CD vs SACD in STEREO

@richardbrand - and followers of this thread more generally...

The majority of commercial digital recordings will go through a few a/d and d/a conversions. This is because most studios use lots of analogue outboard gear - so at tracking the signal will be converted to digital. At mixing it will go a/d to the outboard gear the d/a back to the computer. At mastering, it will go through the same process. 

There are studios and mastering houses which operate entirely "in the box" i.e. do all the mixing and mastering using the computer alone. But it's still a minority.

Back to Brothers in Arms - the DDD means that it was recorded digitally, mastered digitally and output on a digital storage medium.

But that cannot be taken as a guarantee that the signal was never in the analogue domain during either the mixing or mastering process.

The state of computer technology at the time would not have made it feasible to mix it digitally, and it wasn't recorded to hard disc in the first place anyway.

In addition to playing sacds, a sacd player will (in general) tend to sound better on regular cds, shm, blu-spec cds, etc as well.

If you have a notable collection of the latter, it would be more worthwhile to get a sacd player for all your cd playback.

@yoyoyaya Just curious: some of the best CD I heard were very simple (almost?), 'direct to digital' with a minimum or no mixing, mastering, etc. Ideally a few mics, volume mix, A to D conversion and 'burnt' onto disc. In this context, I remember one guy who experimented with digital tape recorder early on (40 years ago). One recording he played was in the middle of the night (low background noise level) recording a tripping faucet in a small bathroom, and then someone opening the door quickly. Played back from the digital recorder over a stereo with a 'bed' size sub (built like a queen size bed), the dripping was eerie, but when the door opened, the pressure increase in the small bathroom was noticeably reproduced by the sub. 

SO, are there some (obscure), maybe 'audio test' CD for SACD that make use of very little 'mix mash'?

Found this. Am I on the right track? 

Top SACD Recommendations with Minimal Processing

The following SACDs are renowned for their "purist" approach, often using a single microphone array or recording live to a DSD master without any intermediate digital edits.

• Patricia Barber – Café Blue (Un-Mastered): This specific "Un-Mastered" version (Impex Records) is highly regarded because it removes the typical compression and EQ adjustments applied for radio. It offers a raw, in-the-room realism that highlights the dynamic capabilities of the DSD format.

• Jazz at the Pawnshop (30th Anniversary Edition): A classic audiophile staple recorded in 1976 using simple Nagra recorders and two microphones. The SACD layer preserves the natural room acoustics and "clink" of glasses, making it one of the most immersive live recordings ever made.

• Muddy Waters – Folk Singer (Analogue Productions): Often cited as the definitive "unplugged" blues recording. The SACD mastering is intentionally minimal to keep the session "breathing" rather than sounding scrubbed clean by digital noise reduction.

• David Elias – Acoustic Trio (DSD Sessions): A modern "Pure DSD" benchmark. This was recorded live to DSD64 with minimal miking and no edits or overdubs, specifically designed to demonstrate how DSD can capture the natural decay of acoustic instruments.

Someone said that redbooks are not 24 bit . I have a lot of them. SACD is one bit. Same guy says SACD was always about 5.1 surround. The original single layer ones from 1999 on mostly blue colored discs only play on dedicated SACD players and none were surround only 2 channel stereo like music has always been. The multi channel discs came in when they started to produce hybrid with 2 layers , top one is redbook and imbedded layer is SACD.