Upsampled SACD's

Ron Party · Dec 13, 2010

Bruce, can you comment on sound quality with both the Pyramix and Sonoma set ups?

Bruce B · Dec 14, 2010

Ron Party said:
Bruce, can you comment on sound quality with both the Pyramix and Sonoma set ups?

The only converters that I have that will interface with both systems are the EMM Labs ADC8/DAC8 IV. Even those have 2 different ways of connecting, SDIF-3 vs. ST-optical. With that caveat, I prefer the Sonoma.

Bruce B · Dec 19, 2010

Another thing I've found with these 1000's of SACD's.. about 20% of them are out of Scarlet Book spec for allowable material (ie.. DC, audio content above 20k, etc). I've also made a correlation that these SACD's don't sound as good (to me) than the ones that are way under tolerances.

Lee · Feb 12, 2011

amirm said:
Biggest problem with SACD and to some extent DVD-A, was admonition from ripping them to a PC at a time, when that was all the rage. It is the mass market which helps support these formats and without that feature, they would not come along.

At the time, I actually went and bough all the "Audio DVDs" (not to be confused with DVD-A) because I could rip those. High-end audio guys should have stayed with that format, rather than switching to DVD-A and SACD.

Amir, Are you talking about the early DAD discs from Chesky and Classic Records here?

amirm · Feb 12, 2011

You mean the "Audio DVD" part? If so, yes, Chesky was one but I had a pretty good catalog of content from a number of others. Sadly, I left them at Microsoft so longer have them to reference. But do recall non-classic titles also.

Bruce B · Feb 27, 2011

Just found out "Antiphone Blues" is an upsampled SACD.. bummer

Lee · Mar 7, 2011

Bruce B said:
Just found out "Antiphone Blues" is an upsampled SACD.. bummer

Damn, and I thought it sounded good.

Bruce B · Mar 7, 2011

Lee said:
Damn, and I thought it sounded good.

So did a lot of other people.

RBFC · Mar 7, 2011

How about Cantate Domino? Is this also an upsampled SACD from the redbook master?

Lee

Bruce B · Mar 7, 2011

RBFC said:
How about Cantate Domino? Is this also an upsampled SACD from the redbook master?
Lee

You're safe with this one Lee!

RBFC · Mar 8, 2011

Bruce B said:
You're safe with this one Lee!

Cool. So this is a DSD encoding from the original analog master tapes?

Lee

Bruce B · Mar 8, 2011

RBFC said:
Cool. So this is a DSD encoding from the original analog master tapes?
Lee

Yes it is. We only tested one label. I think there were 2 or 3 labels that did this piece.

RBFC · Mar 8, 2011

Bruce B said:
Yes it is. We only tested one label. I think there were 2 or 3 labels that did this piece.

Proprius.

Lee

Bruce B · Mar 8, 2011

RBFC said:
Proprius.
Lee

is the one we tested. I believe FIM and another label also released this disc.

igufi · Apr 15, 2011

I realize that this is probably a impossible request but here goes:

Bruce, having a list of the "rejected" and "verified" SACDs you've analyzed would be extremely beneficial for us, the consumers, to be able make well-informed purchasing decisions.

Phelonious Ponk · Apr 15, 2011

Lee said:
Damn, and I thought it sounded good.

Pssst...it still does. It's just that it no longer sounds better than redbook.

Tim

Bruce B · Apr 15, 2011

igufi said:
I realize that this is probably a impossible request but here goes:

Bruce, having a list of the "rejected" and "verified" SACDs you've analyzed would be extremely beneficial for us, the consumers, to be able make well-informed purchasing decisions.

I wish I could, but I tried this on another forum and David started getting complaints and I had 2 labels threaten litigation. Go figure....

Orb · Apr 20, 2011

Bruce B said:
No, the problem is that labels record at 44.1 or 48k and then upsample to DSD for SACD. Then they give me the SACD to rip the DSD files off of them to give to HDtracks. If there is a brickwall filter at 22 or 24k, then HDtracks can not sell them as hi-rez files. People listen with their eyes (spectral analysis) and start bitchin'. I'd say, on the whole... we get 30-40% regection rate because labels repackaged lo-rez files and charged more money to dupe the consumer thinking you have hi-rez files.

Bruce quick question.
Those SACD albums, how many of those mastered louder than their CD counterpart?
I read an interesting article in one of the audio publications over here, that did a quick (not extensive) check of a CD format (might be that gold CD but cannot remember) in Japan that is meant to be an improvement over redbook.
What they found was yes it did have 50% less errors for mech reading, but also they were surprised to find that the CDs checked were also remastered louder, so obviously this causes a perception difference as well.

Just curious if some of these labels do a similar trick to differentiate between their redbook and SACD, that are the same source.

Thanks
Orb

Bruce B · Apr 20, 2011

Orb said:
Bruce quick question.Just curious if some of these labels do a similar trick to differentiate between their redbook and SACD, that are the same source.

Thanks
Orb

The Redbook and Scarletbook specs are different in that SACD's can be recorded up to +3 - 6dB. This allows labels to record SACD's at a "normal" level in that it appears to have more dynamics. That's why when you retrieve the DSD information from a SACD and convert it to PCM, the signal is always clipping and you have to attenuate by 3-6dB.

Orb · Apr 20, 2011

Thanks Bruce,
but if they are from the same PCM source and both formats are mastered so are not clipping 0dbfs (or -3dbfs), from your experience do they adjust the SACD master to be louder/quieter or make it the same as redbook?
Just going by your own experience when you have looked at SACD albums/tracks compared to CD.
I appreciate this is what you may be hinting at with "normal" levels, where it is originally mastered equally loud but SACD means it does not suffer clipping as quickly.
Cheers
Orb

Upsampled SACD's

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