SACD and multi-channel questions

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Verdinut

Verdinut

Audioholic Spartan
9397SVTs said:
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.
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You are right about SACDs. If the recorded master is poor, the sound will be crappy on SACD as well as on CD to a lesser extent. As a matter of fact, a well recorded master will sound good on CD, as well as on SACD or DVD Audio provided it was competently transfered.

Actually, if you want improvement in sound quality, just look for the source and the speakers. Electronics will sound the same if they are operated within their designed limits.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
SACD is just another media format, it's not magic but it does provide a multichannel format which is a nice alternative IMO. You're still going to hear the quality of the recording effort primarily, just as with any medium. You may not always be in tune with how the multich mix is done but really don't know what you mean by "purity" in that regard but they do vary quite a bit too. If you're looking for any multich suggestions the Pink Floyd multich Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here are worthy I think, as is Super Session and Miles' Bitches Brew.
 
9397SVTs

9397SVTs

Audioholic
lovinthehd said:
SACD is just another media format, it's not magic but it does provide a multichannel format which is a nice alternative IMO. You're still going to hear the quality of the recording effort primarily, just as with any medium. You may not always be in tune with how the multich mix is done but really don't know what you mean by "purity" in that regard but they do vary quite a bit too. If you're looking for any multich suggestions the Pink Floyd multich Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here are worthy I think, as is Super Session and Miles' Bitches Brew.
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The purity I'm speaking of is the lack of imaging you get with stereo. Additionally, some of the multi-channel discs were front 3 (R/C/L) dominate, while the vocals were distant on others.

Both of those Pink Floyd SACD's are currently en route. I'm really looking forward to hearing them. I'll look into the other two discs you mentioned.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
9397SVTs said:
The purity I'm speaking of is the lack of imaging you get with stereo. Additionally, some of the multi-channel discs were front 3 (R/C/L) dominate, while the vocals were distant on others.

Both of those Pink Floyd SACD's are currently en route. I'm really looking forward to hearing them. I'll look into the other two discs you mentioned.
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Imaging with stereo or multich is not just about the recording engineer's efforts but also somewhat about your speakers/setup IMO as well.

More suggestions would be the multich mixes done by Steven Wilson for not only his own Porcupine Tree and solo stuff, but also the remixes he's done for others https://www.facebook.com/swremixes
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Audioholic Jedi
9397SVTs said:
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.
Click to expand...
For music in the popular domains multichannel does not work out well, more often than not.

What you get is some guy remixing and assigning tracks from a multi track master and doing a 5 track mixdown from a 32 track master.

This is not likely to be a useful exercise.

SACD is for music in large spaces, and especially for antiphonal effects and pipe organs with widely spaced divisions. In those cases there is some point to it. It can then be effective. It also helps to preserve ambiance of those spaces.
 
9397SVTs

9397SVTs

Audioholic
Both Pink Floys discs, DSOTM and WishYou Were Here, came today.

WOW. These were absolutely amazing. The depth, presence, and immersion was awesome. While some other songs had a similar presentation, Welcome to the Machine was ridiculous in its ability to make it sound like I had speakers in my ceiling.

I hope to find more discs that have this quality of sound and presence.
 
S

snakeeyes

Audioholic Ninja
9397SVTs said:
Both Pink Floys discs, DSOTM and WishYou Were Here, came today.

WOW. These were absolutely amazing. The depth, presence, and immersion was awesome. While some other songs had a similar presentation, Welcome to the Machine was ridiculous in its ability to make it sound like I had speakers in my ceiling.

I hope to find more discs that have this quality of sound and presence.
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I’d be curious what you rank anywhere near these 2 discs actually. Both are excellent. :)
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
If you can, pick up the bluray of the 50th anniversary release of Hendrix' Electric Ladyland....
 
9397SVTs

9397SVTs

Audioholic
snakeeyes said:
I’d be curious what you rank anywhere near these 2 discs actually. Both are excellent. :)
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You can really tell that a lot of time and effort was put into each song individually, as opposed to simply converting a stereo recording into 5.1.

I would put Wish You Were Here above DSOTM. As I listen more and hear more recordings, I can create a list.
 
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9397SVTs

9397SVTs

Audioholic
lovinthehd said:
One of the best examples of multich mixing I've experienced....
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I found nothing but great reviews, so I ordered the 50th Anniversary Set.

So far, I've only listened to the Electric Ladyland CD and the making of Electric Ladyland CD.

I am blown away. The soundstage, soundfield, the placement and movement of sound, was nothing short of incredible. It's hard to believe that it was accomplished with 2 channel stereo.

I think I am more impressed with this than both Floyd 5.1 SACD's that I've mentioned previously.

Thank you for recommending this to me. I'm really excited to hear the live CD and watch the Blu-Ray.
 
9397SVTs

9397SVTs

Audioholic
I listened to the live CD. It was harsh and unpleasant to listen to; I stopped about half way through. I don't know if I just have a bad CD; it did skip from the middle of Foxy Lady to 45 seconds into Fire. Has anyone else experienced this problem?

I then listened to Steely Dan-Gaucho. It was very nice and crisp.

Lastly, it was SRV-Couldn't Stand the Weather. Another great CD, especially the song Tin Pan Alley.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
9397SVTs said:
I listened to the live CD. It was harsh and unpleasant to listen to; I stopped about half way through. I don't know if I just have a bad CD; it did skip from the middle of Foxy Lady to 45 seconds into Fire. Has anyone else experienced this problem?

I then listened to Steely Dan-Gaucho. It was very nice and crisp.

Lastly, it was SRV-Couldn't Stand the Weather. Another great CD, especially the song Tin Pan Alley.
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The Hendrix live cd is of limited recording quality but mine doesn't skip altho there is a clunky transition from Foxey Lady (track 5) and Fire (track 6). Have you listened to the bluray yet? That's the best of the four....
 
S

sterling shoote

Audioholic Field Marshall
PENG said:
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.
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I find that 5.1 downloads are just too inconvenient to store or access. 5.1 SACDs on the other hand are very convenient.
 
S

sterling shoote

Audioholic Field Marshall
9397SVTs said:
The purity I'm speaking of is the lack of imaging you get with stereo. Additionally, some of the multi-channel discs were front 3 (R/C/L) dominate, while the vocals were distant on others.

Both of those Pink Floyd SACD's are currently en route. I'm really looking forward to hearing them. I'll look into the other two discs you mentioned.
Click to expand...
Where did you find DSOTM? I've had the 5.1 of it on backorder from Acoustic Sounds for 2 years.
 
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