SACD Player

[Thorens]

Hi Everyone,

I am new to this forum so please bear with me.

I like and listen to classical music a lot. I have a very good Class A stereo two channel audio system but recently, a lot of the new CD that I bought are SACDs produced in Europe by PentaTone. I have trouble playing these new digital format SACD on my stereo system as the bias is all out of wag.

I have been trying to find, first of all, a true SACD player but without any success. Can anyone help me with some suggestions such as name brands and where to buy?

Since I do care a lot about sound quality, I now have no clue as to how to continue with this multi-channel deal.

I have separate rooms for audio and video.

I use a Onkyo Integra DTR-9.9 processor for my Home Entertainment system, but the sound quality, compare with the pure audio system, is not the same although my video surround sound speakers are ALL B&W speakers.

What I have for my audio components are : Power amp- Krell; Pre-amp-Carey; HDCD player-Carey; speakers-B&W Nautilus.

Your suggestion(s) are very appreciated.

Clueless

 

[TLS Guy]

Hi Everyone,

I am new to this forum so please bear with me.

I like and listen to classical music a lot. I have a very good Class A stereo two channel audio system but recently, a lot of the new CD that I bought are SACDs produced in Europe by PentaTone. I have trouble playing these new digital format SACD on my stereo system as the bias is all out of wag.

I have been trying to find, first of all, a true SACD player but without any success. Can anyone help me with some suggestions such as name brands and where to buy?

Since I do care a lot about sound quality, I now have no clue as to how to continue with this multi-channel deal.

I have separate rooms for audio and video.

I use a Onkyo Integra DTR-9.9 processor for my Home Entertainment system, but the sound quality, compare with the pure audio system, is not the same although my video surround sound speakers are ALL B&W speakers.

What I have for my audio components are : Power amp- Krell; Pre-amp-Carey; HDCD player-Carey; speakers-B&W Nautilus.

Your suggestion(s) are very appreciated.

Clueless

You have a really nice system.

I wonder if you could tell me more precisely what the problem is playing the SACDs. SACDs are dual layer. A CD Player picks up the CD layer which is a mix down of the five channel. Classical CDs don't usually have a subwoofer channel, so you have to derive one. An SACD player can pick up the multichannel DSD layer.

Now your high end system is two channel, and so if you did buy an SACD player then you would have to mix it from two to five channel in the player, or processor, but your only option would be to do it in the player.

A good study published in AES in the fall, showed under these conditions, listeners could not distinguish higher sampling rates than provided by CD.

So this really means that unless you want to set up to play all channels available on the SACD, then it is a waste of time.

Now your good system would require a lot of change and expense to do this. You would need center speaker and two rears comparable to your B & W nautilus speakers. In quite a few of those SACDs you mention, for instance the Symphony No 12 by Kalevi Aho, on Pentatone, there is a huge amount of power directed to the rear speakers, with the antiphonal drum rolls. So for what you want to do, you can't get away with pipsqueak rear speakers, as is usually the case for home theater. For SACD by the way, the surrounds have to be in the rear corners, not in the surround position for Dolby 5.1.

The next issue, is that SACD is not PCM based like the other digital formats. It is based on DSD processing. Unfortunately DSD does not allow for processing for level, delay and bass management in the digital domain. Now there are players and receivers that have this management, but what they are hiding or obfuscating, is the fact they are converting to PCM!

So if you want to listen to an SACD directly from the DSD decoder, then you need to balance it up in the analog domain, which requires some DIY skills. Also you need four speakers that are truly full range, or the ability to derive a sub signal in the analog domain, to send to a sub.

Unfortunately SACD, especially for classical is not convenient or easy to set up, and takes a lot of know how, to get the results I think you are looking for.

That Onkyo receiver you have is not going to deliver the goods you are looking for, for the music you listen to.

If you want to do it in your audio listening room, then you need a good Universal player that will output five channel analog form the DSD decoder. a preamp with five channels or more, with at least five analog inputs. You will need a beefy five channel amp, or three good dual channel amps. You will need five truly full range speakers, or the ability to derive a subwoofer signal from at least the two front channels. This latter would require significant EE and DIY skills.

If you think that SACD is hobbled at the starting gate you are correct. However if you have the where with all to set it up, it is phenomenal.

With your current set up, you should only be missing the spatial effects and nothing else.

If you click on my signature, you will see my set up.

 

[Thorens]

Thank you very much Sir.

Even if I had the wherewithal to re-do my audio room, it would take too much know-how which I don't have. On top of that, I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, there are next to no high-end dealers for me to seek help from. Most chains, as you know, are hopeless as they cater only to the mass consumers. To spend your kind of money and have to rely on other people is a dangerous endeavour. Unfortunately, I am not an EE so I have to seek help.

