High Resolution Audio Comparison

Friends,

I have reposted this from my thread at the Home Theater Forum. Hopefully it will also add value to the good people here at Steve Hoffman TV as well.

Please see the following links for comparisons of the new high resolution formats DVD Audio and Super Audio:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/Practical.doc

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/Technical.doc

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To download these Word documents, please right-click on the above links, select "Save Target As" and file name. The files will then download automatically.

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Disclaimer!

Please note that I tried to keep the Practical as objective as possible while Technical are notes gathered from many years as a recording engineer and a final gradation on sound quality differences.

Please share with me your thoughts and ideas on the two formats.

Which has the better sonics?

What format do you like in terms of content?

What can each format support team do better?

What Steve Hoffman Super Audios do you dream will go into production?

 

Comments?

Any troubles with the links?

Steve, any thoughts from your perspective?

 

Lee, downloaded just fine. Haven't read 'em yet.

mud-

 

Lee,
Am wondering what you mean by DVD-A having "Deficiencies in redbook." Right now at least it has no redbook.

 

FWIW, the "technical" comparison looks like a reprint of old Sony marketing fluff.

FFF

 

Am wondering what you mean by DVD-A having "Deficiencies in redbook." Right now at least it has no redbook.

Paul,

I feel redbook has deficiencies like relying on brickwall filters that even 24/96 or 24/192 do not solve.

I also feel that cymbal sounds do not sound right on DVDA, but sound right in DSD.

Steve,

I think maybe you could record a mic feed (I think Mike Bishop did this) from a love event and convert separately and simultaneously in DSD and PCM 24/96 and analog. Then you could compare the two formats to analog as a control.

Of course, the goal would be to examine the best possible ADC and DAC on each format, say new Meitner for DSD and best chips for PCM and see which has most natural qualities versus the analog tape.

 

Note: I am told the DVDA title count is now up to 377 plus.

My numbers were based on an earlier Warner press release.

 

OK.

Practical

SACD

Major Labels of Note: Blue Note? Hardly. They announced "Blue Train" but it has not been released.

Quality High-End Labels of Note: Naxos? I don't believe they have made any SACDs - they have made one DVD-Audio I know of. Where is Telarc? They should be there. "Analogue Productions" is the correct spelling. Verve - why is that there? What about Groove Note, FIM, Water Lily, Vanguard?

Notable Reference discs: One of the biggest selling audiophile SACDs is one of the Jacintha's on Groove Note. I would guess that outsold Saxophone Colossus.

Consumer Advantages: Again, the mention of Blue Note is premature.

DVD-Audio

Bob Stuart's company is spelt "Meridian".

Technical

Very lightweight technical description of how these extremely complex systems work. You might have added some well-researched web links so readers who really want to know how PCM, SACD and DVD-Audio operate can easily find out.

translated into 1s and 0s which create different shaped pits - this is incorrect.

Less signal path is more. More music information is more - I don't follow the rule.

Pictures are fuzzy. Hard to read some of the smaller fonts.

Regards,
Geoff

 

Metralla said:

"Major Labels of Note: Blue Note? Hardly. They announced "Blue Train" but it has not been released."

Beg to differ Metralla...They have SIX titles in the can and have already announced they will do more.

"Quality High-End Labels of Note: Naxos? I don't believe they have made any SACDs"

They have several in Hong Kong and a recent HFR had them bringing it to North American and Europe catalogs. I had limited space given the constraint of keeping this to two pages and chose some labels I was experienced with and had heard rececently.

"Very lightweight technical description of how these extremely complex systems work. You might have added some well-researched web links so readers who really want to know how PCM, SACD and DVD-Audio operate can easily find out."

Metralla, I am a part-time recording engineer presenting to an Audio Society with many audiophiles that have no technical background. I kept this lightweight on purpose. This is why there is no critical discussion of dither on SACD side and zero crossing distortion on PCM side. I added some web links to the page and referred people to see me after presentation or visit the sites for more background. My overview is very much at 30,000 foot.

