Just got a SACD player - recommend some good SACD's please

"The Super Audio standard is based on Direct Stream Digital (DSD) technology. This new direct-stream digital format comprises a 1-bit system that has a digital sampling frequency that is 64 times higher than that of conventional audio CD. The results are spectacular: a frequency response of over 50k Hz and a 120dB dynamic range over the entire audible spectrum."

These SACD's won't work on standard CD players.

I haven't heard enough SACDs yet to really say which ones stand out. I did an A/B on the new Police SACD and CD reissues, and the SACD versions sounded a lot better than the CD versions, but not sure if that's because the SACDs were actually better or because they purposely hobbled the CD versions...which admittedly still sounded better than the earlier versions.

!! < - reaction of someone who has read this post

Oh, and please, let's start the analogue vs digital war again in a thread from someone asking for specific questions about a digital player that's already on the bookshelf. That'll be gangs of fun.

That sale is one of those traveling bargain things. There was lots of shit too, but I got lucky. Their website is www.AtoZEventSales.com

and I have no affiliation to them. Good luck!

does anyone use this anymore? does it sound great? why haven't all cd players advanced to this?

i'm judging from the 8 years it's been since anyone's mentioned SACD that no one gives a shit anymore

I own Super Furry Animals' Love Kraft on SACD. I've never heard it properly since I never had the means to listen to SACDs. I still wonder how it sounds.

SACD persists as a niche: lots of Japanese reissues, and Audio Fidelity and MFSL have been or are starting to do them. Lots of classic rock stuff, so Steve Hoffmanites love it. For my part, I'm not sure I can really hear the difference with my system. Surround sound can be cool, but I seldom actually use it.

MP3's have done considerably harm in the progress of audio fidelity; perhaps they will one day be remembered as this eras version of the 8-track. As flash memory continues to become more affordable and of increasingly higher capacities, full spectrum sound will once again come back into fashion -- maybe even Pono (Neil Young's new music player/format) will have something to do with it.

i have a CD player that does SACD (marantz) and they sound really fucking great, i have a mozart one and also a Can reissue that is hybrid cd/sacd

this is a good place to order them, from the looks of it, there are still a surprising number of SACDs being issued, the stuff you'd imagine aimed at the audiophile market: jazz, classical, classic rock catalog titles

i have the talk talk sacds and they are amazing. haven't heard the new dvds which I imagine are also great.

I have the peter gabriel run of sacds and they're all pretty good too.

Peter Gabriel -- that reminds me -- i've had "Passion" SACD on my half.com wishlist for well over 5 years and it has not once been available for less than $60.

the hybrids in particular are almost impossible to find now. I have hybrids of everything but 3, where I could only find the sacd only. oh and I didn't bother with the german albums, birdy, live, or shaking the tree.

I've thinking of getting a SACD player, mostly because I've invested in a surround speaker system, and it'd be nice to listen to music in surround. I've noticed that a lot of old stuff has been reissued on SACD, some of it decades old... Now, I can't imagine some 1970s or 60s albums were recorded with surround sound in mind, let alone mono albums (which also seem to appear on SACD). So what's the deal with these reissues? Has the surround sound been added to them when they were mastered to SACD? Or are they simply stereo albums in a different format?

I'm not a super audiophile, so I don't want to buy an SACD player simply for some minute quality differences in sound, the surround thing is why I'm interested in it. So I'd love to hear people's experiences on how the surround sound works, especially with older albums that weren't produced for a system like this.

Actually, there was a big push into 4-channel "quadraphonic" sound in the early to mid-'70s, and thousands of records were recorded in quad. Upgrading your stereo to multichannel sound meant a substantial investment in a new quad receiver, at least two new speakers, a quad phono cartridge and/or quad tape player, and quad records or tapes to play. Unfortunately, the industry ensured quadraphonic's commercial failure by not resolving a 3-way format war - each of three new 4-channel formats were backward-compatible with stereo but incompatible with each other. Not wanting to bet on the wrong horse, consumers sat it out until a favourite emerged. Of course, none of the quadraphonic formats would ever gain critcal mass, and quad disappeared by the end of the decade.

