SACD - not that impressed...

[supervij]

My favourite multichannel SACD (along with DSotM) is Peter Gabriel's Up. I listened to it again just yesterday, and every time I hear it, I'm knocked out by it. The songs are incredibly enhanced by the new surround mix. Songs like "Darkness" and "Growing Up" in particular are particularly effective in surround. It's a lush and involving album; highly recommended.

cheers,
supervij

 

[j_garcia]

It's a bit 80s, but Roxy Music's Avalon is a very well mixed m/c SACD.

 

[Rock&Roll Ninja]

My DVD player does not play DVD-A (it's a Sony) so any recomendations on MULTI SACDs would be great.

Telarc

 

[Buckle-meister]

You might think about trying out an ICBM with your system.

What? An Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile?!

Regards

 

[s2pdname]

...so any recomendations on MULTI SACDs would be great...

I have been purchasing, and listening to 2ch SACD for about a year. Last week I finally got my surround speakers set-up and listened to Dire Straits-Brothers in Arms SACD...WOW! I have also heard that Mark Knopfler has other album(s) on SACD that are very well mixed.

Check out SACD.net. From what I understand they have (almost) every SACD listed along with many listener reviews.

http://www.sa-cd.net/

 

[Khorn]

it has the potential of sounding better, though the differences will be subtle if both formats are utilized correctly. OTOH I have heard SACD's that sound worse than the CD equivalent mix.

I listen to SACD in 2 channel exclusively and at least in my experience I find a well recorded and mastered SACD sounds substantially better in a few ways than the equivalent Red Book. These include more resolution, a “relaxed and realistic” musical sound, as well as in most cases a well defined space around individual performers. Of course this is what I hear personally so I’ll qualify the above as being “IMHO”. In many cases I have unknowingly forgotten to switch my player from CD to SACD when playing a Hybrid and in every case after a short time have asked myself “what’s wrong here”? I then went to the player and checked then switched to SACD and said to myself “now this sounds right”.

 

[DISCMAN]

Hi Ed,

I may have missed it, but what type of music do you mainly listen to?

If you like Norah, I recommend the Diana Kralls.
The Carpenters is also a great surround title if you like female singers.
If you are in to 70's hard rock Aerosmith "Toys In The Attic" is great. I play it for all my friends when they come over to show them MC music. I really like the Elton John & Eric Clapton titles I have picked up.

 

[edwelly]

I don't have a particular style of music except that I am not much on country. I just want something that sounds awsome. I am not a Lyle Lovett fan but I have a DVD audio of his that sounds GREAT!!!!
Thanks!

 

[tbewick]

I read something the other day that said that the reason for the higher quality of SACD/DVD Audio is the higher reproduced frequency range. Though this range (20 kHz+) is inaudible, resolution here improves sound qulaity in the lower frequency range. This is because of reduced group delay (I believe this is something to do with sampling theory, where there is the inability to resolve direct current at sampling frequencies lower than infinity).

 

[krabapple]

2 Channel SACD is a higher resolution format than regular CD

true in the technical sense of 'resolution'

so typically they sound better than a regular CD.

Cause (dynamic range > CD's ~94 dB, i.e, 'higher resolution') and effect (better sound on playback) hasn't been demonstrated. Ditto higher sampling rate. Difference in sound could be due to several other things, rather than SACD vs CD (mastering, sources, remixing) . Unless you rule those out, it's a mistake to attribute the sound to the digital format.