"Less signal path is more. More music information is more - I don't follow the rule."

This is my opinion based on 15 years in pro audio. What recordings do you do and why do you not minimize the signal path? I am curious to hear your viewpoint. I respect your opinion but would like to learn more...

Thanks.

 

LeeS,

Thanks for responding to my criticism in such a gentle way. It's easy to criticize; much harder to come up with the stuff in the first place.

My comments on Naxos, Blue Note, Telarc etc are from the point of view of a consumer in the USA. I have more than 300 SACDs and the label breakdown is as follows:

Sony (inc. SME Japan) - 132
Telarc - 46
abkco - 13
Vanguard (inc. Everest) - 13
Chesky - 13
Analogue Productions - 11
Linn - 10
Opus 3 - 8
Rounder - 7
Groove Note - 6
Water Lily - 5
Songlines - 5
Channel Classics - 5
FIM - 4
Hyperion - 4
Verve - 4
MFSL - 4
Albany - 3
Audioquest - 3
Challenge Records - 3
Delos - 3
dmp - 3
Lyrinx - 3
Virgin - 3
A-Records - 2
Heads Up - 2
MCA - 2
Red Rose - 2
SFS Records - 2
ASV Digital - 1
audio-b -1
Blue Dandelion Records - 1
Buzz - 1
CnC - 1
DGG - 1
Epic - 1
Philips - 1
RED Ink - 1
Zoe - 1
ZTT - 1

I am just saying that, as an average consumer with broad tastes in music, the omission of Telarc is a mistake, and the inclusion of Naxos is not yet pertinent to the North American market. Naxos is not specifically known as a quality label, but is highly praised for it's well-priced offerings.

Blue Note is premature.

I'm a consumer; I don't make recordings. I wasn't complaining about the technical thrust of your "recording rule" - I was struggling with your English expression.

"Less signal path is more. More music information is more"

This is unclear. I don't know what you mean.

Regards,
Geoff

 

Metralla said,

"Thanks for responding to my criticism in such a gentle way. "

No problem. I try to be civil.

"the omission of Telarc is a mistake"

Yes, maybe I should have included these great recordings.

"Naxos is not specifically known as a quality label, but is highly praised for it's well-priced offerings. "

It often offers the highest sound quality with many excellent engineers like Tony Faulkner participating...many albums have won high end press raves and records of the year.

"Less signal path is more. More music information is more"

I explained this further in my talk, but the jist is that as one uses more circuits, you get sound degradation. As far as music information is concerned, the more sampling one records the better the musical event (at least in digital) is recorded. For instance 24/88.2 or 24/96 sounds far better than 16/44. Of course, I believe DSD gets even closer to heaven.

Cheers,

 

Given the recent announcement by Universal to release some major pop albums, the title selection in SACD is becoming much better.

We will soon see The Police, The Who, Peter Gabriel, Steely Dan, The Allman Brothers...not too shabby.

 

Recording a love event??

Oh, beHAVE!

 

Theres' a pertinent thread with some interesting technical data re: SACD vs DVD-A going on right now on rec.audio.high-end. It's called
"Re: SACD vs DVD-Audio"

but unfortunately it's too new for Google to have archived yet.

So I'll reprint the most salient post here:

//
Francois Yves Le Gal <[email protected] replied to:

On 2 Dec 2002 16:53:54 GMT, "Lain" <[email protected]> wrote:

>Which has a better quality sound? SACD or DVD-A?

Both technologies, when porperly implemented, are able to faithfully
reproduce the master tape and can be considered as "transparent" in high
resolution mode.

>At 96kHz, is it possible to discern differences between the two formats?

SACD doesn't use a PCM approach, so sampling frequencies can't readily
be compared.

A typical high quality SACD system offers a bandwith of up to 100 KHz,
with a sub 20 KHz effective resolution of 22/23 bits, decreasing above
this frequency because of the noise shaping used.

DVD-A can go up to 192 KHz sampling frequency, with a bandwith of up to
96 KHz and an effective resolution of 22/23 bits on nearly the full
range.