Eventually, multichannel sound did catch on after DVDs became available, though more for film and video-game soundtracks than music. But in recent years, particularly since the advent of DVD-Audio, SACD, and other digital formats, there's been some interest in reissuing those forgotten '70s quad albums in modern digital formats like 5.1 Dolby Surround (which adds a front center channel, usually for voice, and a separate subwoofer feed for improved bass). There were also many classical and jazz recordings made in 3-channel "Living Stereo" as far back as the late 1950s.

How would they efficiently extract a voice from a quad mix for 5.1 though?

They just get some sweet session dude to dub a new vocal in

Yeah, I knew about the quadraphonic stuff from the 70s, so I figured out the might use the masters from those, but what about the other reissues, of albums that were only ever produced in stereo (or mono)?

A lot of them have been remixed in 5.1 and released on DVD instead of SACD. Isn't SACD quite popular in Japan?

I've heard a couple of 70s Quad mixes that have been de/re encrypted for DVD and just left as 4.0 and they sound cool.

List of all quad mixes here - http://www.avsforum.com/t/815154/quadraphonics-records-list

I just wanted to share this info in case anyone else was in the same situation: I was going to buy a new Bluray player, and I wanted to finally get one that could also play surround SACDs, because I wanted to put my surround speakers into good use. But after searching for a while, it seemed most of the players that support both formats were pricey ones made by those hifi labels like Marantz or Denon... The cheapest I was able to find was Sony's BDP-S7200, which was still 300 euros. But then I found some message board conversations about the BDP-S6200, which is the second best Bluray player Sony offers, but considerably cheaper (179 euros at my local electronics store). And the thing is, nowhere on Sony's official website or even in the user manual does it say that the BDP-S6200 support SACDs, but the people on the message board said that it still does. So I took the risk and bought it, and it does indeed support SACDs in surround and all. For whatever reason the factory-made player doesn't have SACD support, but once you download the latest firmware (which happens automatically once you connect the player to the net), you get a new menu where you change the format to SACDs and choose between stereo and surround sound on the SACD. So it seems the BDP-S6200 is clearly the cheapest Bluray player around that also plays Super Audio, even though Sony has inexplicably failed to advertise it as such.

so a friend of mine has been hard-selling me on SACDs for a while now and I finally took the plunge (plus now I have a region-free blu-ray player I can take to other people's houses). my primary sound system for watching movies & playing games in 5.1 is a Bose soundbar, and for some reason the player only sends stereo signals through (although I can play DVD-A discs just fine on my PS4) so I've been listening to everything on my stereo setup (Outlaw RR2150 -> a pair of Polk towers and a matching sub). they sure sound great though!

so far my best pickups:

- Bryan Ferry, Bete Noire and Boys & Girls (both of these sound outrageously smooth)
- Roxy Music, Avalon (PLEASE make an effort to get this if you are doing the whole SACD thing at all; it sounds GLORIOUS)
- Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon (I actually could never really get into this album until now - it just never clicked with me any of the times I tried to give it a chance. I still don't like it as much as Wish You Were Here [the SACD of which is supposed to be arriving soon], Meddle, Piper, or Animals, but I finally see what all the hype is about)
- Bob Dylan, Blonde On Blonde (ironically I got this because my other copy is one of those MoFi 3xLP sets to be played at 45 RPM and I was sick of getting up five times whenever I listened to this album, but the SACD is still a 2-disc job so I still don't have a copy of this album I can listen to without dragging my lazy ass out of my chair)
- Can, Tago Mago (got Ege Bamyasi and Future Days on the way too and I am PSYCHED)
- Steve Reich, Music For 18 Musicians (this is actually the second copy of this piece I've bought this year [I grabbed a copy of the Nonesuch reissue on RSD] but it sounds absolutely incredible)

my preferred format is vinyl so I suspect that I've probably bought 90% of the SACDs/DVD-As I'll ever buy since it's SUCH a niche format at this point, but hey who knows. these things sure get pricey once they go out of print, though; the Kraftwerk live SACD goes for hundreds of dollars.

it's also nice to finally have a device that lets me play CDs again! neither my PS4 nor my Wii U play CDs for some reason, and playing discs on my PC was always an ordeal. now I finally have a copy of that opera the Knife wrote about Charles Darwin and the soundtrack they did for Hannah Med H, the only two albums of theirs I never owned previously.

i got the japanese sticky fingers sacd. flat transfer from the analog masters. sweet! not the new 40th anniversary thing. this one:

http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/UIGY-9579

same deal with "it's only rock & roll," where a couple of the songs run at different (i.e. truer to the master) speeds and lengths as the vinyl.

