SHMCD : Second thought on buying SACD player

i own two smh cds. these are jazz and classical samplers. i have compared many selections on both cds and prefer the original masters, usually produced in the 90's.

the problem with the smh cds is they master they use may be of poor quality because of age.

as i recall, some of the early sacds--not hybrids were of dubious quality.

the only way to definitively judge the merits of smh cd is to make a recording, not remaster, and create copies using conventional materials and smh blanks. as far as i am aware, this has not yet been done.

MrTennis,
I own several (actually more than several) Japanese CDs, latest release and latest release in SHM. I believe they are identical (same mastering) except for the Super High Material.

The differences I note are a very slight increase in clarity and a slight increase in high end refinement. As I mentioned, if the sound of the CD is not very good to begin with the SHM is probably not worth the effort. However, the SHM can make an excellent sounding CD sound just a bit better. Again, not by leaps and bounds, but by a more subtle magnitude.

Whether that subtle difference is important enough to seek out or pay a premium price for is an individual decision. As far as the original post, definitely don't see these replacing SACDs.

On a related note I have heard several of the new HQCDs and IMO they sounded rather good. I believe these were produced in response to the SHM-CDs. I also have several Miles Davis Blu-spec CDs on order which should arrive around the first of the year.

SACD is the same "Tittle Dependent" and questionable "premium" expense, so takem your pick!

Just think, if you could download the CD-quality (16/44.1) file and play it from your server, the quality of the disc material would be, um, immaterial.

And what if you could download and play a 24/96 version? I suspect that, a few years out, these new types of discs will look like overpriced, best-ever buggy whips.

Drubin - Absolutely right. CDs will disappear. Current attempts to introduce new formats (CODE on DVD 20bit/96kHz) are going nowhere. Article in Stereophile suggested that SACD is dead as well - many new BlueRay players don't even support it. Everything will be as servers/downloads but not in 24bit/192kHz quality (sane people wouldn't release master).

New formats like HDCD or SACD have strong copy protection (SACD cannot be copied at all - pit modulation) and it probably turned off a lot of people who did not want to spend over $30 without option of backup.