Beyond SACD with Redbook: Price No Object

I can only speak from my experiences. I owned the Marantz SA-1 (after a brief comparison against the SCD-1) and purchased a couple dozen SACD discs with the intention of finally eliminating the need for my Goldmund separates. WRONG!
Though the price differential is substantial, the best redbook equipment is better, and by a noticeable margin compared to the relatively recent SACD playback equipment. Then I compared the SA-1 against the EMC-1 (without the 24/192 board), the redbook player again was preferrable.

I wanted SACD to be better. Maybe someday SACD/DVD-A will fulfill its promise (if it/they survives), but until then ....
Just one man's opinion.

What has always puzzled me, is many SACDs are remixes of old recordings; some dating back to the 1940s and 1950s. The original source can't be up to modern recording media, so are we really hearing the original recording, or has someone like George Lucas played with it, and what we hear is a perfect fake?? Just wondering?

I agree with A Sanctuary of Sound that the Audiomeca Mephisto II is one of the best CD player today.
I have been using the Mephisto II for 5 months and this player still makes me smile every night.

But SACD is too superior for any cd player if you play with the original DSD recording.

Even though i don't have a SACD player right now, i do have 6 SACD hybrid disc with original DSD recording which i'm going to use for the near future when i have some extra $$$$$ to buy the good SACD player.

Please don't make any negative comments anymore about the SACD and hopefully that SACD is not going to die as many people predict !

Please be honest that SACD with DSD recording is the second winner after the record !!

Good luck !

Jcbtubes,is there any pure DSD in your couple dozen of SACD discs ? Buy the Mark Levinson Vol.1 or Telarc Dave Brubeck and try it again ! If you still think and hear that your EMC 1 better than Marantz SA-1 .......??????

Amidst all this discussion, we should remember that many SACD-CD comparisons have been made with Redbook CD masters remastered in SACD, which is hardly the same thing as comparing CD to true DSD-recorded music. I'd go so far as to say that unless a given "tester" specifies that he or she used real DSD mastered SACDs, we cannot assume the comparison was between true SACD and Redbook PCM. The PCM master limits the quality of the DSD remaster even before it is made.

Another point, possibly more important. PCM is a technology that engineers have been refining for over 20 years. It's improved greatly over the years and for that I am grateful. However, at this stage the theoretical limits of the technology are being reached. Improvements are tiny little steps; real, but tiny. DSD, however, is still in its infancy and we can look forward to many years of improvement and refinement.

It's perfectly sensible to want a top-shelf player for CD, since we all have a lot of great music locked up in our PCM CDs that we want to enjoy, but as native DSD recordings become more available, CD will gradually be left further and further behind.

That's my take on it, at least for now.

Happy listening all!

Joel.