sacd,vinyl, and rebook....

I have in all these years progressed from Vinyl>Vinyl+Tape>CD>SACD and the funny thing is I keep going back to likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Beethoven etc etc. They all sounded great back then and still sound great today. After all it's about music isn't it?

I will in my lifetime not be able to afford all the vinyl, CD's, DVD-A's and SACD's nor I will be able to afford to buy all types of equipment in different formats that are out there. I get whatever I can afford today and as many albums I can lay hands on that my funds allow, relax sit back and let the music play.

Once I did a comparision of Vinyl , CD and SACD since I happen to have all three formats of an album. Is my turntable the best? NO! Is my CD player the best? NO NOT AT ALL! Is my SACD player the best? NO WAY! Are the three albums mastered in the same way? NO! Then why the hell am I comparing them? What am I going to achieve after I spend hours listening to the equipment rather than music for which it was originally bought? I gave up in the end.

I now listen to all three formats depending on the album I have in my collection.

Happy Listening everybody!

We'll, my feelings on this topic have been expressed many times over the last couple of years. The link that Albert Porter provided gives an objective scientific view which was sorely lacking from most of the debate over the years.
All I can say at this point is "fool me once (betamax) shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me". Lets hope we all remember this the next time Sony tries to lead us into another format war.

I don't have a sacd player. I have bought some hybrids, though, because I've heard the cd layer is usually the best sounding version, compared to other redbook issues. I've found this, so far, to be true. In addition, I can at some point buy a sacd player if I want, or simply continue listening to the cd layer. I would never buy a sacd only disc.

I really do not understand what the purpose of this thread is. I have great capability to play LPs, cds, sacds, dvdvs, and dvdas. I certainly do not have every performance in all of these formats and no intension, even were they available, to have everything in multiple formats. I find LPs superior when everything is perfect but a major pain in the ass. I have had an enormous improvement in the quality of my cd performance thanks to modern dacs and clean power. Now I could listen to cds exclusively. I have found sacds to sound more realistic than cds with a considerably better sense of the sound stage, but with less dynamics (XRCD24 clean their clocks). I thought that few if any dvdas were worth having, but system improvements have shown some are excellent. I am not looking for a victor in the format wars and just enjoying what is available. I will continue to buy sacds when they become available.

Of all the posts, I find Gaudio_eek's quote of Ivor Humphreys the most salient; why do so many of us in this hobby chase tweaking the noise? Really, Albert's referenced article is dealing with a worse case scenario of -40db in the upper register. Please! There's 10,000 times more other stuff going on with these recordings!

At a certain level (just for a guess, I'd say a $5,000 system) the details we're hearing are mostly the decisions of the recording engineer and mixing artist (yes, artist). And while I love 'air' and 'etched details' and 'palpable' and all that other stuff, there's some lower order terms we tend to miss in all this minutia: things like rhythm, melody, harmony, and tonal communication.

In other words: music!

I'm not attacking those who can hear the differences between formats (for they do exist, and yes, I have heard them). Instead, I am asking why do we feed this machine? Why do we buy this equipment when there are satisfactory formats (CD for simplicity, Vinyl for high res playback, MP3 for portability)? And this is hardly a Luddite anthem, but it is an appeal to reflect on the rationality of our purchasing behavior with respect to the primary goal: the joy of music.

Sincerely,