Turntable or go into SACD, Simon Yorke vs EMM Lab

Hi Ceol,

After 100 years Vinyl still sounds the best. And it has been around over 100 years. That tells me that sound quality is not the priority to profit driven companies. Convenience seems to be the idea. It went from Vinyl "best" to CD "worse" to mp3 "even worse" all due to convenience.

That's my hesitation. I hope SACD or moreover DVD-A (which sounds better to my ears, but has dismal software, even worse than SACD) does become mainstream because I would like better sound that's more convenient. But audiophiles don't drive the marketplace.

SACD is still up in the air after 4-5 years after release. My guess is it will still be for the next 5 years. So in making a decision which way should you go. Buy SACD player and hope to find enough music that you like to listen to? Get vinyl which will be around until something better comes along (nothing on the horizon) and get a CD player as backup (covers most recorded music) -- it's ultimately up to you. I've made my choice.

Hi Ceol,

Thanks for detailing the differences between the different formats (quite helpful). I think that some go forward advice would not include DVD-a at this time.
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Vinyl will be my home for a quite a while (at least while the dust clears on the different formats). The Catalogue of music available on LP far outstrips the DVD-a catalogue. Considering that I have gotten my red book set up sounding pretty decent (approaching or equal to SACD that I have heard in other systems, I can’t see the logic of jumping to one of the other formats at this point.
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I imagine that most serious music lovers/listeners have a fairly substantial investment in a Red Book CD collection and there is also a ton of stuff available on LP that is not available on any other format. Classical will probably be quite slow coming onto the DVD-a format due to the low sales volume potential. If one taste leans heavily into classical, I can’t see at this point how you could build a decent library in the formats other than Red Book and Vinyl.

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My recommendation would be to hang on to the Red Book collection that she has, buy SACD/Red Book versions of what you have to have and dive into Vinyl. The Vinyl will always be a great asset and then you can wait until some format comes forward with both great sonics and a wide range of availability and move in that direction when it makes sense.
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Hi Cello,

Thanks for your response which I think adds further clarity to the direction that Dgad should take and possibly the direction Dgad should not take ie. DVD-a.

If you walk in to any well stocked music store in the U.S., stocked well in Classical & Other music & go to the new format section and compare the titles available on the two formats you will clearly see an emerging trend:

1.SACD - mostly classical, new PURE DSD recordings, archived classical & archived modern artists.

2.DVD - mostly new mainstream commercial recordings and opera w/visiual.

Yes, so If your priority is Classical / small accoustic ensembles and want the largerst choice and highest chance of getting the least processed version of that musical event then SACD and particularly PURE DSD versions are your best bet.

I am not looking at DVD-A because, at 48, I am looking for the best versions of the classical stereo recordings of the last 40 years & Re-masterd Hi res re-issues of my favourite mainstream artists of the last 40 years...artists like Peter gabriel , Eric Clapton etc...who the record labels have been archiving to DSD since 1999.

So, to an extent the decision for anyone, on which way to go at this particular time is very much dependent on both the genre of music you are interested in & your age group.

YOUNG/ NON audiophile - MP3 / CD
MIDDLE AGED / knows what accoustic music sounds like - DSD

I agree with Cello in just about everything, ie. keep you vinyl and enhance you CD collection preferably with re-masters / HYBRIDS.

However, rather than investing in improving Dgads already good vinyl reproduction say 10%, Dgad should go Meitner and thereby elevate Dgad's entire CD library by a far higher percentage...

Dgad & I have heard the magic that the Meitner and their Proprietary digital transport can achieve on CD & SACD...

The situation is somwhat similar to when CD came out in 1982... Since 1982, the market arguably, has got some of the finest Vinyl replay equipment ever as the popularity of the format was fading.

Likewise Meitner, in converting Red book CD to DSD has a piece of hardware which can elevate your entire CD library AND AT THE SAME TIME GET YOU INTO THE PUREST OF THE CURRENT HI-RES FORMATS....go listen & you will beleive!!

There is no denying, the future in all aspests of audio & video communication is digital..and what a wonderfull thing it is when done right...pity we had to wait over 20 years for CD.

It would be interesting to hear from Dgad (who posted the question) now thinks and specifically where to invest now.

yours in music

ceol

Just to add that if you are into classical -- you can go to goodwill and pick up an enormous amount of LPs $1 or $2 each. As with all formats some are recorded incredibly well (Decca especially) and some are not even worth listening to. But at a buck a piece its better than spending $25 and find out you got a bad SACD remaster (which they do make - not all SACDs sound good)just like CD and Vynil.

I guess the question you have to answer is do you want to have 3 different front ends and 3 different forms of software? Of course the hybrid option helps that a little. But 3 quality front ends and no guarantee about the future? Hope you have a lot of money to spend.

Digital is not the future. It is the present. Everything is already digital. And guess what digital is trying to approach? Analog -- so why is digital the direction instead of analog (which is what we hear in) CONVENIENCE nothing more.

How do you get better than analog with 1s and 0s????

It's like trying to make a perfect circle with legos. You can keep adding smaller and smaller legos and it will continue to become smoother, but it will never actually make a perfect circle.

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Robm321 - Nice post - Well said....
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