The key advantage to SACD is that it can easily be distributed as a hybrid CD. I haven't seen any listening-test being conducted that clearly favored one over the other, so unless the music is targeted at bats, I think the world would be better off with SACD becoming the standard.

Just my 2¢.
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Hello everyone,
 
A lot of audiophiles approves the SACD formats, but some irreducible retorts that the DVD Audio is superior. 
And you, of what side are you?
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A few years back I used to think DVD-Audio would win, because all PCs would be able to read them with the right software (and a 24/96 sound card, granted), while consumers would need a new player to read SACDs. It may have been precisely the reason why music publishers turned away from DVD-Audio, with the fear that the protection on DVD-Audio would some day be broken as easily as CSS was on DVD-Video.
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It's only a matter of time before someone breaks SACD's protection schemes, though.  If you can create it, you can also destroy it.
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Actually the hybrid CD/SACD disks have an interesting "protection", since a computer drive doesn't "see" the SACD layer, only the CD layer.
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DVD-Audio also cannot deliver the highest fidelity LPCM in multichannel and is limited to 192 k stereo. All other factors being equal, 96 kHz LPCM does not sound as close to the source as DSD does, which means you are saddled with lesser quality 5.1 when listening to a DVD-A release.
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DVD-Audio also cannot deliver the highest fidelity LPCM in multichannel and is limited to 192 k stereo. All other factors being equal, 96 kHz LPCM does not sound as close to the source as DSD does, which means you are saddled with lesser quality 5.1 when listening to a DVD-A release.
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I thought that sacd goes lossy if you put hard-to-encode hi-res multichannel content on it.

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DVD-Audio also cannot deliver the highest fidelity LPCM in multichannel and is limited to 192 k stereo. All other factors being equal, 96 kHz LPCM does not sound as close to the source as DSD does, which means you are saddled with lesser quality 5.1 when listening to a DVD-A release.
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(btw: That part of yours smells like a terms-of-service rule #8 violation)

Are you implying that 96/24 isn't sufficient enough to transport sound transparently for us humans ? (I seriously doubt that)

As one of the few people who has taken the time to conduct extensive tests with both 192 kHz LPCM and single speed DSD with live sources (my company <www.sonicstudio.com> pioneered and manufactures both PCM and DSD professional production systems), I can say that they are subjectively different but both equally valid.

DVD-Audio also cannot deliver the highest fidelity LPCM in multichannel and is limited to 192 k stereo. All other factors being equal, 96 kHz LPCM does not sound as close to the source as DSD does, which means you are saddled with lesser quality 5.1 when listening to a DVD-A release.

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I thought that sacd goes lossy if you put hard-to-encode hi-res multichannel content on it.

AFAIK the DSD stream isn't stored lossy on the SACD -- no matter what.
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DVD-Audio also cannot deliver the highest fidelity LPCM in multichannel and is limited to 192 k stereo. All other factors being equal, 96 kHz LPCM does not sound as close to the source as DSD does, which means you are saddled with lesser quality 5.1 when listening to a DVD-A release.
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I thought that sacd goes lossy if you put hard-to-encode hi-res multichannel content on it.
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I thought that sacd goes lossy if you put hard-to-encode hi-res multichannel content on it.

AFAIK the DSD stream isn't stored lossy on the SACD -- no matter what.
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Allright. Then it must be the MLP (dvd-a) which does lossy when lossless isn't small enough.
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Unfortunately, it looks like the SACD is "winning" the war as the next audio format. In records stores, I've seen the DVD-Audio section shrink and wither, while more and more albums are released on (hybrid) SACDs.
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DVD-A and SACD sales are declining (it's early for the "media of the future"   )
HA has proved that even PCM is overkill for the human ear.
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Talking about multi-channel, ac3 and DTS is widespread. For me DTS is fare superior and difficult to differentiate from the source. I didn’t make a real scientific test though. Just a friend changing the source.
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DVD-A and SACD sales are declining (it's early for the "media of the future"   )
HA has proved that even PCM is overkill for the human ear.
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I think you mean that 96kHz 24bit linear PCM is overkill for the human ear. PCM merely refers to the way the signal is sampled and quantized - with no specification of sample rate or bit depth. For example, 22kHz 8bit linear PCM is certainly not overkill for music signals (it is for speech, though).