A lot of classical music these days is being released on SACD, in fact it seems to be pretty much the only genre where the format has become prominent. After having had a SACD player for 8 months, I can't really claim to hear any sonic difference between SACDs and regular CDs (I don't think you can really hear it unless you have a really expensive hi-fi set and a pair of "golden ears"), but it's nice to be able to get classical music with a surround sound (and the newer CDs are also recorded with surround in mind) for a reasonable price; classical SACDs aren't that much more expensive than regular CDs these days. I love to listen to Bach's St. Matthew Passion with one of the choirs singing behind me and another one in front of me, as it (apparently) was originally staged.

So if you have a surround system and listen to classical music, investing in an SACD player (like the BDP-S6200 I mentioned upthread) can be a good choice... For other genres, not so much, because the number of SACDs isn't very high, and a lot of them are either regular stereo SACDs (in which I really can't see the point of choosing SACDs over regular CDs, unless you have those proverbial golden ears), or they're albums that were not originally produced for surround sound, and the surround effects are added as an afterthought.

I managed to score those Talk Talk SACDs mentioned upthread (they didn't come cheap, but I won two eBay auctions for about half of what they go for ordinarily) and would like to confirm that they are indeed quite gorgeous. any idea why Laughing Stock didn't get the same treatment?

Is there an obvious fix for not being able to play SACDs on a PC or is it just one of those things that isn't going to happen?

non hybrid ones? I don't know how that would be possible.

laughing stock didn't get the same treatment because it's on Polydor and not EMI. Same with the recent vinyl/dvd reissues (though Polydor did issue a vinyl repress)

I still have most of the Stones hybrid SACDs and on the rare occasion when I play them on my player that still supports SACDs, they sound great. I had an Oppo SACD/CD/DVD/Blu-Ray. Oppo's gone out of business though. I'm not even sure there are players on the market that have this capability now, and if there are I'll bet they cost a ton.

oh, I guess there are a few, and they're not too expensive. anyway this is certainly, at this point, a very niche format with dwindling support. I assume it'll straggle along for another 5-10 years though.

xp Oppo isn’t out of business and their current Blu ray machines (203 & 205) support SACD. I bought a refurb 203 and it’s great (though I primarily use a Sony for CD/SACD play.

ok I guess they haven't completely stopped yet, but it's 'gradual': https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/4/3/17191912/hi-fi-audio-disc-player-oppo-digital-shut-down

Thanks, hadn’t heard. Too bad, they build great stuff.

wow it is complicated to rip these https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/28569-sacd-ripping-using-an-oppo-or-pioneer-yes-its-true/

I dunno if everyone knows it already, but there's a British reissue label called Vocalion that's been reissuing SACD/multi-channel versions of albums that were originally released as quadraphonic LPs in the 1970s. Their catalogue includes stuff I had no idea existed in quadraphonic form, such as the Alice Coltrane/Carlos Santana collab album and Herbie Hancock's Sextant. I just got the latter in the mail, listened to it, and it sounds pretty awesome; there's so much going on in the sound field that the separation into four channels really gives the music a new life. I've played the regular CD of it hundreds of times, but the quad version is still a revelation!

So yeah, if you're into 1970s music, have a SACD-supporting player and surround speakers, this label is definitely worth checking out.

AFAIK all new Bluray players (except maybe the cheapest ones) by Sony support SACDs these days, so there's no need to get an expensive hi-fi player for them anymore.

Nice. An excuse to get a Blu-Ray player as well. I'd considered getting an old PS3 but they're so ugly.

There's a quad Alice Coltrane compilation with stuff from Universal Comciousness, World Galaxy and Ptah that I've owned but never heard in four channel.

There was a great one from Audio Fidelity that included both the original mono mixes AND the quadrophonic mixes for Sly & the Family Stone's Greatest Hits (i.e. no fake stereo abominations and no modern-day remixes). Good luck finding one for cheap, especially one that was authored correctly as it took three separate pressings to finally get it right.

There's a quad Alice Coltrane compilation with stuff from Universal Comciousness, World Galaxy and Ptah that I've owned but never heard in four channel.

Perusing the Vocalion website and there is a ton of great stuff on there.

