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I auditioned SACD today

After reading all the positive reviews and posts on SACD I decided to take a serious look at this format. I have 22 dual layer SACD in my collection so I took 4 SACDs of music I know the best. To my surprise one of the local dealers still had a demo Sony SCD 1. The sales person led me to the room and said take as long as I would like and left. Since I read all the reviews on the SCD 1 I was able to operate it without difficulty.

There was no question that the SACD layer had a bigger soundstage and better detail than the Redbook layer but the difference were not as great as I expected. I wondered how the Sony compared next to my Audiomeca Mephisto 11.X CDP. Then a strange thing happen, I noticed a Linn LP 12 turntable to the side of the equipment rack. I cued up one of the lps and played it. As a former owner of 2 LP 12 over the years I had a good idea what to expect, the sound was full , warm , detailed and most of all musical. I should add that I have over 7000 lps and 5000 cds and listen to both, prefer the sound of vinyl but love the convenience and catalog selection of cds.

To make a long story short I decided to forgo the purchase of a SACD player and continue to ad to my vinyl and cd collection and just enjoy the music. I may look at SACD again in the future as the hardware improves and the software growa in numbers.
rec
maineiac
649 posts
 
I've had an SACD player for 2 months now and I am still amazed at how great it sounds and what a difference this format makes. I did see a bit of an improvement in regular CD'and concert DVD's from the upgrade to a decent quality DVD player but SACD really does bring the quality to a whole new incredible level. I found Acoustic Sounds which carries a great selection of SACD's and am having a blast exploring this format!
robert56
9 posts
 
Wow, I think SACD blows LP's away and for sure CD's. I go back to Mono tube FM systems. I currently have a turntable I listen to once in a while, but good SACD multi channel is better sounding in so many ways. The new Sony Reference SACD player has 18 DAC's and cost 3000.00. which should fit nicely into anyone's high end set-up. I have the $1000.00 NS900v which sounds wonderful. I read somewhere that there is currently 1600 SACD titles, with more coming weekly. It will become the Audiophile standard because of the sound quality. Remember for the full surround effect one must have five identical full range speakers equidistant from center seating. Talk about 3-dimensional holo-graphic imaging, it's a reality, been there.
gregm
3,021 posts
 
An interesting (if not very fresh) discussion on cd/sacd/dvd-a can be found here. This site is also a magnificent treasure of information on our hobby!
eldartford
4,262 posts
 
No SACD that I posess is as good, sonicly, to several of my DVD-A.
Why do American audiophiles put down DVD-A vs SACD?
rsbeck
887 posts
 
I don't know, but I do know that several times I have queried the forum
for suggestions for DVD-A players. When the subject of SACD comes up,
you can always count on a flurry of posts from people talking about how
much they love their SACD players and the sound of SACD. I see none of
that with DVD-A. I got few responses to my DVD-A queries, got the distinct impression that not one of the respondants was excited about any DVD-A player -- none of the effusiveness I see from proponents of SACD. Granted, this is anecdotal at best and does not represent a scientific study, but -- to me -- it is telling. I see a few posters who will predict success for DVD-A over SACD, but even those posters don't enthuse over the DVD-A format or over the fidelity of their players --
certainly -- nothing like the enthusiasm I hear from SACD proponents.
On the other hand, I think it is stretching to say that there's a concerted effort to put DVD-A down. I just think DVD-A sometimes gets lost in
the swell of enthusiasm audio enthusiasts seem to have for SACD. That's
just my take on it.
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