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Talking about multi-channel, ac3 and DTS is widespread. For me DTS is fare superior and difficult to differentiate from the source. I didn’t make a real scientific test though. Just a friend changing the source.
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If it's not a double blind test, then making any sort of conclusion from it puts you on fairly shaky ground.
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However, I agree with you that multichannel is the way things are going (people have mixed opinions about this) but I don't see why, with rapidly increasing storage space, lossy multichannel formats should have any advantage over 6 channel LPCM.
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DVD-A and SACD sales are declining (it's early for the "media of the future"   )
HA has proved that even PCM is overkill for the human ear.
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I think you mean that 96kHz 24bit linear PCM is overkill for the human ear. PCM merely refers to the way the signal is sampled and quantized - with no specification of sample rate or bit depth. For example, 22kHz 8bit linear PCM is certainly not overkill for music signals (it is for speech, though).

  Sorry I didn't mention it, I was talking about 16/44 PCM
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Yep, that's why I have started the following topic:[a href="http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=32796&hl=]DTS/ac3 tests, Is it worth it?[/url] Outside the size benefits (which still an advantage even with big hdd, ...), with ac3/DTS you have the compatibility with all the DVD player...
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I doubt you will get much support for the opinion that 16/44 PCM is overkill for the human ear. Perhaps "adequate" would be better - because that's exactly what it is - enough, but not too much.

The 192kHz claim from the poster you have responded seems absurd to me. Forget 192kHz(96Khz bandwidth) -- at this point no confirmed perceptual tests have concluded that anything exceeding a [1]16kHz bandwidth is needed to be transparent for musical program playback for humans. The accepted JAES standard on this matter still stands as of this day.

-Chris

[1] Which Bandwidth Is Necessary for Optimal Sound Transmission?
G. PLENGE, H. JAKUBOWSKI, AND P. SCHONE
JAES, Volume 28 Number 3 pp. 114-119; March 1980
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I haven't read that paper, but a clean 16kHz low pass is clearly not transparent to many younger listeners for much source material. This was demonstrated during the tuning of the --alt-presets, and even before during work on the old --r3mix preset - filtering at 19.5kHz was audible to one person who took part in those tests!

The testing in the JAES article, which was eventually peer reviewed and accepted as a standard, used test signals that were designed to test respective fixed phase and spectrum content, simulating analysed music(with boosted high frequency spectrum in order to increase sensativity ). The conditions of playback were conistant for all test subjects(half of which were audio professionals - the results of both groups were segregrated). It is true, that perhaps very young people could score significantly better in the musical program HF testing, but since very young people were not used, it remains to be a theory.

I don't know specifically which factors/variables were used during this testing of which you refer. I suspect it may have been the standard *remote* testing as is standard during the codec developments on  hydrogenaudio.org. In the case of remote listening, a simple matter of a person testing at much higher SPL levels for the test  than is realsiticly feasible during actual listening may greatly influence the test results. They might use a device that has a very inaccurate frequency response anamoly that greatly enhances the ability to hear a specific band.These are just two examples, and of course there are others that limit the practical usefulness in such a remote testing method. I recognize this remote method is certainly useful for guidance of codec designs , especially considering the alternative of no group perceptual testing -- but the lack of careful consistant test conditions and fraud suspectibility(I.E.; depending on the test subject's honesty) reduces the merit and reliability of such testing. It could be that the test results of the testing to which you refer were accurate -- but please understand my skeptiscm based on the factors present in such testing.

-Chris
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but I'd suggest that the results we already have show that 16kHz is too low - unless you believe all audible differences apparently due to content above 16kHz were due to ITD in the equipment producing actual changes below 16kHz in the output.

i'm sure i'll change my opinion if i get a really good 5.1 system, but right now i'll settle for an above-average 2.0 system (movies still sound stunning on anything capable of decent dynamics and flattish response).
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It's a fact, not a supposition..
It's well known that the audio CD is completely overkill for the human ear. The normal audio CD have more resolution that the human ear is able to perceive.