Going to grab Fourplay even though I have the original CD and 5.1 DVD-A. The CD is exceptional sounding. It would be interesting to see if they can improve it.
Looks like they've been around since 2000 or so. Their Discogs page gives you a sense of what genres of music they tend to focus on: Evosound I see that they put out CD+DVD edition of Cat Stevens – Majikat: Earth Tour 1976 (2005, CD) - that's a title that Steve Hoffman later remastered for Audio Fidelity on vinyl five years later. Keyword search for "SACD" on that page yields around 17 hits.
They have done a lot of SACD's over the years, most of which I've heard good things about. However, they are generally not to my musical tastes (including Fourplay) so I've not heard them personally. They recently released the Mr. Big multi-channel SACD which is really good and to my tastes. Their website is maddening and hard to find anything. I just tried to find Mr. Big there and couldn't.
On January 1, 2021, there were 13,736 SACD titles listed at hraudio.net. On October 1, 2021, there are 14,113 SACD titles listed at hraudio.net. That makes an addition of 377 titles for the first 9 months 0f 2021. In addition, there are about 70 new SACD releases that didn't make it onto hraudio.net. So, there were about 450 new SACD releases worldwide from January - September 2021. Currently, there are approximately 100 SACD releases, with release dates in 2021, accepting pre-orders at Japan Tower Records. There were over 600 new SACD releases worldwide in 2020. The total number of SACD releases worldwide is very close to 15,000....possibly within 50 titles of 15,000.
this thread is not helping control my desire to purchase a SACD player. I dont need to start with yet another format. I really dont. unless I do...
I've heard SACD's and I cannot hear a difference, if the difference it that it is dual layer than I must be missing something because it is still lossless audio like a standard PCM cd audio
Here we are over two decades later and SACD is still trickling out. IMHO it is still the best sounding physical media format of all time. 15,000! That’s an incredible number of titles when you consider it was all but given up on and left for dead over 15 years ago by the label who helped developed it, Sony. Well done for the rest of the boutique labels carrying the torch.
I’d make an appointment with a rep from Music Direct or Acoustic Sounds and if the new gear doesn’t solve the problem, if not, try an audiologist.
Can you hear a difference ? and no worries and my hearing is just fine thank you It similar to the streaming audio difference with Hi-rez audio I don't believe a human can perceive anything above 20khz
Ha! You’re a good sport. Yes, I sure can. I can also hear a difference in lossy (opus) mp3 versus 24/96 FLAC on Amazon MusicHD. Although the Redbook to SACD is glaring apparent to me, the Amazon streaming is a little less so with opus (what Amazon describes on its service as standard quality, likely mp3) to Amazon High Rez. still as long as I was subjected to SiriusXM for 15 with horrible ultra lossy mp2 files for the car, I’m very happy to have Amazon MusicHD. It’s night and day. Still have XM for occasional show and channels and even they have finally added a feature to step up SQ in the application menu to what’s likely mp3 from the standard horrid mp2.
I buy the occasional SACD, but not because of any possible difference in sound quality, nor do I have the equipment to play back in 5.1. No. For me the reason is that some classical labels persist in putting out their physical media as SACD eg. Pentatone & BIS. Sometimes when people say that SACD sounds better than CD, I suspect that this is because the SACD has a superior mix or mastering. I doubt I'll ever be able to buy a decent SACD player for experimental comparative purposes. Hmm. Maybe I could tell my wife I need more gear "in the best interests of science and research". In any case, it's nice to see what's coming out so I enjoy catching up with this thread occasionally.
I want to clarify one thing and it is that number of 15,000. The number refers to releases and not individual titles. For example, to the best of my knowledge, there are (at least) six SACD releases for Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue"....that would be six SACD releases of just one title. I have no idea of how many individual titles were released on SACD.
What’s even more intriguing, I think I actually have all six versions. Dear lord this hobby is sheer madness.
I believe 800-1200 SACDs exist which have never been listed at HRAudio. So it's not a complete accounting of all physically manufactured SACDs.
With HRAudio, I believe they need it to be on Amazon for affiliate links. That's one reason why none of my music is on there (lol).
hraudio.net is a revenue generating website, therefore it is prioritizing the SACD titles that are linked to Amazon and its affiliates. Most of the SACD releases missing from hraudio.com are of Hong Kong pop music, but among the missing SACD releases also include the stereo single layer SACD of Carole King's "Tapestry", the promo SACD single of "Money" from Pink Floyd, etc. You can see approximately 750 SACD releases missing from hraudio.net in the below link.... Previously Unknown SACDs
