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Want to get excited about SACD again??

First the good news:

The new Verve re-release of Diana Krall's "When I Look In Your Eyes" finally gives us a real shot of the "analog like" potential of SACD. You may want to pick this disk up if you have a SACD player.

Now the bad (potentially good) news:

One of the reasons this disk sounds very good..and the other Verve/Krall SACD release doesn't (and I'm not talking sujective music content) is that this is a SACD only release, ie: no redbook layer.

Think about it, this only makes sense. Go to the Audio Research site and read their logic about their new CD player the CD3. ie: just do one thing well. And Ayre, Classe and other high-end audio companies are bringing out CD only players and addressing the multi-format compromises/concerns.

With all of the jitter and bits/reading concerns that any digital machine can have, it just makes sense that if we had SACD only machines (this way they could have better audio stages...etc. instead of time/money being spent on covering all bases) and SACD only disks (no problem with lasers picking up bits from too many layers)

I know, I know that Sony, and others, feel that these multi format machines and multi layer disks are the safe way to market these things. Well they are shooting themselves in the foot...or maybe the head...because if they don't release the machines and software that will show off what this format can do..well it will die. Because the very people that have tried to support the format are being given hardware and software that is not showing off the formats best.

So, give me a SCD-1 without the CD hardware, and instead put in better caps, resistors and a discrete jfet audio stage running in class A. Then give me SACD uncompromised software to play on it....even just two channel...no multi-channel. If multi-channel was important to audio..this could have been done on redbook cds for some time. This multi-channel is just Sony's knee-jerk reaction to DVD-A...and they are just missing the piont that it is a MOVIE thing not a MUSIC thing.

Sorry to ramble...but I feel SACD will fail...and it's not because it isn't better...this SACD only Krall disk shows this....it's because of this multi-multi direction that is, likely, doomed.
whatjd
calanctus
151 posts
 
Is there any evidence that SACD players pick up bits from the CD layer when playing the SACD layer? Anyone have any links to articles discussing this?

Obviously this could have very bad consequences for sound quality.
ghostrider45
449 posts
 
The player will not pick up bits from the CD layer when playing the SACD layer.

First, the laser (a shorter wavelength one, at that) is not focused on the CD layer. Second, the bits are not stored on the disc in a linear fashion like music in the grooves of an LP. They are grouped together into bundles (long story here) which are each protected by an Error Correcting Code (ECC) calculated during the mastering process. The player uses the ECC code to detect all read errors and to exactly reconstruct missing data from most read errors.

Further, these bundles are arranged out of sequence on the disc so that a scratch or defect is less likely to cause uncorrectable damage. The player rearranges them in the right sequence before decoding.

Remember, the CD and SACD standards assume that each disc will have manufacturing errors, and go to great lengths to provide robust, error-free recovery of a bitstream exactly matching the original.
cdc
1,858 posts
 
I'm excited about AeroSmiths "Big Ones" CD. Super CD mastered on Apogee's $^&$% digital processor. No SACD player. No HDCD encoding.
Do we *REALLY NEED* SACD??
calanctus
151 posts
 
Ghostrider45, thanks for your answer. Here's hoping you are right. However, I remember the explanations about CDs: that they were 'bit-perfect' so would transfer sound perfectly right up until the DA converter. At least, this is what we believed until we heard about jitter...which meant that the theory of CDs did not translate perfectly into practice.

Still this is the first time I've heard any suggestion of bit pickup across layers, so maybe it's just hogwash.
zaikesman
3,017 posts
 
Having seen no evidence at all that dual-layer technology can hurt SACD fidelity, I have to say that I couldn't disagree more with your premise. Sure, one-format machines might be fine, and even desirable, for high end companies to manufacture for audiophiles, but what will cause the format to fail more surely than anything else imaginable, is if the mass-market software is not backward-compatible with consumers' existing CD-playing hardware. If what you secretly wanted to do was kill the emerging format tomorrow (and there might be legit reasons for wanting that, but that's another topic), there would no more certain way to accomplish this than to tell consumers that they must pony up for new machines first, and that neither their new or their old machines would be able to play the other kind of disk, so that they would either need two libraries as well as two machines, or that they would need to purchase their entire libraries over again, something not even possible as things stand today, multi-channel or no. Forget it, unless you restrict you wishes to audiophile labels only, but even then, where's your evidence?
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