CD sounds better on an SACD player?

Found this in a recent review of a SACD player,

"One of the main reasons for buying an SACD player – even if you don’t own any SACDs – is that they play back ordinary CDs to a much higher audible standard than most CD players. "

Mmmmmmm "most CD players." " higher audible standard. " Sounds to me, to put it kindly, like a rather generalised and sweeping statement.

Is there any technical/scientific truth in this ?

 

Well, if it's on the internet.....................

 

Maybe it has to do with the DAC itself?

 

when i was using a NAD C542 CD player, i could not hear a difference between a Red Book CD and an XRCD being played on it. its only
after i made a change to a Philips ProII transport with an external DAC that i can hear a distinct difference between the two. and yes, even Red Book CDs sound better with the change of setup. so in a way, its seems with a better transport/DAC setup, it will likely give a better sound even with normal CDs. could be a better extraction of data (less errors) and better processing of the digital to analogue sound??

 

I think it's because some SACD players upsample. Personally, I don't think my CDs sound better on my SACD player.

 

When you quote something you should cite the source. They do not sound better in an SACD player - if anything the reverse will be true and in some cases - CD still sounds considerably better than SACD.

 

It's all in the DAC and power supply but the simple answer is no.

 

You are quite right. It's a very ill informed blanket statement.

I owned 2 early Sony's SACD players where CD playback was nothing to write home about.

Regards

 

The mere fact you're playing a redbook cd on sacd player doesn't, no, indeed some less expensive Sony sacd players were heavily criticized for their cd reproduction but it all depends on things such as the digital to analogue convertors, disc transport and power supply.
I would say my Marantz is an improvement on its Rotel predecessor but that's because of the above and digital technology has moved on since 1994. Too bad mainstream mastering standards have gone into freefall.

 

Why do you not disclose where this review came from ?

 

Good grief...it's gotten to a point where just a simple little joke I post gets scrubbed?

 

Wouldn't the quality of the recording (mastering and mix) be more important that the disc format? So in your opinion all CDs sound better than all SACDs?

 

No.

The analog signal that is output by a digital front end, whether it began as DSD or PCM, is going to vary in quality depending on several factors.

Most PCM conversion, including in SACD players, have an oversampling filter. The design of the oversampling filter has huge impact on the sound quality of PCM. DSD conversion in the same unit will bypass this filter and the conversion itself, likely handled on the same chips, is unrelated. It is absolutely possible, and perhaps likely, to have an SACD player which excels at DSD conversion, but doesn't do so will with PCM.

There are digital front ends these days which convert only DSD to analog (using FPGA code). PCM is first converted to DSD. Notable FGPA DACs are offered by Playback Designs and PS Audio. Alternatively, if someone has no SACDs and no intention of dealing with DSD at all, then there are purist PCM DACs which covert to analog with a resistor ladder (no off the shelf chips) and often no oversampling. Ask a Schitt Yggi owner if they'll trade for any random SACD player.

My SACD player, designed way back in 2008, has four off the shelf chips per channel and an oversampling chip. The power supply and analog section designs probably hold up pretty well against a modern player, but for PCM the oversampling filter would lag. For DSD, I'd expect FPGA conversion to best it. Whoever is making sweeping generalities such as the quote in the original post is doing no one any favors.

 

this article must be from Chewbaca's SSD drive, recovered from Han Solo's carbon prison after he was thawed from being frozen in carbonite.
The Princess found it still embedded in a portion of the carbonite, and had Lando decipher it with help from his computer techs on Bespin.

this must be true

to me, the cd player sounds better, unless your playing a SACD< then it (may) sound better on a SACD player.

DAC's power supply, quality of components, plays a large part in the audio quality.

but, to be sure, you're better contact R2-D2, he was given Chewbaca's drive by Princess Lea for safe keeping.

 

The quality of recording on any format is key, but then comes the quality of the machine playing it back. The medium itself less so because while it was always argued CD is better the LP that was ONLY the case if the play back machine was inferior.

A given SACD disc can sound better if the recording is superior but the let down is the player. I have not enjoyed listening to SACD since it came out on any player I've tried over the years. Maybe just haven't found a good one yet.

 

I have the same model NAD but it died. I only have one HDCD disk that I know of. It is not labeled as such. But the little 'HDCD' light on the NAD lit. That one disk sounded too 'hot' to me. It sounded better played as Redbook on my Marantz deck.

 

my C542 started skipping tracks and also it refused to load some CDs, sold it off for $50 after almost 7years of play. checked with my tech guy he said based on the symptoms, its a motherboard issue, so i did not look into repairing it.

 

Upsampling.

 

Just came across this from Australia hi fi magazine: the main reason for buying an SACD player even if you don't own any SACDs - SACD players give higher resolution playback of ordinary CDs than standard CD players.
file:///C:/Users/x/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.IE5/25N2AJMD/yamaha_cd-s2100_cd_player_review_test.pdf
http://i.nextmedia.com.au/Assets/yamaha_cd-s2100_cd_player_review_test.pdf

 

I haven't noticed that my standard CDs sound better or different in anyway on my SACD player (Onkyo) over the other two regualr CD players I'm running. Maybe it's my limited ears or system.

 

I've always been a bit baffled as to why upsampling would improve anything unless the endpoint has some kind of issue processing the original format. Maybe if there is some crazy good algorithm for creating the extra samples, but I've never seen anything in an audio device to convince me, video maybe, but audio, no.

 

I had to read again the thread as I had no idea to what I was responding

I am not a very technical person so I am not going to quote what I 've read about upsampling, there is lot of material out there for those who are interested.
I am going by my experience here. The Sony
XA5400ES for instance. From the Stereophile review:

I have noticed that improvement on cds played on the sony XA5400es and also I 've noticed improvement with 16/44 files when played on the Hap-z1es when the DSEE is engaged.

 

Preeeeeety close but not the same.

 

As I said, I am not a very technical person...

 

Ain't no "maybe" about it.