Linear PCM is crap, SACD is best
Reply #17 – 2004-03-31 10:46:22
Hello everybody, I received an e-mail from David with the question to respond. Well, I didn't realize that there was that much posts regarding this topic. There were a lot of questions and I will try to answer them as many as possible. To start with a commercial story (which I don't want to preach because I hate commercial things), one can state that SACD has began as a succesor for the CD. Patent-wise and Sony/Philips were looking for a new cash cow. Research on the topic DSD is very old and it was intended for backing up material on a medium that was so bad that after one time of playing the tape was destroyed. The other reason of developing SACD originates from the recording industry. They wanted to have a succesor of the CD with 12 constraints. Copy protection and so on.If these reports are as conclusive as you imply then they might have a very positive effect on Phillip's marketing. Well what can I say, as far as my point of view is concerned: I don't understand the marketing of Philips and I hear rumors that the priority of SACD is set low and the research (where I am working) is stopped. The last thing we solved was a timing problem in SA mixing tables of Sony. By the way, Research and Consumer Electronics are two companies within one large company and they don't listen that much to each other... Another interesting topic according to the topics is Dynamic Range. I measured myself a common amplifier and in normal listening level it has a signal-to-noise ratio of 75 dB. I also measured good tube amps with a SNR of 85 dB. IMHO it has more to do with resolution and there is were DSD comes in. The statementas a matter of fact CD has a higher dynamic range from 10kHz to 20kHz than DSD is true but irrelevant. When the CD was brought to the world, audio enthousiasts rejected it quit soon and said:"CD is for boom-boom music..." A record player (with a good element of coarse) sounded much better, ie. with extra noise, scratches and so on but at the end there was a better soundpicture than with CD. It still is. It is more important to have large resolution in the low levels and no low pass filtering. (needed for CD)and do Philips have any technical explanations for the claimed superiority of SACD The low pass filtering is considered as the best explanation of why the sound is that good. (records were made with 50 kHz low pass filtering) Do you know of any published papers (peer reviewed, or otherwise) reporting double blind listening tests that demonstrate that an ultrasonic low pass filter is audible? The outcome of this test intriges me most at the moment, but it is still confidential since we don't understand what is going on. I don't want to make promisses which I can't make true, regarding to a report publication. There are strange things to be explained and this one of the strangest.Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon SACD is a bad example since it is not a SACD recording. If you are used to SACD (when I refer to SACD, I mean a real SACD recording not a upconverted 24/96 signal...) you can distinguish such an old recording as with Pink Floyds directly from a SACD recording. Also in the recording process there are differences where the most important thing is phase coherence between the channels. I admit, DSD has many artifacts such as processing, HF noise (we blew up a very expensive amplifier once with this) but the end result to the ear is most important. It is also the format which complies to every demand in the recording industry, and is therefore for them the best candidate. However, some audio crunchers are busy with watermarking in the audio itself and they must be stopped of coarse. When one listens to such a recording, one can sometimes hear ticks and cracks!The answer to the SACD vs. DVD-Audio question is: CD. If I have listened to a SACD and I have to go back to a CD, I always have disappointing feeling...