SACD and multi-channel questions

[afterlife2]

I would suggest a used Oppo player for 5.1 Sacd/DVD-a from eBay. They run from $120 and up. I got lucky and scored one for about $70 shipped from a seller in England. No remote, but my universal remote works perfect. I need to hook mine up soon. I used to own this player and it’s fantastic. No Blu-ray. DVD, Sacd, dvd-a playback and no remote: https://www.ebay.com/itm/254613634699
Or
Oppo Blu-ray player. At this price it will go fast!

Oppo BDP-93 BluRay 3D DVD/CD/SACD Player No Remote Control | eBay

Fully functional with your remote. Unit will have a security label.

www.ebay.com

Well the 93 is gone. I hope you bought it cause a great deal.

 

[TLS Guy]

I ordered the Sony UBP-X800M2 and an HDMI cable. They should be here on Monday.

We'll see what happens.

I think you will be very pleased with that player. It is outstanding value. I only ended up with two players, as I bought the Panasonic first. I was planning to use my Oppo player for SACD. However those players are not all they are cracked up to be. The software was rogue, and no matter what you did you could not even get it to play a CD through my 4K pre/pro. All you could get was fuzzy pink picture and no audio from anything. So I put that Oppo into my 2K 2.2 rig. It works fine with that.

So that is why I bought the Sony. Honestly if I had bought the Sony first I would never have bought the Panasonic. See how they compare for you. I think that Sony is better than an Oppo player.

 

[9397SVTs]

I think you will be very pleased with that player. It is outstanding value. I only ended up with two players, as I bought the Panasonic first. I was planning to use my Oppo player for SACD. However those players are not all they are cracked up to be. The software was rogue, and no matter what you did you could not even get it to play a CD through my 4K pre/pro. All you could get was fuzzy pink picture and no audio from anything. So I put that Oppo into my 2K 2.2 rig. It works fine with that.

So that is why I bought the Sony. Honestly if I had bought the Sony first I would never have bought the Panasonic. See how they compare for you. I think that Sony is better than an Oppo player.

Unfortunately for me, when I bought the Panasonic for 4K Ultra Blu-Ray movies, SACD music wasn't on my radar. I find it incredible for a flagship product, at its price point, that it doesn't support SACD.

Yes, this is costing me more than necessary, but I have room in my cabinet for additional components.

I am looking forward to hearing 5.1 SACD's.

 

[Verdinut]

Unfortunately for me, when I bought the Panasonic for 4K Ultra Blu-Ray movies, SACD music wasn't on my radar. I find it incredible for a flagship product, at its price point, that it doesn't support SACD.

Yes, this is costing me more than necessary, but I have room in my cabinet for additional components.

I am looking forward to hearing 5.1 SACD's.

Unfortunately, Panasonic never supported the SACD format on any of their players. They probably never had a good relation with Sony, the company which developed the SACD in a joint venture with Philips.

 

[TLS Guy]

Unfortunately, Panasonic never supported the SACD format on any of their players. They probably never had a good relation with Sony, the company which developed the SACD in a joint venture with Philips.

Yes, I think that is the truth of the matter.

 

[PENG]

My suggestions is, stop buying SACD disc, multi-channel or not. I wish I had given up much earlier and would have save a lot of money and space. My house is still full of VHS, 8mm tapes even Hi8s, CDs DVD-A, SACDs that I don't remember was the last time I used them. Tapes are 99% gone and discs will soon (2-5 years?) be abandoned too. Even for those who really believes disc "sound better", they would eventually abandon them in favor of digital.

For now, yes it one really likes MCH SACDs, it is much more difficult to find a good substitute on the digital side as there aren't too many 5.1/7.1 DSD files available and players, such as Pansonic's (I suppose some Sony too, you would think) and multichannel DACs/streamers are not in plentiful supply and/or are relatively expensive.

Eventually, hopefully soon, all SACD titles will be available in DSD files. Most recent AVRs can handle those now using network or USB input, but typically offer questionable support/capability in their playback.

 

[Trebdp83]

Where are all of your laserdiscs?

 

[Pogre]

Thank you for the lengthy and detailed reply. I'll have to see what's available to demo in my area (Phoenix, AZ).

Phoenix, huh? I live in Mesa!

 

[PENG]

Where are all of your laserdiscs?

I gave them away (for free and thank them to taking...), along with my Panasonic laser disc player.

 

[John Parks]

My suggestions is, stop buying SACD disc, multi-channel or not. I wish I had given up much earlier and would have save a lot of money and space. My house is still full of VHS, 8mm tapes even Hi8s, CDs DVD-A, SACDs that I don't remember was the last time I used them. Tapes are 99% gone and discs will soon (2-5 years?) be abandoned too. Even for those who really believes disc "sound better", they would eventually abandon them in favor of digital.

For now, yes it one really likes MCH SACDs, it is much more difficult to find a good substitute on the digital side as there aren't too many 5.1/7.1 DSD files available and players, such as Pansonic's (I suppose some Sony too, you would think) and multichannel DACs/streamers are not in plentiful supply and/or are relatively expensive.

