sound sacd discs like dsd Cds?

I was able to do this exact comparison using Alison Krauss "Live" a DSD recording. I have both the RBCDs and SACDs (the RBCDs came out much earlier and there was no assurance an SACD release was coming, so...).

Doing this comparison made it ever so clear to me that it is the quality of the recording itself, not the means by which it is encoded onto media, which has the greatest effect on what you hear from your speakers.

This is such an outstanding recording the RBCD is virtually indistuinshable from the SACD played back on a Denon 2900 universal player. If I play back the RBCDs on my Wadia 861es then I actually prefer them to the SACDs being played back on the Denon 2900.

I have about 40-50 SACDs but I am thoroughly unconvinced of the sonic superiority over RBCD. Sure I can rationalize 10dB more dynamic range in the mid freqs but in practice I just don't hear it. Maybe if I get one of the new Wadia 781 CD/SACD players?

Although I didn't do the explicit comparison I would guess that the mastering on the CD layer of the SACD is exactly the same as the mastering on the RBCDs.