I haven't heard these yet but after reading some very good reviews of the Dylan stuff by reviewers who had been previously skeptical I'm curious and was wondering what yall thought.

p.s what's up with all the dumbass topics lately?

well, as any forum gets bigger and has more members, there will invariably be more topics many people won't see the point of. But isn't that what the general discussion is for?

My favorite SACD story is about the '99 Stereophile Show in Chicago, when Sony was hyping their awesome new SACD player, the format that was gonna change the world, etc... and using the cheapest piece of shit headphones to demo it. I mean, those shows are pretty bad to begin with, but seriously, who came up with the idea of using some $39.99 headphones to demo a player that sold for like 5 grand?!? I was like "yeah, this sounds just like, um, anything else would on these headphones! way to go, guys!" I dunno, I laughed.

I believe sony owns a patent on the sacd format. Thus, no other manufacturer will produce players or discs which will leave the format dead in the ground next to the beta format.

But you get to buy Kind Of Blue again.

pocket wrote:I believe sony owns a patent on the sacd format. Thus, no other manufacturer will produce players or discs which will leave the format dead in the ground next to the beta format.

No, there are other manufacturers of the players. I was reading some buyer's reviews yesterday. One guy was reviewing a $2000 Marantz, it was the only one out of five or six that he gave an A rating, anyway the climax of his praise resulted in his claim that it was the closest to analog sounding digital stuff he'd heard...so...hm-oK

But I'd still like to hear some, the Roxy Music stuff got an awesome review.

Well, most of the SACD stuff being put out now is hybrid, so that won't ever really be a dead format, cause you can still play it on regular CD players. And supposedly hybrid SACD stuff sounds better even on regular CD players. I have a hybrid SACD or two, but I have really shitty stereo equipment so I can't really tell the difference.

This is the next big thing: SACD.

Or wait, is is DVD-Audio ?

or SA Victrola?

Dylan is right.

You will buy your seventh copy of "Giant Steps" (vinyl, cassette, CD, CD (expanded bonus tracks), CD Gold, DVD-A, SACD)

happy hunting.

I'm fully in favor of SACD. It uses DSD (direct stream digital), a delta-sigma-modulation encoding scheme rather that the PCM (pulse code modulation) that we've been using forever for CD, DAT, digital reverbs and delays, Protools, Protools HD, DVD-A, super duper 192 kHZ Protools is still PCM, etc.

I don't know all the super-geek super-tech details, but from what I understand, this Delta-Sigma scheme gives a far more accurate digital representation of the analog signal without having to use a lot more data. The clock runs at like 2MHz or something. But the word length is really short (1-bit??). The word only needs to describe the change in amplitude (delta) since the last clock pulse. It measures the change, not the entire value at each sample point.

Sorry. I don't fully understand it, so my description may be weak.

It's been championed to me (and sort of explained to me) by people who I have tremendous respect for audio-wise; and who have nothing to gain by pushing the format. I haven't heard it yet, but am already convinced that it's finally some digital that will rival analog.

That clock speed's sure gonna make it hard to use DSD for computer multitrack recording, though.

Bob

I'm also very curious about this SACD. When I replace my piece of crap DVD player I will buy one which is SACD compatible.

The thing about DSD for pro mutiltrack use is that you can't do any DSP. You have to convert to PCM to do DSP.

Hey, my girlfriend's right. I'm a GEEK.

-Chas.