2. tech-talk
  3. 1190994259

Study say No difference CD/SACD/DVD stereo streams

Anyone read the latest issue of AES? A year-long double blind study by Meyer and Moran with 554 people in the Boston Area (many from the Boston Audio Society) found that people were unable to discern when two channel digital streams were switched.

=> They can't identify high resolution audio from ordinary redbook CD stream!

This proves that either

1) CD is good enough for stereo playback
2) Boston audiophiles are not discerning

Will some people will say the test is meaningless as they can attest to having heard enormous differences themselves with their golden equipment and golden ears? If this is true then they should be able to prove this AES study and paper wrong in some sort of test...Meyer and Moran have thrown down the gauntlet to all those who claim to hear differences!

Note 1:
The authors readily admit that high resolution audio and the newer formats do have advantages in multi-channel and studio mixing applications. They also admit a lower noise floor is attainable with higher resolution formats (when volume is turned up very high and no music is playing)

Note 2:
This is the first test of this kind that I can recall. It may trigger lively debate for years to come. Obviously no audio equipment manufacturer will be pleased to see a result that claims 25 year-old technology is good enough!

I expect the audio rags to get hold of this and have a field day, imagine all those glowing reviewer recommendations and yet people can't even hear a difference.....lots of lively debate to come!

Remember you saw it first on A'gon.
128x128Ag insider logo xs@2xshadorne

Showing 1 response by johnss

johnss
564 posts
 
Both items 1 and 2 could be true or both could be false. It really depends on the source material and how it was handled. Many of the SACDs appear to be mastered from the same source as CD. Not much care is used during the editing and mastering.

A good example of what SACD can sound like are the newer RCA Living Stereo SACDs that are being done by Sound Mirror; not by BMG. These discs are quite a bit better than their Living Stereo CD counterparts issued by BMG.

I routinely record live to 2 high res 2 track digital or high speed half track analog. All digital editing is done in the high res format. The last thing that is done is conversion to 16 bit digital for Red book CD. I can also author various Resolution levels of DVD-A to disc, from 24/96 all the way up to 24/192. While the 16 Bit CD version sounds very good, the higher res DVD-A formats do have more ambience and more of an analog sound.

To really do a fair comparison though, the 16 bit tracks need to be written to a DVD-A as 16 bit tracks, while the high res tracks are written as high res tracks. Now the same laser head is on the DVD-A player is reading both data streams and one additional variable is removed from the signal path.

And I will also say I too have been disappointed with the poor quality of some of the commercially released SACDs I have purchased.
More to discover