SACD VS Vinyl for Jazz and Classical

Howie, I'm a vinylholic. I'll stay that way. I've been told I'm incorrigible on this issue, and I agree. But, my answer for my musical enjoyment may not be yours by a long shot. Why would you want to get into vinyl? There's a vast selection of CD titles in both the new and used CD market to chose from, there are many wonderful digital era performances that have been exceptionally well recorded that will never appear on LP, and there are CD reissues of virtually all of the classic performances of jazz and classical music from the vinyl era. For a CD user, the world's your oyster. Some of my best audio friends have digital-only systems, and their systems sound incredibly good to me.

People talk about the superior sound of vinyl, so do I. My system is all based on vinyl because I believe that. AND, well reproduced CDs/SACDs can and do sound very very good.

So, here's one vinylholic asking, why would you want to go the vinyl route? You've really got to answer that one for yourself based on your listening experience, your sonic priorities, and availability of the music you like. Going down the vinyl path is not easy, it requires a commitment on multiple fronts.

If your consideration is based on thinking that vinyl sounds better, get real clear about your own perception of this. Any difference you hear between vinyl and digital ought to be meaningfully important to you to justify the trouble you'd be going to to go down the vinyl route.

And yes, the LP versions of several of the contemporary recordings by folks like Diana Krall, Alison Krause, Norah Jones sound better. So? There are a ton of other recordings out there on CD/SACD that will never see an LP reincarnation.

My suggestion: find someone local to you who's into vinyl and has a good LP playback setup who'll do some listening with you. Spend time with it. Then think about whether you're getting anything out of it that your current digital setup is not giving you, and if so, is the difference worth it to you. And don't be too surprised if you like the sound of your current digital system better.

Best of luck to you in your search,

I was in the same boat about year and a half ago. Do I continue to buy classical reissues on SACD or go for the vinyl? I think both SACD and vinyl are an "itch" that needs to be scratched. Every audiophile seems to need to try them at least once in his or her life, then draw their own conclusion as to the viability of the format for that person. Each person is unique in that regard.

I tried SACD. But then realized I could not only buy classical reissues on vinyl (if I so wanted them at $30+ a pop), but also tap a vast potential of half a century of existing releases (ncluding original pressings) and new recordings. And with the exception of new classical recordings, you can find lots of new music on vinyl. I'm currently enjoying lots of heavy metal, death metal, black metal, symphonic metal, prog metal, industrial, hardcore, metalcore, trash, speed. And some of this stuff isn't available on CD. None of it is available on SACD. Plus I have access to lots of $1 used classical LPs in VG and NM condition. I still plan to expand my SACD collection with new classical recordings at some point. But lately I'm too entralled with vinyl to care.

Yeah, you can get great sonics with LP. But have of the fun is rediscovering your love of music, music collections, and just plain having barrels of fun exploring new (to you) stuff. I just get more mileage out of my vinyl front end than I ever could with my SACD one.

and the majority of my purchases will be reissues, will there be enough new vinyl available?

FWIW, I imagine vinyl will outlast SACD as a niche audiophile format. So you should be OK. But for a quick "acid test" you can try browsing the vinyl catalogs at the unsual audiophile mailorder haunts, e.g., acoustic sounds, music direct, red trumpet, elusive disc, etc. Only you can see if what is available is enough for you.

Plus you'll have to see how you and the drawbacks get along. Cleaning, adjustments, dealing with surface noise, flipping the record over every 20 minutes. You get the idea. IF you're only in vinyl for maximum sound quality for a handful of recordings, you may end up with a very high-end rig. Sure the records run $30 each (often $50+ for 45rpm versions). But you may end up with $6000 in hardware to play 60 records. And that's $100 per record just in equipment costs. I might consider a Meitner CDSD/DCC2 in that case and enjoy redbook and SACD in "close to analog" fashion. That might be a better return on your money. That way you wouldn't have to split your focus and budget between two front ends.

But then you'd still have the little-guy-with-a-pitchfork on you right shoulder tells you fanciful tales of "how much better this would be if you were listening to vinyl rather than digital." As Howard Stern would put it, (paraphrased) "that's an equation from hell." Especially since you have no LPs right now.

To me vinyl needs to be about the music as much or even more than the sonics. YMMV. It's a tough call. Everyone's answer is going to be different on this one. And yes, the sonics are better. Oops did I just say that? My bad, LOL! I'm not helping. Bad Aroc. Bad! ;-)

Good luck!

Aaron

Well I'm not selling my SACD player or anything. But there are few good reasons for me to want to get into vinyl.
1) There are quite a few jazz recordings that are on cd and vinyl but not yet on SACD (don't know if it'll ever be). Since I want to buy these anyways, I might as well buy the best version. Right now, at least for the music that I like, if I already own the cd version, I would seriously think about buying the SACD version if owners of two versions tell me that there is a difference. For many recordings that were first issued before the digital era, I feel the redbook version seems a bit dead and lacking the vinyl's naturalness and warmth. So I've been restraining myself from buying the redbook version in hopes that it'll be reissued on SACD, whether there ends up to be an improvement or not.

2)I've been thinking of upgrading my source for a while. But having a mid-priced SACD player, and not being able to afford the Emmlabs as of yet, there doesn't seem to be too many midpriced options that would be a significant setup at $3000 vs $3000 spent on a vinyl rig.

For some music, I listen to the performance and so sonics don't really matter. For others, sonics has a correlation with naturalness.

So basically, the idea, is that for material that are available in all 2 or 3 formats, I'll choose vinyl. But if it isn't on vinyl, it's not like I'll sweat it too much. But whether to get into vinyl in the first place vs saving up for a high end digital gear like the emmlabs is the question.