would a download be more that say $5, they have removed the production and distribution cost. I suggest the push will be to just dig deeper into your pocket. I'm also of the mind set that physical media does have an after market value so you can at least recover a portion of what you invest later. This has been the reality in my lifetime, always best to go against the grain. Buy when everyone is selling and sell when everyone is buying.

"03-07-15: Colekat
SACD hasn't failed. As a matter of fact, with the right rig, SACD is awesome."

I don't think I was clear. I meant SACD was a commercial failure. Sony stopped supporting the format about 10 years ago. The sound quality is fine. I think it sounds much better than CD.

"03-07-15: Musichead
So what is the right equipment to make SACD sing? Some people say the Oppo is good, others say it needs to be modified and I see SACD players $10K +. Is a dedicated SACD the better route?"

That puts you in an interresting position. I happen to agree Ptss in that downloads are the safest bet for the reasons stated in my other post. If you don't want to download, for whatever reason, it may make sense for you to buy a player. I'm not a big fan of mods. I'm sure a modified Oppo sounds better than a stock Oppo, but why not just buy something that was made to perform at a certain level to begin with? It seems to be a cleaner solution. And with the Oppo, you will be paying for features that you won't be using. Of all the players I've heard, I like the Ayre 5 series universal the best. It sounds great with CD, SACD and DVD-A. Its a universal player that was designed for 2 channel music playback. There's no money wasted on multichannel or video. My second choice would probably be a Cary 306.

ZD542, the $18 to $30 is on the hi-res download sites HDTracks and Acoustic Sounds Super HiRez. There were some titles at HDTracks on sale for $15.

Colekat, SACDs outside of classical are being released at the rate of one or two a month except for Japanese SHM SACDs which cost $40 to $90 apiece. The most desirable out of print SACDS go for very high prices. Only the ones no one wants are cheap. So I would say that SACD is not a vibrant, growing format. I enjoy SACDs and wish there were a lot of them that I wanted at good prices, but there just are not very many.

Musichead, I would recommend looking at Marantz or Esoteric for SACD players. I would also recommend looking at Amazon, Ebay, Acoustic Sounds and Music Direct to see if there are enough SACDs that you want available before buying an SACD player.

Many people feel that their cds sound better when ripped to a music server. So if you want to get something soon, find out if you're one of those people. If you are, get a music server and rip away and buy the high-res downloads you're willing to pay the price for.

If you get a server, I would make sure it handles both DSD and at least 24/192 PCM. Many servers don't do DSD, which is how SACDs are recorded. High-res downloads are available in DSD, 24/96 and 24/192. Those bit rates will probably go higher in the future, but I can't say exactly when. It's something you want to consider when buying a server or DAC though.

"03-07-15: Tomcy6
ZD542, the $18 to $30 is on the hi-res download sites HDTracks and Acoustic Sounds Super HiRez. There were some titles at HDTracks on sale for $15.

Colekat, SACDs outside of classical are being released at the rate of one or two a month except for Japanese SHM SACDs which cost $40 to $90 apiece. The most desirable out of print SACDS go for very high prices. Only the ones no one wants are cheap. So I would say that SACD is not a vibrant, growing format. I enjoy SACDs and wish there were a lot of them that I wanted at good prices, but there just are not very many."

That's foolish. People like this never learn. All they're going to do is drive people to download without paying.