2. digital
  3. 1055434720

SACD a 5.1 medium?

I'm a two-channel dinosaur, and I wonder if SACD has promise for two-channel, or if it's intrinsically a 5.1/7.1/etc. medium. Most of the SACD discs I've seen are labelled "5.1." Do you need a 5.1 setup to get the good sound? If you ran a 5.1 SACD disc through a two-channel setup, will it sound any better than plain-old redbook?

Jeff
jverona

Showing 2 responses by jverona

jverona OP
8 posts
 
That's reassuring. It leads me to another question. Say a two-channel master is remixed into multiple channels for SACD. In a traditional two-channel setup, all the information from the master would be sent to the two channels. In the remix, all that information goes into multiple channels. If one were to replay that remixed SACD through the front channels only, would some information be lost?
jverona OP
8 posts
 
Amen. I was worried that remixing would degrade the original stereo image. But if the SACD discs are encoded with two-channel tracks as well, that's not a problem.

One more question. How does SACD improve the sound? In other words, what does the SACD process achieve that makes it superior to redbook? I'm assuming there has to be some improvement; otherwise, there'd be no need for the format.

(Not looking for a flame war here, just information.)
More to discover