sacd,vinyl, and rebook....

SACD..with its DSD digital protocol is definetely better than redbook. I can easily hear that on my modest system.

*however*
w/the right DAC, redbook is not dissapointing.

i've only heard one high end vinyl setup, and it was like liquid music pouring over me.
I have yet to get that experience w/any digital front end...but then again i've never heard really high-end digi..something like an EMMLabs DAC6 and SACD transport...
or the Sony 9000ES SACD and matching reciever that takes pure DSD over i.Link format.
I'm convinced that DSD is a better sounding format than PCM.

From what i've heard from people who have had the exposure (and whos ears I trust) is that anything Ed Meitner gets inside of tends to sound very good... and that until you've heard something like the EMM labs equipment, then you have not fully heard digitals potential.
There are plenty of great DACs out there, but one that upsamples to DSD designed by a guy who has been so involved on that protocol for so long...that says something (to me). And from what I understand that is what the DAC 6 does.

fwiw, that is also what the sony STR-DA2,3,5,9000ES digital recievers do if you feed them a PCM signal.

Any way....this peaks my interest to stay with digital for the long haul as I *know* that the technology to unlock those bits will just continue to improve and get cheaper, where as vinyl doesn't seem to sway in that direction, me thinks.

In my opinion, there's a lot of musical information buried in redbook cds that, once extracted, can make the differences of any format negligible.

I consider dedicating much time toward extensive vibration control, AC treatments, and line-conditioning to be a great equalizer in this regard.

-IMO

I hope everyone read the link cited by Albertporter (11/3).

Two things are obvious to me.

1. Digital PCM may be imperfect, but 24 bits are better than 16, and 96 KHz is better than 44.

2. SACD superiority is a snow job by Sony, and many audiophiles have been fooled.

I'm going to stay out of this for the most part (I've made my feelings known on other threads like this) except to correct a misstatement by Loon above which I think is misleading. The Stereophile article pointed out that the Norah Jones SACD was mastered from the same 16-bit/44khz master tape as the CD, not an analog, 24-bit or DSD master, that's a big reason why it sounded the same as the CD and something Marks pointed out specifically in that article and rightly kvetched about. His point is something I've always been concerned about with SACD, which is if a record company is going to release a digital recording in multiple formats, there is no way, unless the company states it on the label (which few do), to tell if the SACD (or DVD-A, for that matter, I guess) came from a 16-bit, 24-bit or DSD master. I view the Norah Jones SACD as an absolute rip-off by the record company; I could get the same effect they produced by playing the regular CD through my Audio Logic DAC, which converts pcm to DSD internally.

In my experience SACD is much better than Redbook, but only under the right circumstances. Old remastered junk thrown onto SACD is generally not very good, or marginally better than redbook.

SACDs that are mastered correctly, or those that are done specifically for SACD (not just another layer) can sound very good. True, there are not ticks and pops, but they also do not have the life of an LP. I don't know why SACD doesn't sound better than LPs, but I have yet to hear and SACD that sounds better than the same thing on vinyl.

I base these conclusions only on listening. I have had an SACD player for over three years now. I listen predominately to vinyl, even though in many cases I have the same thing on CD and SACD. I don't know why vinyl sounds better, I just know that it does sound better.