Fly in the SACD Ointment?


Yesterday, I almost got tears in my eyes going through the new audiophile format bin at Tower Records in New York. Spotting some old favourites in the SACD section, I was blissfully imagining throwing my CD player out my 17th story window and sitting down at a new system enjoying the best of analog AND digital. Then, it hit me -- even in the good old days, when I when I wouldn't dream of listening until I had Nitty Grittied my records, carefully cleaned the stylus, adjusted VTA, switched off the phone and dimmed the lights -- A LOT OF RECORDS STILL SOUNDED PRETTY BAD. Not nearly as bad (or as often) as a bad CD, but still pretty bad and ultimately unsatisfying which is what lead to my neurosis with this hobby and a never ending quest for great recordings in addition to great gear. So I am wondering -- maybe a $5000 SACD player and a new collection of software at $25 each is just going to take me back to bad analogue?!?!? Or is Sheffield Labs going to painstakingly remaster every title in the SACD catalogue? Has anyone thought about this or is there some magic to SACD that makes it all worthwhile, nonetheless. Maybe bad "analogue" without background noise and with greater dynamic range is still pretty special, but I really don't want to listen to Mannheim Steamroller in any format. Thanks for your thoughts.
cwlondon
Perhaps we need to rethink where a new technology might go and (maybe opening a can of worms) how to measure it..(from a music lover point of view)..
If we expect to have current music we love that was recorded quite a while ago to sound way better just to a new technology that was not available when the music was recorded, it might be our wish but the source material puts a cap on what could be achieved....
On the other hand if the material is taken with new technology all the way, thereĀ“s the chance that we might get the best performance achievable by present day technologies.....
the issue might be that we might be looking for something that is not already there and we do praise and like better reproduction of our favorite music time and consumers judgment will eventually define the long term fate..
So it's a tricky situation how to make a new thing being favoured by us the customers based on old source material?
This is not a statement but an opening of thought that has wandered in my mind for quite a time...
What do you think?
Makes sense to me Sol: I have been listening to some recordings tonight on CD "The Tiny Powell Gospel Collection" that were originaly recorded in 1949 and 1950 and had to take it to the mini system to make it listenable.
Guessing the future of SACD has about the same positive predictive value as picking the Stanley Cup winner in the first round of the playoffs. Too many variables and entropy to make anything but an educated guess. In real estate, it's location, location, location. In audiophilia, it seems to be source, source,source. High level, highly resolving systems and front ends are a double edged sword, bringing out the best in a good source and revealing a poor source for what it is.We spend a lot of money and effort to essentially put together a system that stays out of the way as much as possible, and let the recording through as unencumbered as possible. This has proven rewarding and painful. Some 50 y/o recordings on vinyl sound spectacular, some brand new CD's sound like crap. SACD is an attempt to get the listener a step closer to the source, and it stands to reason that, well, garbage in/garbage out. I hope, as noted above, that Sony, Telarc et al put out DSD recorded SACD's, they do indeed seem to sound better than many of the PCM based recordings. But some of the older recordings, obviously done right, re-released on SACD, such as the Walter Columbia recordings mentioned by Rcprince, are astounding sonically, as are many others. Much better than CD (IMOP), and arguably as good/better than vinyl. The fly in the ointment is real, and appears to have been hatched from the original source, and to somehow blame and discount the technology is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. If the goal is to get closer to the live recording, SACD is perhaps a step in the right direction of building a better fly trap.
Remember when CDs first came out? They were only analog recordings "AAD". Then a while later the big hype was All digital "DDD". Well the same has to happen to SACD and it might even take less time than before.