My father who past away a long time ago was also a true audiophile. He would only be happy with his self-built components. I remember we used to make our own speaker casings with real Brick and mortar that reached the ceiling. The Bass speakers were from Walfadale and they were huge.

Even the room was built in concret and steel to lessen the unwanted vibrations. It was also interlaced with sound absorbing triangular-shaped foams to reduce any echoing effect. Those were the days, and even today with an expensive system, it is hard to reproduce that warm sound that we had, unless it is something like yours.

He used to install sound systems for concert halls and other major public facilities for a living, so I am unfortunate in the sense that I have the trained ears but not the brain. I still remember he was using two extremely powerful tube power-amps to drive the speakers, and he always told me that the best way to have the least distortion is to have as much power as one can on the power-amps and play back the LPs in maybe 1/16 of the volume. We even make the chassis ourselves. (Sounds like my car buddies, that there are no such thing as "too much horse-power".

He also said,"A straight line from the LP to the speakers is the best way to seek high fidelity" Following his advice, my previous system was even more extreme than what I have now. Do you remember those KEF ref speakers where you can aim the tweeter with the built-in LED red dot? My two power amps weighed about eighty (80) lbs each, but my pre-amp was the simplest tiny little thing (forgot the name as they no longer exist, comes in a little wooden case) with the straightest path. One power switch, two volume controls and that's it.

I envy your three turn-tables because I still have a ton of extremely collectible LPs that I refused to let go but no turn table nor a good tonearm nor cartilage with diamond needle to play them...

So coming back to reality, I probably should forget about the whole idea of changing to an ideal system for my audio unless I have the help from someone like you.

Maybe that's why Julia Fischer dropped out of PentaTone and signed up with Decca? She is now the leiter of St.Martin-In-The-Fields. Sir Neville Marriner has recently given up his leadership to Ms Fischer.

It was cited one of the reasons was there are very few people who has a sound system like yours. The three gentlemen from Philips had the engineers perspective but they forgot about the end-users, the average consumers, like me. Paying over $40 per CD to PentaTone is not a good business idea.

Once again, I thank you Sir for you very clear explanation, only unfortunately, I am still stuck and don't have a way out.

Best regards,
Thorens

 

[TLS Guy]

Thank you very much Sir.

Even if I had the wherewithal to re-do my audio room, it would take too much know-how which I don't have. On top of that, I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, there are next to no high-end dealers for me to seek help from. Most chains, as you know, are hopeless as they cater only to the mass consumers. To spend your kind of money and have to rely on other people is a dangerous endeavour. Unfortunately, I am not an EE so I have to seek help.

My father who past away a long time ago was also a true audiophile. He would only be happy with his self-built components. I remember we used to make our own speaker casings with real Brick and mortar that reached the ceiling. The Bass speakers were from Walfadale and they were huge.

Even the room was built in concret and steel to lessen the unwanted vibrations. It was also interlaced with sound absorbing triangular-shaped foams to reduce any echoing effect. Those were the days, and even today with an expensive system, it is hard to reproduce that warm sound that we had, unless it is something like yours.

He used to install sound systems for concert halls and other major public facilities for a living, so I am unfortunate in the sense that I have the trained ears but not the brain. I still remember he was using two extremely powerful tube power-amps to drive the speakers, and he always told me that the best way to have the least distortion is to have as much power as one can on the power-amps and play back the LPs in maybe 1/16 of the volume. We even make the chassis ourselves. (Sounds like my car buddies, that there are no such thing as "too much horse-power".

He also said,"A straight line from the LP to the speakers is the best way to seek high fidelity" Following his advice, my previous system was even more extreme than what I have now. Do you remember those KEF ref speakers where you can aim the tweeter with the built-in LED red dot? My two power amps weighed about eighty (80) lbs each, but my pre-amp was the simplest tiny little thing (forgot the name as they no longer exist, comes in a little wooden case) with the straightest path. One power switch, two volume controls and that's it.

I envy your three turn-tables because I still have a ton of extremely collectible LPs that I refused to let go but no turn table nor a good tonearm nor cartilage with diamond needle to play them...

So coming back to reality, I probably should forget about the whole idea of changing to an ideal system for my audio unless I have the help from someone like you.

Maybe that's why Julia Fischer dropped out of PentaTone and signed up with Decca? She is now the leiter of St.Martin-In-The-Fields. Sir Neville Marriner has recently given up his leadership to Ms Fischer.

It was cited one of the reasons was there are very few people who has a sound system like yours. The three gentlemen from Philips had the engineers perspective but they forgot about the end-users, the average consumers, like me. Paying over $40 per CD to PentaTone is not a good business idea.

