SACD 2 channel vs Redbook 2 Channel

SACD on paper is superior to redbook in that it has more future "potential", but presently the best "Redbook" cd players sound just as good or better than SACD players. In all reality its a proven fact that redbook cd's have still yet to come to their sonic limitations. And there is becoming more and more concensus among scientists that our ears would not be able to tell the difference between a redbook cd and an SACD or other format under identical conditions.

WHen people claim to "hear" differences in SACD or redbook cd's what they are hearing is actual differences in the actual studio recording process, not the quality or upsampling of the cd itself. But if the sound engineer puts as much time and effort in making a good recording on a CD as he would for an SACD, noone would be able to tell the difference. People with SACD players want to believe they have a superior product, but thats nowhere near the case at all. I worked for the Tweeter store that had the official unveiling of Sony's SACD player in Burlington Ma. back in 1999/2000. Sony's original statement SACD player on hand setup in our "high end" room with a pair of speakers with those "super tweeter's" on top, a pair of monoblocks and some straightwire IC's and cabling in which people were raving about the retail cost of the whole setup(around $90,000 is what they stated), but after listening to that setup for a few hours before the guests were to arrive, I can say how big a dissapointment it was. It was unanimous that everyone in the store liked the basic Adcom GFA5802/GFP750/GCD750 with the pair of Amati Homages so much better. It just goes to show that the source isnt necessarily an improvement, and in many cases since that day, I can say its not even as good. At this point I think that its a 100% complete waste of money, andits going to be quite a few more years before I probably end up changing my mind.

Oh no, someone pulled the "science" card! Science would also be quick to tell us that we can't hear the difference between cables, would it not? It would tell us that all amps that measure the same sound the same, and all amps that measure poorly sound as such, which anyone with ears to hear will tell you isn't so! That one should use pure science as the tool to measure quality/aesthetics/art (music, for those at home) boggles the mind of anyone who understands the concepts involved here, it's completely ridiculous, really.

Further, as a scientist myself I find the arrogance of the audiophiles' confidence in what is known about the electrical, acoustic and even psycho-acoustic properties of music as being complete and fully understood a sad joke on those of us forced to constantly hear their words thrown around as if a gospel of spoken (but unheard) Truth. Those who have ears to listen should hear. Why folks have come to put so much faith in science completely boggles my mind (though not at the level of absurdity of the faith most hold in medical science, but that's another rant :)

Sorry to be so argumentive, but I completely dissagree with everything written in the above post at an extreme level.

Sorry, but I have yet to hear ANY SACD player put out a better musical signal than a competently built "redbook" player.

All this talk of extra "ambiance" or depth of soundstage or whatever you want to call it is all a joke CURRENTLY. If the disc sounds better, you can thank the sound engineer who recorded the disc, not the disc itself. This is what I disagree with at an "extreme level". Even marketing executives at Sony stated a while back that some SACD's are getting better performance through recording process only just to help sell the format(and this has been back up by MANY magazines and publishings). They even have gone on to say that its done to help push the new format to the general public but due to current technology other than future potential its really no better sounding than current high quality recorded CD's.

As for differences in cable subtlty, the jury is still out in many regards as to what they actually do sonically other than noise rejection. But differences in cable sound can be due in part to noise rejection potential and attenuated frequencies(Like MIT and Transparant designs).Other than that though is something for another argument.

When an SACD(or whatever format)player comes out that truely is a step up from redbook, Ill be there in line to pick one up. Until then, its all marketing gimmicks.

Little Milton: I bet you were one of those tin ear'd snobs back in Dec.99' at the unveiling of the SACD right? ;)

You should have helped us convince the Sony reps to let us demo that SACD setup against our "basic" Adcom components for all the people who were invited to the unveiling. They didnt like the idea when we brought it up to them, wonder why? ;)

Ritteri...The dreaded science card!

You may be right about SACD resolution not being all it's cracked up to be. I read an analysis on another site that claimed that above 8000 Hz, SACD is inferior, and any improved sonics must be the result of the most important musical content being below 8000 Hz. (I didn't completely follow the argument...does anyone else have thoughts about this?)

Resolution of a CD or SACD or DVD-A depends on how much dynamic range you want to have. If you compress the loud peaks, the LSB can have better resolution, for any kind of disc. A 16-bit CD could be better than a 24-bit DVD-A, but it would trade off dynamic range. For rock music that is loud all the time this is a reasonable thing to do.

One thing is certain: the 44.1 Hz sample rate of CD's is very marginal. The Nyquist criteria of communication theory says that to capture an analog signal without loss of information, the digital sampling rate must be twice the highest frequency of interest. Thus many people think that 44.1KHz is OK for audio. However, the Nyquist criteria applies to sine waves. Music is not sine waves. The increase of sampling rate to 96KHz (or 192KHz for stereo DVD-A) and (if you believe Sony) similar improvement for SACD, is technically appropriate, although not everyone's ears can appreciate the sonic benefits. I prefer to call CD's "low resolution" and SACD and DVD-A "OK resolution".

I've been very impressed with SACD on my Denon 5900, and it's certainly been better than redbook in direct comparisons, however, with my Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista DAC arriving on Friday, that may just even the playing field, or push redbook ahead. I actually hope SACD still sounds better, but something tells me I may be in for redbook re-awakening :)