Tuomas or others, do all Blu-Ray players also play DVD-A? And I assume it is only Sonys that still play SACD? I just finally got a good receiver after many years of wanting to build a nice surround system. Looking to get a Blu-Ray player that can be all-in-one, play any surround music that I acquire regardless of format. Anyone have a rec for a cheapish one that meets that need? I am not an audiophile and don't need high quality for this particular component (unless someone convinces me otherwise).

No, unfortunately DVD-A support is not that common with bluray players. I was just checking the newer Sony players available, and their mid-price model X700 (costs around 200 euros) doesn't support it, but the fancier X800 model (costs around 350) does.

And yeah, it seems Sony is the only reasonably priced manufacturer that supports SACDs. It seems that for whatever reason they are committed to it across the line; I just bought a new Sony A/V receiver/amp, and it has DSD support too, meaning that I can play SACDs from the bluray player and the amp will process the audio with DSD quality. With my previous Yamaha amp I had to set the bluray player to downgrade the SACD audio to PCM, because the amp didn't support DSD. With the new amp, I think you could even stream audio in multi-channel DSD format, if there was a streaming service which would offer that. (I don't think there is.)

hmmm. lots to research. thanks for the info, Tuomas!

xp this looks like the quadraphonic Coltrane comp: https://www.discogs.com/Alice-Coltrane-Reflection-On-Creation-And-Space-A-Five-Year-View/release/872608

for whatever reason they are committed to it across the line

Ah, well that explains it.

I expect that Alice comp would be extra lush in a modern surround format. It's also slightly segued IIRC so made for immersion.

The original launch PS3 had SACD compatibility via the optical out, so I picked up a few SACDs.

They dropped that feature with later revisions I think, but it was one of the great features of the launch PS3 that maybe 0.01% used.

I have quite a few SACDs but now no player, and no way to rip the HD audio to something I might actually listen to.

From what I understood the PS3 converted the DSD stream to DTS PCM on the optical out. True DSD only goes out the HDMI AFAIK.

It's not necessarily legal but I think a DSD ripper (or just a decoder) can be implemented on an FPGA. Had a quick look and there seem to be projects people have done and made available. A pretty wacky road to go down admittedly.

From what I understood the PS3 converted the DSD stream to DTS PCM on the optical out. True DSD only goes out the HDMI AFAIK.

This is probably true, since optical can't handle as much data as HDMI. So if, for example, you have an 5.1 AV amp connected to your TV with optical, and you're streaming a show with a surround sound and TrueHD or Atmos quality audio, it will be downgraded to surround PCM because the higher quality surround stream has too much data for the optical connection. Presumably the same applies to DSD?

Btw, the Sony BDP-S6200 bluray player that I mentioned upthread in 2014 has been discontinued, but you can get a used copy from Ebay for less than 50 bucks. If you really just need player that can handle SACDs and don't care so much about the video options (it can't handle 4K video or HDR), that's gotta be the cheapest option available. Like I said upthread, once you've updated the firmware it adds a new menu for SACDs, and you can play surround SACDs in either DSD quality (if your amp supports a direct DSD stream) or as surround PCM (if your amp doesn't have DSD support). I still use the BDP-S6200 as an audio player and can't imagine getting a new one before it breaks down.

Optical = S/PDIF, which was only ever designed to handle two channels of uncompressed PCM, or 5.1-7.1 compressed. S/PDIF doesn't have a fixed upper limit in data rate, and can supposedly support stereo 24/176.4k PCM, which is more than enough bandwidth for 1-bit/2.6MHz DSD. So I think it's more of a data protocol thing. There is such a thing as "DoP", which is DSD-over-PCM, where the DSD stream gets packaged as 16-bit chunks and unpacked at the other end, effectively unchanged.

I'm at least 15-20 years out of date with all this audio stuff, but I do remember blind tests back when SACD was new which showed that test subjects couldn't reliably tell the difference between "pure" DSD and 16/44.1 PCM conversion of same. Suggestion was SACD advantages were from the mastering / source material side rather than something inherently magical about high sample rate delta-sigma over pulse-code modulation. Certainly it's a difficult format to *edit* in - 24-bit PCM is much easier for that. If you're just digitising an analog master, or capturing live straight to 2-track, I'm sure it's great... but high-res PCM probably is too.

xp

The classic budget SACD used to be the Pioneer dv-575 / dv-676, a DVD player with 5.1 analogue outs and surprisingly great sound.

