[QUOTE="It also limits the resolution of the format; something PCM isn't limited by. "[/QUOTE] ??? Please explain
I would be surprised. Everyone I know streams music to their phones. Isn't "surround sound" the primary selling point of an SACD? I suppose superior mastering is too. But of all the average music buyers out there, are they buying anything based on mastering quality or surround sound? For those of us who know better, we'll keep buying em.
As of this post, there are 12,068 SACD titles listed ay hraudio.net. A total of 712 new SACD titles were added for 2017, which essentially matched the 714 titles added to the same website for 2016. Please keep in mind that some of the titles listed at hraudio.net were announced but yet to be released, i.e. the MoFi Dire Straits titles, Analog Spark's 2 Todd Rundgren SACDs, etc. In addition, a minimum of 136 new SACD titles were released in Hong Kong in 2016. Therefore, 712 + 138 = at least 848 new SACD were announced/released in 2017, which represents a slight decrease in the number of new releases when compared to 2016.
I like the format, and I have a pretty sizeable collection of SACDs. But it seems that - at least for my tastes - the well has dried up. Nothing new of interest to me has been released except the 3 AP Prestige albums (and no idea when the rest of the series will be available).
I would not agree that the main point of sacd is the multichannel mix. A benefit, yes. Many of my favorite sacd releases are stereo only. The benefit is good mastering primarily A real benefit occurs with older analog masters. Little benefit with pcm masters
IMHO if the remastering was done to take advantage of the SACD format it was a win. A cut and paste job was a loss
Last Christmas I got the Japanese SHM-SACD for The Planets directed by Zubin Mehta with the Los Angeles Philarmonic originally released on Decca in 1971, it sounds great and I thought it was money well spent a year ago. A couple of weeks ago I got the Analogue Productions SACD release of the same recording sourced from the first gen master tape and mastered by William Makkee. The AP SACD trounces the Japanese SHM-SACD on every sense, sound clarity, definition, imaging, dinamics, the Japanese SACD sounds flat, dull and lifeless in comparison.
I agree wholeheartedly. Analog recordings mastered in DSD show substantial improvements. Newer albums made in the digital era tend to show a less dramatic improvement on SACD.
The Oppo 103 as well, a lower cost unit the rips SACDs like a dream. Everyone that has built up their music server libraries - and has high-res files has been dreaming of the day they would have DSD (dsf) files playing on their servers - ripped with relative ease. That day came and now SACD is just another media format to be ripped. Btw I would never buy an SACD that did not include a Surround layer. There's too many great surround mixes old and new not to have them. SACD in itself never sounded as good as DVD-A on my system, and often might not sound better than CDs if they didn't really make an effort in the mastering.
There are some niche sites that sell DSD recorded music that sounds amazing. Of course these are independent artists (for the most part) but when recorded natively to these formats sound very good. Home | Blue Coast Music Also agree in grabbing an OPPO 105 or 105 "D" for ripping and surround playback. I don't have multichannel but if someday I want to go that route, I know I have a top notch player in my 105. I use my Sonica DAC to playback my ripped DSF files which I think is an improvement over the OPPO 105 (mine is modded which I think is a very good improvement).
I thought Analogue Production SACDs were only available from Acoustic Sounds. I wanted to buy one; but when I went to check out The shipping price was $14.69! Almost half the price of the CD!, Thankfully I have learned that there are other distributors. Elusive Disc charges $4.72.
I got mine from Elusive Disc also, Acoustic Sounds wanted to charge a leg and an arm to ship the disc to Spain, Elusive Disc only charged me 6 $ for expedited shipping to Spain, very reasoneable.
I did get the Patsy Cline SACD via DISCOGS. Shipped by Acoustic Sounds for $5. Today I ordered a Big Head Todd DVD-A from Amazon. They have a whole bunch of DVD-As. Who knew?
The Patsy Cline SACD is really good. You can save money by getting it as a Stereo DSD Download from Acoustic Sounds. The download is $5 cheaper ($24.98 on DSD Download, $30.00 on SACD) and there are no shipping costs or waiting for the DSD Download! Patsy Cline-Greatest Hits-DSD Single Rate 28MHz64fs Download|Acoustic Sounds
True, but then I'd miss the suspense of waiting for the postwoman, the fun of tracking packages and the tangibility of the disc. Plus my Oppo BDP-95 won't play DSD through the USB port; Only via the transport.
Given the recent news to the demise of Oppo and Audio Fidelity, I think it's natural to be wary of SACD's future as the decline of the optical disc continues. And the news isn't good. As of May 1, 2018 (four full months - a third of the year), there were only 187 new SACD titles added to HRAudio.net. Another 35 SACD titles were released in Hong Kong (approximately half were released on single-layer stereo SACDs) in the same period of time. 187 + 35 = 222 If the number of releases is extrapolated for the whole year at the same rate, only 532 new SACD titles will be released worldwide in 2018. For your reference, each of the previous 3 years (2015-2017) saw SACD top 800 new releases worldwide. As of this post, 27 new SACD titles were added to HRAudio.net since May 1, 2018. Hopefully, other companies can step in and fill the void left behind by AF.
And how many of those 27 titles are classical? The problem isn't the smaller amount of titles being released - it's the lack of genre diversity. Do we really need the same piece of classical music released in 20 different interpretations? I'd easily take half as many releases per month if it means there's more diversity.
We're still getting new DSD downloads released every week over at NativeDSD Music. Their catalog includes over 300 DSD albums not available on SACD. They have a storewide 15% Off sale through 5/27/18. Discount code is MAY15. New Browse | NativeDSD Music