Can SACD's be played in ony 2 channel format

But is the 2 channel 16 bit or 24 bit playback?

Also, I read this ariticle from 2002. It doens't seem to kind to SACD's, but alot of it was over my head.

http://sound.westhost.com/cd-sacd-dvda.htm

I would have thought SACD's would sound better than traditional 16 bit record players/recordngs, but according to the this particualr fellow it doesn't seem so. Except below 10k.

What are your thoughts.

The 2 channel SACD tracks are DSD- Direct Stream Digital. It is a one bit datastream at something like 3 MHz sampling rate. It is completely different from PCM which can be 16 bit or 24 bit, but I believe the theoretical resolution is something like 20 bit (which is all you need anyway since current technology does not have the signal to noise ratio to support a 24 bit signal).

Mark

your player should be able to turn multichannel 5.1 into a usable 2 channel output. Nearly all DVd players can output a two channel form of any 5.1 sooundtrack. So the SACd is no different. If the SACD has 2 channel. you get two channel from the stereo outputs. If the SACD has 5.1, you will STILL get a two channel mix from the stereo outputs.
I own a Denon 3910, and a Denon 5910.
Receivers are pretty sophisticated. If it is NOt doing this for you, go in the menu and you can change it to do so.

As far as I know all SACD's have a stereo layer. Pressing the "Super Audio CD Setup" button will cycle between the CD layer, the stereo SACD tracks, and the multichannel SACD tracks. You can also go into setup and select the default layer for SACDs.

Mark

The above posters are generally correct. There are exceptions, though.

Kal