I'm quite sure it's also to do with "content protection" (HDCP) which operates over HDMI but not regular TOSLINK optical. Sony wouldn't allow an unencrypted DSD stream on any device AFAIK.

xp

The difference in audio quality would be marginal though if detectable at all, assuming the same number of channels. Just that DSD is the point of SACD.

I'm at least 15-20 years out of date with all this audio stuff, but I do remember blind tests back when SACD was new which showed that test subjects couldn't reliably tell the difference between "pure" DSD and 16/44.1 PCM conversion of same. Suggestion was SACD advantages were from the mastering / source material side rather than something inherently magical about high sample rate delta-sigma over pulse-code modulation.

I'n firmly in this camp, I couldn't tell the difference between a regular CD and stereo SACD, and AFAIK the difference is such that no human ear can actually hear it, because regular 16-bit CDs already cover pretty much the entire spectrum of sounds audible to humans. I only buy SACDs because many albums with a 5.1 mix or 4.0 mix are released in that format, couldn't care less about the "super audio" part.

Right, gotcha - S/PDIF does the old SCMS thing (sets a copy-bit - you can copy this once, you can't copy the copy), but HDCP is more sophisticated than that.

I totally get the sense of don't-complicate-my-signal-path; I always think "what a shame" if I see a really nice vinyl front-end going through a digital amp stage (even though, rationally, a modern 24/96 ADC/DAC isn't going to sully your precious LPs), so DSD should really stay that way until it's in the analog domain, I guess.

I only buy SACDs because many albums with a 5.1 mix or 4.0 mix are released in that format, couldn't care less about the "super audio" part

hard agree.

extremely ignorant question here: is there a convenient way to access/purchase/download 5.1 mixes digitally, without hard media? I ask because my very narrow motivation to include DVD-A capacity in the setup I am building is so that I can play the Talking Heads dual discs, which I do not own as of yet but am always keeping my eyes open for an affordable copy. I have placed the experience of listening to the early and mid-period TH albums in 5.1 on a pedestal that is the centerpiece of my interest in building a nice stereo system lol. If I had a way to do that without investing in DVD-A tech, I might just go with a cheaper blu ray that plays SACDs. (I am aware of and enjoy the TH downmixes; looking for the 5.1 real thing tho as well.)

Are you sure those Talking Heads albums only have a DVD-Audio layer? Because many music DVDs have the 5.1 mix both as a DVD-A layer and as regular DVD layer. Meaning, you can play the surround mix of the album as if it was regular video DVD, if your player can't read the DVD-A layer.

For example, I have a dual disc version of Björk's Homogenic which does exactly that, the 5.1 mix is there as both a DVD-A layer, and as a DVD-V layer which any player can read. Of course the DVD-A layer has a higher bitrate than the DVD-V layer, but my ears are not good enough to tell the difference. So I've never bothered to get a more expensive player with DVD-A support just for that.

And yeah, it is possible to download and play 5.1 mixes in without hard media, though AFAIK there aren't two many records available like that. But I have one album with a 5.1 mix that was released as an USB stick, and also I managed to come across someone sharing files of all Daft Punk albums as (probably unofficial) 5.1 mixes. So you can just put the files on a USB stick, stick it in your player/amp, and if it supports the file type, they will play in surround.

I no longer have a surround setup, but I remember the Talking Heads dualdiscs (or their European CD/DVD equivalents, which are preferable because some CD players can't handle a dualdisc and the bonus tracks are only on the CD side) that you needed to be careful about whether you were listening to the DTS or the Dolby Digital mixes, because DTS requires a very specific setup that will sound off if speakers aren't precisely placed, whereas with Dolby Digital your receiver will compensate for imbalances in the setup if it has Audyssey or something like that. This is ignoring the hi-res portion of the disc.

Sony's CD/SACD carousel SCD-CD595 was an affordable model back in the day that sounded great and had a nice display (when I need a new player I'm always looking for one that will properly show CD-text — the blu-ray players don't), but it took forever for the discs to load.

I think there are some quite easy to use free tools to be found for ripping DVD-A on a computer if you ever get curious to hear them and assuming this is legal in your locale.

And have a high res audio interface I suppose.

foobar2000 has a plugin that lets it recognize & play dvd-a from a cd/dvd player.