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Sacd/dvd-a, The Hype Is Dead, For Me At Least...

SACD, DVD-A....

I purchased a 2000.00 Universal and about 10 titles mostly SACD

SACD- Nice on surround, actual 5.1 disks, Stereo SACD well if you can get a Re-mastered CD or a Hybrid then its just as good on an awesome Redbook player as thru an SACD decoder... It is interesting.

DVD-A- Most of them ended up very UNDERWHELMING.... as stated earlier, and just a PAIN IN THE A$$...

Vinyl- I am only mentioning this as it seems viable for the discussion, as much garbage as it takes to turn on a DVD-A disc half the time I can put a LP on my VPI record cleaner, and Que it up just as well and it BLOWS away the DVD-A, and Most SACD's... I am not an Analog protector, as a matter of fact I bought My Analog RIG after ATTEMPTING SACD/DVD-A universal world.

CD- Bottom line Re-mastered Cd's and SACD Hybrids sound superior on a good old 16x BIT WADIA 4000.00 player than the SACD on the top of the line Marantz SACD player(this was borrowed)... This will catch much Heat I am sure, but drop the drama, invest Redbook, You can't buy anything on SACD or DVD-a in comparison to well recorded Redbook on a Very good redbook machine unless you are looking for the true benefit of surround SACD's. 2 channel I do not see the point.

Now let me back up, I am irritated only because, I am young, never had vinyl, and I started my High-end(audiophile) Life right in the Middle of SACD/DVD-A War about 2 years ago, so of course I had to have it... I will never go back to the headach of it now that someone was kind enough to show me the true sound of a Wadia player and a Vinyl rig in comparison to it.

I sold all Hi-Def Audio Software and Hardware and took all that money to the used market and Purchased the Wadia and Vinyl rig with YES an old fashoned Record cleaner to get the most out of it, and could not be Happier! Plus 90% of everything you could want is on Vinyl and CD, including New bands, many re-issues, etc...

Don't get me wrong, If you are into the titles that are in abundance on the SACD format GO FOR IT! It sounds VERY VERY good, but if you like maybe 10 CD's that exist on it, take the extra Money and purchase at least a Theta, Wadia, Maybe even Krell Machine(but I do not like the sound as much)... Okay don't take this as bashing, this is Truly my opinion on what I have heard and spent much time testing, And these were all done in home comparisons with Equal cost equipment for the most part for many months. And done in a very good room, good cables, speaker placement, power supply, and acoustic treated room that sounds excellent and does not lie....

I have nothing against the Hi-res music, hell I wanted it, I tried it as a newbee, and there is some definate impressive stuff, the MAIN thing I love about using Hi-res is When you can get your favorite guys in concert with DTS up on the HDTV in front of you, that so far is the only worthy format I have found worth the money and the cause, So I have a Seperate MOVIE / Slash / Concert DVD system that is a lot of fun and phoenominal results... But 2 Channel, get the best CD's or Hybrids, because the Hybrids do for some reason sound better than the originals probably due to they are Re-mastered very well, and a rewarding CD player will show this as much as the SACD counterpart if in a correctly setup system. And Vinyl, Ha well lets just say coming out of college recently my friends laugh until they here it cranked and can't believe it, especially if you have some good stuff to back it, but there is "DOG" recordings on ALL formats so don't think any sytem will Turn coal into a diamond in front of you.

But this all costs money No doubt, I only threw this little thread in here to maybe help some people save some cash... We can't have it all, but you can have it better if you know the direction to go in, I did not, but I found it, and it was full circle all the way back to the begining.. Don't let Hype rule your ears.
matrix
career
5 posts
 
I hope this provides another slant on things. I walked into Times Square mall in Hong Kong and found a store called SAM The Record Man. I assumed he was part of the North American chain but he clearly wasn't. The cheapest regularly priced CD in his store was over $200US. Talk about CD price sticker shock. Sam, the owner, is a Japanese first cd pressing purist plus an original recording (no remastering please or SACD or 24 bit reissues)purist in the extreme. He puts each customer through a listening session to prove his points and obviously convinces enough people to part with over $200US per disc before they leave (I declined). He has initial Japanese pressings(before the mother disc loses its virginal qualities) of a wide selection on music and is firmly convinced that nothing can rival the initial cd pressing run in Japan, i.e., not SACD, DVD-A, or 24 bit. He insists that all original musicality and imaging is lost in the remastering process. He says just go out and buy yourself an equalizer if you want to remaster cds. I didn't try to argue with him even though there were obvious counter arguments to be made given his extremely sweeping generalizations. He showed me some hi-fi publication write- up on his shop and the author mentioning in the article that he was convinced enough to drop a small bundle on CD purchases. If this sounds interesting to anyone you can contact him at [email protected] He ships worldwide.
Colin
Post removed 
bpwalsh
1,197 posts
 
Matrix: The purpose of the INVERT function on your Wadia player is to invert phase, not play the disc backwards :-) Many discs are recorded out of phase, so this can be a valuable feature.

Keith Herron had a quip at the CES a few years ago: "We were almost out of phase, so we ordered some more."

Brian
guidocorona
4,298 posts
 
Brian, I trust everyone was over 21 at that quip party thing. . . they sure do not sell no Phase to no minors here in Texas. But in Vegas. . . well. . . anything can happen there!
henryhk
648 posts
 
Perhaps so Guidocorona....I have tried the Esoteric orginal universal player...was it X-01? Anyway very good indeed. But I cannot help think that it must make a difference though I am not an engineer. It may be the case that it depends on the recording? Speculating here, but if org recording was done PCM then converted into DSD for the SACD printing, perhaps not much of difference: all that differs is that PCM based players will have to go thru one more conversion....but if DSD recording in the first place, wouldn't a DSD based player do better, other things being equal? In other words the Esoteric is great yes, but perhaps the mechanical engineering (great transport mechanism!) is so superior that it is compensates for this? At the end, you are entirely right, given the digital tech employed is not the only factor, we have to trust our ears as with everything in the end.
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