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SACD... can you hear the difference?

I'm fairly new to SACD as it's only been a month since I purchased my first player that takes advantage of the format. Some say even on a good system which is set up properly that they can not notice a difference between SACD and standard CD.

For example my Wife is a huge James Taylor fan. A couple weeks ago I found 2 original master recording SACD disks from a company called Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs. Both James Taylor just as she has on CD. I dialed them in perfect and OH MAN! To me the difference was like night and day, but she couldn't tell the difference in sound quality.

So either I'm imagining things or I'm able to pick up on musical pitch and clarity much better than her. I'm sure of what I'm hearing with no doubt, but she thinks I'm crazy.

Can anyone here notice how much better SACD sounds on their system verses a standard CD.
pigchild
pigchild OP
4 posts
 
I have an Oppo 105 such as one of the responders here has. It's been a good player so far and does take advantage of SACD UHR disks.

as for CD, I am a bit confused as to why some of my CD's deliver great sound and others do not. I should not say some sound better, but for reasons unknown some put out more powerful sound than others. I always thought CD was CD and should be no difference from one store bought copy to the next.
zd542
5,339 posts
 
"as for CD, I am a bit confused as to why some of my CD's deliver great sound and others do not. I should not say some sound better, but for reasons unknown some put out more powerful sound than others. I always thought CD was CD and should be no difference from one store bought copy to the next."

You need to make sure that you are getting 2 of exactly the same CD's. Your experience sounds like you may have one original recording and the other a remaster.
ptss
1,964 posts
 
A big, but little known, reason for the difference in perceived sound quality of CD's, and records, is the absolute phase of the recording relative to your reproduction equipment, including speakers. The Spectral preamp I use has a "phase reverse" switch-one of the reasons I bought it (and I would never even consider a preamp w/o that feature). Look at the Berkeley Alpha Dac details or the Spectral Audio preamps and you will notice "phase" switches which provide the capacity to "reverse" the absolute phase of the outgoing signal. If equipment wants to provide you "reference" level sound it must allow you to adjust for the general "absolute phase" of each recording!
ghosthouse's avatar
ghosthouse
4,319 posts
 
Ptss - do you need a switch or is it possible to accomplish the same by reversing +/- at the speakers or at input to amp(s)? Honestly don't know...not trying to be provocative.
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dbphd
1,631 posts
 
I use an Ayre C-5xeMP, Oppo BDP-105, and Sony XA5400ES as disc players. It seems to me that the difference between CDs and SACDs depends to an extent on the player. Both CDs and DSD can be excellent when played on the Ayre; DSD is far superior to CDs when played on the Sony, and pretty much equivalent to DSD played on the Ayre. Only the Oppo does analog surround, and DTS on Blu-ray is superb. I prefer either the Ayre or Sony for CDs and SACDs, and strongly prefer the Ayre for CDs.

For stereo, all three go through a Parasound JC-2 that feeds a Proceed HPA 3 that drives a pair of KEF Reference 107/2s.

db
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