Eventually, hopefully soon, all SACD titles will be available in DSD files. Most recent AVRs can handle those now using network or USB input, but typically offer questionable support/capability in their playback.

My hope is everyone (well almost) stops buying and sells their collections so I can scoop more of those sweet, sweet SACDs up. Especially if someone is kind enough to peddle their Roxy Music Avalon copy at a discounted price...

 

[PENG]

My hope is everyone (well almost) stops buying and sells their collections so I can scoop more of those sweet, sweet SACDs up. Especially if someone is kind enough to peddle their Roxy Music Avalon copy at a discounted price...
View attachment 37733

I have mostly classical, some Jazz..

 

[John Parks]

I have mostly classical, some Jazz..

That wasn't meant as a hint...

 

[PENG]

That wasn't meant as a hint...
View attachment 37734

Have you consider switching to ext MCH DAC, jRiver etc., and start collecting dsd files instead?

There are a lot of good quality recordings in dsd128 to dsd256, may be some 512 too. Sacd discs are dsd64 only but I am sure you know that already. Kindly

I am not saying higher rate is better, but there seem to be more high quality recording in the higher sampling rate files.

 

[John Parks]

Have you consider switching to ext MCH DAC, jRiver etc., and start collecting dsd files instead?

There are a lot of good quality recordings in dsd128 to dsd256, may be some 512 too. Sacd discs are dsd64 only but I am sure you know that already. Kindly

I am not saying higher rate is better, but there seem to be more high quality recording in the higher sampling rate files.

I have several DSD files from the likes of NativeDSD, 2L and some other sites. No multi channel as that is not my bag - yet. I can play them via Roon over my network to my Bluesound Node 2i, but the Node converts them to PCM. The best way, as of now, in my system, is to load up a drive and play the files via my Pioneer UDP-LX500 which sounds marvelous.

I have not graduated beyond the point of liking physical media - holding it, loading it, flipping it (in the case of vinyl) so yeah, I'm still a collector!

 

[lovinthehd]

Yeah that collecting physical media thing has been with me since the vinyl days (and I still have that too). I had issues downloading dsd files with my old internet service being very limited, haven't tried with the current one....ordering a disc at a decent price is just as easy and that way I have backup . Never did much with vhs, never laser disc and no dvd-a so I can handle a couple multich sacd no problem....

 

[2channel lover]

Thank you for the lengthy and detailed reply. I'll have to see what's available to demo in my area (Phoenix, AZ).

No sweat...I didn't intend to write a book, got carried away when I can with this stuff...and I only mentioned a few...

 

[Pik95]

Is there a difference between HDCD players and SDCD players? Is one better if so? Thanks

 

[Verdinut]

Is there a difference between HDCD players and SDCD players? Is one better if so? Thanks

What do you mean by SDCD?

 

[TLS Guy]

Is there a difference between HDCD players and SDCD players? Is one better if so? Thanks

I think you mean HDCD and SACD.

HDCD is high definition CD. These were discs outside Redbook standard that had 20 bit rather than 16 bit encoding. The discs were backwards compatible with non HDCD players. The idea was to extend the dynamic range of CDs. Support for this pretty much ended in 2008. As far as I know, no current players support HDCD.

However I believe Windows 10 still supports it. So if you have an HTCP or DAW with a disc drive with Windows 10 operating system, then I believe you could play an HDCD in 20 bit format. I have only one HDCD encoded disc in my collection.

SACD is totally different. They are encoded in DSD and not PCM and require a player, receiver or pre/pro with a DSD decoder. SACD allows for up to 5.1 channel playback. CD, HDCD only allow for 2 channel playback.

 

[9397SVTs]

My Sony player arrived yesterday. I have it connected to the Marantz SR7011 DVD input via HDMI.

I had already purchased several stereo/multi-channel SACD's. I listened to all of them on the Marantz SA8005, as the multi-channel SACD's have a stereo layer.

Below is what I currently have:

Stereo Only

Getz/Gilberto - sounds great
Carpenters Gold - sounds amazing
Rolling Stones Let It Bleed - sounds ok
The police Synchronicity - sounds like crap

Multi-channel

Dire Straights Brothers In Arms - really good (both)
Eagles Hotel California- really good (multi only)
Miles Davis Kind Of Blue - good (multi only)
Fleetwood Mac Rumors - amazing (multi only)
Norah Jones Come Away With Me - amazing (both)

I had high expectations for the SACD format and am left with mixed results. I have regular CD's for the above Norah Jones, Eagles, and Fleetwood Mac SACD's and prefer the basic stereo versions. The 5.1 is an interesting presentation, but seems to lack purity.

The other thing I noticed was a variety of quality. Some were crisp and clean, others were noisy and had poor vocals. I suppose the point of SACD is to provide an "exact" representation of the master recording, regardless of how good or bad it is. I guess I wasn't prepared to appreciate the imperfections.

I have more SACD's on the way, so we'll see how these turn out.