Once again, I thank you Sir for you very clear explanation, only unfortunately, I am still stuck and don't have a way out.

Best regards,
Thorens

Thank you for kind comments.

I mislead you on one fact, I find that the Aho symphony is on BIS and not Penta Tone. By the way on Archiv music SACDS like we are talking about go for between $11 and $20 per disc. This ex Philips execs are issuing some of the old Philips quadraphonic recordings, that were issued in matrix four channel LPs and four track quadraphonic tape. The LP part was disaster the system did not work at all. I do still have an old Electrovoice decoder hanging around someplace for those old LPs, and have a few of the LPs. The new digital matrix systems do as good a job or better of decoding them. I never had a four channel tape player. I think I will buy a couple of those SACDs and see how they sound. The old Mercury Living presence recordings made on either three track Ampex machines, or three track optical recorders sound wonderful on three channel SACD.

I did experiment today comparing the CD layer two channel with the mutichannel SACD, and I have to say a lot of the down mixes are not the best.

Now SACD is in my view a system that was never finished off. It was introduced because the loony audiophile set who pay thousands for speaker cable and power cords, would not accept that you can make a good recording out of ones and zeros. You have to lay down the tracks as you record it at the session. You can not do post production touch ups, without going to PCM or analog. To do the mix down digitally takes huge processing power and takes a long time.

Now because of these limitations the balance is not always right. On the Vanska Beethoven set on BIS, the disc with symphony number six, in my view clearly has the center channel 5db too loud. This transfers to the two channel CD layer. Unfortunately the critics blamed Osmo Vanska for not balancing the orchestra properly. I get change the balance on my rig and make it just right. I agree that SACD production is probably a fatally flawed business plan. The number of people who are bale to reproduce that Aho disc in the home, must be very small even world wide.

I think and hope that the Blue Ray medium with the loss less Dolby True HD codec will enable much better multi channel recordings. This would allow sensible post production work, and you would only need one version, as players or processors could easily do a two channel mix down for those with two channel systems. I reckon you could get the whole ring cycle on one audio only Blue Ray disc. If this comes about this will allow you to bypass the SACD issue.

If you do not buy SACDS with a lot of antiphonal effects, you could get away with good small bookshelves for the rear. The center speaker needs to be robust though. The Aho disc has a symphony written to be performed in an open air amphitheater in Lapland! There is a circle of drums and on my rig it does make a good circle, with good imaging between the front and backs.

Your father sounds as if was the sort of guy I would have got into a lot of trouble with.

By the way, if you have some special LPS you would like archived, I can do that for you and send you remastered CDs. My work station uses a professional external Dac. The software is Steinberg WaveLab 6. This is a fully professional system with high quality audio uppermost. The work station which I built has a professional Plextor drive. The rig edits and burns CDs to Red Book specs. It has a huge array of editing and post production facilities.

I could also help you pick out a turntable to go with your rig.

 

[Thorens]

Dear Sir,

Thank you for you guidance once more. Thank you also for your detailed answers and kindness in offering a chance for me to convert my vinyls to CDs. It is very kind of you.

One of my treasured LP was the Stravinsky's Firebird suite. In the middle of the passage, the orchestra quiets down and comes a very few notes from a harp. I used to use that LP to be my reference LP for buying components. Very few components or speakers can pick that up. So it was a very enjoyable and very useful LP.

It was played by the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Lorin Marzel. That performance was simply fantastic. During that time, I actually attended many of his live performances so that I can compare the sound of a real performance versus a recording.

There is no comparison of course, even with today's most advance system. Back then, I was thus able to assemble a nice audio system with that LP. But it was back then. Things are very different now. Do you think when you help me convert that to a CD, all that details could be maintained?

Thanking you once more,

Ciao,

Thorens

 

[TLS Guy]

Dear Sir,

Thank you for you guidance once more. Thank you also for your detailed answers and kindness in offering a chance for me to convert my vinyls to CDs. It is very kind of you.

One of my treasured LP was the Stravinsky's Firebird suite. In the middle of the passage, the orchestra quiets down and comes a very few notes from a harp. I used to use that LP to be my reference LP for buying components. Very few components or speakers can pick that up. So it was a very enjoyable and very useful LP.

It was played by the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Lorin Marzel. That performance was simply fantastic. During that time, I actually attended many of his live performances so that I can compare the sound of a real performance versus a recording.

There is no comparison of course, even with today's most advance system. Back then, I was thus able to assemble a nice audio system with that LP. But it was back then. Things are very different now. Do you think when you help me convert that to a CD, all that details could be maintained?

Thanking you once more,

Ciao,

Thorens

Yes absolutely it would be. The CD will sound the same as the sound from my turntable.