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SACD vs. Redbook and other formats

There have been several discussions about the quality of SACD vs. Redbook and other formats. I had the thought that it would be interesting to start a list of specific SACDs that are being used as the basis for comments.

One question that I have is if people are comparing the Redbook and SACD layers on a hybrid disk. It seems that this would be a more fair comparision than using different disks that were produced at different times.

I have CDs that sound as good as my SACDs, but I have yet to find a hybrid disk where the Redbook is superior to the SACD layer.

If you're talking about different recordings with different producers it's an apples and oranges discussion to some extent. I've found the SACD recording quality to be of more consistent quality, but some of my best are Redbook CDs.

A few weeks ago I burned some songs to a disk for my father-in-law that came from my Apple Lossless files. The songs that came from a Redbook sounded excellent, but the ones that were burned from the Redbook layer of a hybrid SACD sounded terrible. I finally put the SACD on to verify the comparison and it wasn't close. The SACD was Hello Mr. Paganini by Feng Ning. Based on this unintended comparison, the Redbook layer is no match on that recording.

SACDs that are reproductions of previous Redbook CDs have mixed results depending on where in the process the SACDs come from.

Give us your comparison/opinion along with the specific recordings that support it.
mceljo
mceljo OP
983 posts
 
Other formats being blu-ray, XRCD, etc. I know there are some obscure formats that I have no experience with.

With blu-ray are you comparing identical stereo recordings that are just presented in different formats? I only have one blu-ray concert (Les Miserables 25th Anniversary Concert) and it is excellent, but not the same as a stereo CD or SACD.
montejay
285 posts
 
I assume, all things being equal, the sacd layer should sound better due the formats advantage.
XRCD, SHM cd, K2HD etc. HDCD are all redbook and not another format.

Regards,
tmsorosk
1,013 posts
 
Most of the comparisons I spoke of were from different disc's , I haven't tried A/B testing both layers on an SACD , that will be tonight's project .
mceljo OP
983 posts
 
Tmsorosk - Any results?
tmsorosk
1,013 posts
 
Results ,, ya but nothing conclusive On some disc's I felt there was no difference between the two layers on the same disc , other times the SACD layer was clearly better . On the weekend a couple of audio buddies and I used some different duel layer dics's in there machine's and systems, and again the results were inconclusive . Which leads us to believe that the end results are very system and disc dependent .
One thing that we all agreed on in all systems , was that Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon , was better on the red book layer .
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