Use the echo test from the beginning of CREEDENCE/Fortunate Son AP SACD/CD like I learned ya, dammit! You'll hear the difference easily between the CD and the DSD.
All of the posts here lead me to the same conclusion I had earlier: my NAD T585 is not performing as it should. Although someone else noted the Pixies - Surfer Rosa SACD layer sounded "less punchy" than the redbook layer, this issue is with all of my Hybrids. I never heard a SACD that sounds "warmer" on my setup than the redbook layer. Quite the opposite. I have the settings with subwoofer and all surround speakers off. Yet the "crossover" for the front L&R speakers stays at "80Hz"! I contacted NAD and they replied that the crossover for front L&R is not "engaged" when the other speakers are turned off in the settings. I suspect they are mistaken. Maybe it's firmware? This seriously disappoints me so much that I'd be willing to let someone in the area borrow my player and compare it to their own. The last thread that discussed this fizzled without an answer. That being said, aside from the drawback, I do hear a significant improvement in most SACD's. Except for Synchronicity. Shrill on my setup. Yeowch!
Can you set your speakers to large or full range in the NAD menu? I'm not familiar with NAD players but maybe it is a setting not set correctly. You should have some way to play your R&L front speakers full range with the NAD. Bill
Pretty much my experience also, moreso with good DSD recorded classical, solo piano & string instruments are sublime. Over the last couple of years I have gone from a pretty much listening solely to late 60's-mid 80's pop/rock to now 50% classical, all due to SACD. The lack of that digital edge also allows me to up the volume, I can almost feel the grand piano is in the room.
I'm trying to think of a good test bed for an A/B test of SACD vs CD. Would a living stereo hybrid SACD be a good test? I'd use the HDMI out from the player, and then use the amp to force both the redbook and SACD into 2-channel stereo. I'd use an impartial (and likely bored) third party to pick the layer and tell me if I could tell the difference. Thoughts?
Maybe not relevant but boy oh boy did I reeeeally dislike the remaster of Synchronicity. I don't love the old CD but I went right back to it. Wish I still had the vinyl. Oh well...
A Living Stereo release should be a good test. The technical notes on the releases aren't explicit on this, but IIRC other discussions on this board, the CD layer in those releases is from the same master as the two-channel SACD layer, and not the master from any earlier CD release (as is the case with the Mercury Living Presence hybrids). If you're using HDMI as a connection however you must make sure (1) your player can output DSD over HDMI, and (2) your receiver can convert DSD directly to analog, otherwise you may not be setting up a proper test of the format.
Y'know, I should have just kept my yapper shut. Folks will think what they will. But to reply to this (I appreciate the polite discussion, btw). Your guess might have been correct in times past. Counter-intuitive perhaps, but... Looking good via minimal risk and minimal or cut costs is very "in" with all too many businesses. No matter what possibly slight gain the music or company or industry may have attained by trying to go high-res at that point, protecting the status quo and minimizing current costs may be more important to some of the more key players than risking investments in new procedures, methods, technology and a product that could reveal all the shortcomings and limitations of their past and present methods. Further, it risks creating a perception that might "devalue" the gazillions of CD-standard-locked recordings and incalculably vast catalog of CDs. Like certain genres and other practices, some might prefer to keep the game the same indefinitely. They're always surprised when a downturn comes along. The business was and is already reselling old wine in new remastered bottles without SACD. A lot of 'em are beat by the old CD and few indeed are up to SACD level. As far as saying it involves corruption, that depends how you look at it. I don't think that's the case here. Passively however... it's sometimes called information bias. They ask engineers, some of them who may know the high res consumer format isn't wanted and maybe don't want it themselves. They ask students. Gee will they be listening hard for subtleties and reliably single one from the other...? I'd have bet the conclusions would be just what they turned out to be. You may surprise yourself. Sounds logical. Yeah I think there was. There was a thread about it here too I think? In any case, I don't give much to "scientific studies" of essentially subjective issues to start with, far less to anything concerning audio and prefer to form opinion from my own experiences, with some consideration from those whose opinions I trust. IMH, YMMV and relevant funny letters.
Correct. I have the earlier CDs where relevant and the mastering is not the same as either the stereo SACD or CD layers of the SACD. Personally I'd suggest using many differing discs.
I managed to find a reference to the study I was thinking of: http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=15398 It was a test of sampling rate discrimination (88.2 versus 44.1). My memory was not quite correct about the findings. There apparently was a statistically significant preference for 88.2 over downsampled 44.1, less so for 88.2 over native 44.1, except that with an orchestral excerpt there was a "tendency" to prefer 88.2 (discussion here). No indication of word length from what I can see, which I understand many listeners believe to be more significant than sampling rate frequency.