>If not, apart from backing from studios, does it matter if I choose either
>one in the long-term?

Software is the key here/ If you're serious about music, go SACD; if you
fancy a video/audio approach, DVD-A can be more interesting.

//

(I disagreed with the author's last statement, since I find the selection of musical 'software' on DVD-A to be marginally more attractive than that available on SACD, so far, though SACD has the edge on jazz and classical release.. Theres's no clear choice for those who 'serious about music." IMO)

 

"Software is the key here/ If you're serious about music, go SACD; if you
fancy a video/audio approach, DVD-A can be more interesting."

Agreed!

 

Software is the key here/ If you're serious about music, go SACD; if you
fancy a video/audio approach, DVD-A can be more interesting.

Not bad advice and as a classical and jazz music fan explains why am all over Super Audio at the moment.

Plus, we have a great new selection of rock titles up from The Police and Peter Gabriel and The Allman Brothers and Steely Dan soon.

 

The last Steely Dan album has been out on DVD-A for months now.

 

Commercial Concern

I think backwards-compatibility in the form of a redbook CD layer is crucial to the economic success of either format as a dedicated audio source. Are there any dual-layer DVD-A/CDs? Are they even technically possible, given that the high-rez data on a dual-layer disc would have to be transluscent? Are there any licensing issues that would prevent a dual-layer DVD-A/CD?

Right now there are SACDs in WalMart (!), in stealth form on the Rolling Stones remasters. Presumably more dual-layer discs will follow from Sony, sold as ordinary CDs. I don't think people give the significance of this enough weight when discussing each format's commercial potential. I'm not invested in high-rez, except for those few Rolling Stones discs I own. Still, that would be enough to tip the scales were I to choose a non-universal machine tomorrow: "Well, I've got six SACD discs already . . . "

 

"Are there any dual-layer DVD-A/CDs? Are they even technically possible"

No. They are currently not technically possible but the DVDA camp is looking into changing the specifications of the format to support that.

Day late, dollar short.

 

Re: Commercial Concern

They are technically possible, but require changing the current implementation.

Investing in hi-rez now amounts to buying a >= $200 SACD or DVD-A player,
plus the discs. You can now get a hybrid player that does both for about $400.
If the companies bring hte price of discs in line with those of CDs which is happening, I don't see what the big deal is, investment-wise.

The big deal implementation-wise is taht you have to do an awkward 6-channel analog connection to get the supposed benefits of hi-rez multichannel playback, which is just plain stupid and paranoid on the industry's part.

 

Hey KA,

Glad to see that you actually DO arrive at some conclusions merely on the basis of preference!

As for my own personal viewpoints on software, I'd have to give the edge to SACD, but, in general, find it to be just as uninteresting as the list of DVD-A's out there right now.

 

For some reason, I think sgb might find the SACD selection marginally more interesting come 12/10!

 

Actually, the two Concord reissues that Groovenote is doing DO look interesting (I would have preferred Bill Berry's Shortcake to the L.A. 4 release, though), and are supposed to be ready on 12/10. Pure Audiophile's RBT vinyl will be out a few weeks later; then AIX's DVD-A of the same album is due in January. This should be fun...

Having done a rather extensive (but unscientific by Krabapple's standards), I have to admit that Groovenote's latest release by Eden Atwood in the SACD format is ALMOST indistinguishable from its vinyl counterpart on my system.

That's a nice tie-in to another thread in which our distinguished colleague from GWU maintained that non-blind tests are worthless. Well, seeing as a comparison of this Groovenote on vinyl to the SACD using two different SACD players came up with some rather astonishing results - almost indistinguishable using the SA-14 versus a Sota/JH/V15V, but markedly different where the lowly Sony 775 was used. Here the vinyl was clearly (pun intended) preferred by all participants.

For software, I would like to see the Hancock/Brecker/Hargrove amalgum do a studio version of their recent Directions In Music release in Hi-Rez - preferrably SACD.

 

Re: Re: Commercial Concern

Amen.