Very good points. The point about remasters in particular occurred to me as well; it is not hard to imagine label executives discussing whether to focus back-catalog production on a higher-resolution format (SACD or DVD-A) or just continuing to remaster titles at standard resolution. As an aside, wouldn't you just love to get copies of all their e-mails from the last 20 years (assuming they were in an electronic format, and you could search for things like "remastered" and "SACD")? After seeing Steve's post above, I ordered the CCR SACD's. I'm a huge fan but sheepishly I confess that for the last several years I've only been listening to the 2001 Fantasy box. I don't have strong feelings about whether to give them (listening studies) credence or not, but I enjoy reading them and thinking about them. For me trying to understand and question them are good brain exercises. Lastly, is there a more efficient way of breaking up a quoted post into sections than just copying and pasting the opening- and closing-quote codes?
I agree, I would also add better resolution/decay. Reverb, echo and other effects are also better than cd. If I am listening to well mastered SACDs and I switch to well mastered cds, I immediately notice something is missing on the cd. Cds just sound bland when compared to SACDs.
Yes. The point is to listen to things like the reverberation tails. It's about hearing the resolution and microdynamics. I also listen to the "atmosphere" of the recording.
No, you're good. (Man, I do hate having to quote entire posts just to comment on one aspect of it just to keep things in context.) Anyway, one thing you did not mention, and that is a big elephant in the room, is that many engineers, artists, and record labels fear that hi-rez availability to the consumer + the internet makes it easier to illegally distribute superior sound, or "give it away". I believe that is one of the main reasons there is such a reluctance to putting hi-rez out there to the public.
Perhaps you are not familiar with a recent study that was briefly discussed here. It found that musicians tend to have a much lower rate of hearing loss. Some think it may have to do with stimulating the area of the brain that analyzes details in sound. I think it could extend to audiophiles and music lovers who listen intently to music. And, since the degree of hearing loss seems to be genetical, in addition to health and environment, it's too easy to conclude that all people will undoubtedly lose their ability to hear detail.
We are kind of beating up on the newbie here, but, in his defense, it does say "Steve Hoffman Music Forums" at the top. But, what he has to do is spend a little time nosing around here to realize it's an audiophile music site run by an audiophile engineer.
I get a wine. I sniff it, sip it, swirl it around the palatte, and I either like it or don't, and I probably don't know good wine from bad, but my limited experience with wine is that the more expensive ones taste smoother to me. It is about knowing what to listen for, and I think you can do that on most equipment. It's just that the better stereo will let you hear more of what's going on. With my mediocre system and inadequate room, I can still get a good sense of what the sound is, but I don't get all of the information I need. I have learned to hear "through" my system with better ones being my point of reference.
Around here it's not a good idea to decide for all of us what people hear based on some claim of unavailable, unverifiable scientific "data". We use our ears, not some data sheet. If one hears a difference, that's all that matters. Many of us appreciate those minute details we hear. They are important to us. I can take it you are not an audiophile? Stick around and keep reading this forum! You may develop the desire to hear what we hear.
Excellent point Grant. Back in 1971 I got a new car, a Dodge Colt. I had planned on putting a decent stereo system in it, but it came with just an AM radio. At the time I had recently gotten my AR3a's, Marantz 2270 system. Of cousre it sounded far better than the AM radio in the Colt, but..... I learned to translate what I was hearing and imagine that I was listening to my AR's. I know this may sound odd, but I was able to do it a lot better than I would have expected. Because I had 'learned' what to listen for, and what certain recordings sounded like, I was able to enjoy that AM radio while it was all I had. As another example, take some of the old Beatle recordings. I know them inside and out due to my vast experience of listening to them for decades. I noticed one day when I was watching a ball game on TV, that I could essentially hear all doubled vocal parts of a Beatle song when it was played through the stadium PA and picked up by the crowd mic. I have no doubt that this was the same concept in play that allowed me to listen to my AM radio and hear these types of things. It was my brain translating what I was hearing and converting it to what I remember hearing in the past. Hey, it's not ideal, but we have to make do with what we have at times. Another similar observation. Once I was making a needledrop comp of some songs and for some reason I decided to play my electric guitar for one of the songs. I never imagined that my cartridge would pick this up, but for sure, these comps had my guitar in the background. I was not happy about this, but ...... now whenever I hear that particular song, I expect to hear my guitar overdub. I don't particularly want this to happen, but my memory just adds it to what I'm hearing. I think this is the same phenomina that allows me to translate what I hear into allowing me to enjoy better fidelity than the source is capable of. In other words, if I hear that dumb guitar part when it's not really there, why can't I hear the sound of my home system when it's not really there?
See, this is why it matters. What you're essentially saying is "don't trust yourself! Don't trust science. Trust what we and instinct tell you is true." And such a perspective leads to nothing being falsifiable.
