SACD or DVD-A ?
Posted by: louis_lx on 28 December 2000
Better resolutions means more music and less artifacts...
But the better cd-player's makers should remain the same.. or not ?
What is the new format NAIM is betting on ?
What are the feeling of the NAIM lovers ?
Should i replace my CD3 for the new CD5 or wait the new format ?
The rest of the system is 72 + 140 + REGA XEL
Best regards,
Luis Almeida
The SACD to me is just the next Gold CD producer with the exception you have to invest in the hardware as well. I have yet to see a SACD CD in a music store. The best format I have heard is the XRCD which certainly hasn't taken over the market. Similar pricing for the CD and you don't need a special player.
I currently use a Linn Mimik through my newly acquired 52/250 combination. Needless to say the machine is struggling. I have listened to a number of players including the CDS-II (very nice machine) and the CD12 (very nice but overpriced). Ultimately I am going to move to a 500 driving a pair of NBL's and so I will need to spend a small fortune on the source to make sure that this is possible.
The problem of course is what is the software industry up to?
I don't have the answer just like everyone else and Naim aren't in the business of invention but perfection (please correct if I am wrong here). I don't blame them for wanting to sit on the side lines until the future is laid out. It is also true that the CDS-II is a very good player (unfortunately I can't accommodate it because my LP12 takes pride of place on the stack and I don't yet have room for the extra table).
A look at history shows us that VHS triumphed over betamax because JVC got their act together with the software providers and Sony rather arrogantly didn't. Similarly CD killed vinyl because the mass market perceived this to be a vast improvement over the record player. For the mass market this was the case but we should also remember that the record companies needed something to rescue them from flagging sales. CD represented the answer and the rest is history.
Now we have DAT (I believe soon to be dead), DVD-A and SACD. Although the record companies are not in the dire situation that they were in before they still have a problem. That is that they are under considerable pressure to reduce prices and the cost of a CD is much less than even three years ago (some of this, of course, is due to decrease in production costs but they are not voluntarily reducing prices).
So where does the next wave come from?
Is it DVD-A or SACD? The trick I believe is in forward and backward compatibility and not multi-format playback. My understanding is that SACD can, in engineering terms, be thought of a relatively simple extension to CD. Indeed there are hybrid disks available. DVD-A, however, is quite different and the trick in solving the playback problem is fundamentally different.
So where am I going with this?
As Phillip says the key is in the market. Will SACD offer an improvement at the bottom end?. Presently I don't believe this to be the case but Sony seem to think so. They have developed a £500 player and are integrating the technology into their low-end systems.
The question I have is Can Naim devise an upgrade strategy that would put my mind at ease?
[This message was edited by NigelP on THURSDAY 04 January 2001 at 10:00.]
quote:
DVD-A, however, is quite different and the trick in solving the playback problem is fundamentally different.
Not really, Nigel. SACDs are made playable on conventional CD players by adding a second, semi-transparent layer to make a so-called hybrid disc. One layer contains the CD Redbook information while a second layer contains the SACD, or Direct Stream Digital (DSD), info. There is no reason in principle why DVD-A couldn't use the same technique. What is odd is that while the smaller audiophile labels (e.g., Telarc, DMP) have been releasing the hybrid discs, the reissues from Sony's Columbia catalog are all SACD only discs.
quote:
....XRCD which certainly hasn't taken over the market. Similar pricing for the CD and you don't need a special player.
FWIW, in Canada SACDs are available on HMV's web site for $28, DVD-As for $30. This compares to $15-25 for Redbook CDs, an exhorbitant $40-50 for most XRCDs, and a list price of $35 for Naim CDs. Strangely, it's the players that seem to be scarcer than hen's teeth!
I would imagine that Naim's "Future Awareness Team" is evaluating both these technologies, but it's too early to commit to either one (or both, if the predictions of universal players ever materialize).
Cheers,
John Schmidt
"90% of everything is crud" - Theodore Sturgeon
quote:
I believe these format are more about copy right pertection than improved sound quality.
Precisely. The November issue of "Stereophile" magazine had a terrific article by David Rich entitled "SACD - One Year Later". He ends with a very interesting assessment: "With Super Audio CD, we are stuck with a system that cannot be improved. It is likely that SACD was brought to market not as a way of bringing audiophiles closer to the music, but of making digital audio more difficult to copy."
SACD may indeed be an improvement over Redbook CD (people whose ears and judgement I trust say it's wonderful), but there's almost nothing to listen to in that format. Jennifer Lopez and Toto devotees are no doubt thrilled that their favorites can be heard in SACD quality, but fans of the Sex Pistols or Howlin' Wolf or the Grateful Dead or Metallica or Hank Williams or the Beatles or Elvis or the Rolling Stones or Public Enemy or Radiohead or Nirvana are out of luck. None of those artists are available on SACD.
As for SACD catching on with the mass market, I'm highly skeptical. The public has already selected the replacement for CD: MP3 and other download formats. Convenience trumps quality every time.
Having heard one SACD on one non-production SACD player, I was very impressed. And Artie still carries weight with me in spite of his love affair with SETs and Lowthers (I have little idea of Lowthers - can't hear them here; besides, I'd rather listen to music at home than go to a shop).
Personally, I hope SACD makes it, but I'm rarely an early adopter. And the thought of buying 5 channels of Naim equipment boggles my bank account. I'd rather have 2 great channels than 5 mediocre ones.
(For those who are not Listener readers, Artie is the founder/editor of Listener who has just published a rave review to the $1200 Sony SACD player - while simultaneously giving high praise to the CD5, BTW. Rob - forgive me if you think I'm blowing your cover - is a Listener writer. Great mag.)
Phil
There are no inexpensive software editing/authoring tools or musician-grade converters available for SACD.
OEM silicon manufacturers such as Analog Devices / AKM / Crystal Semiconductor, even Philips (!) already did the dirty work for Panasonic / Toshiba et al. by phasing in high sampling rate-capable chips into practically everything available on the consumer market (not too difficult to do when you think about it from a nominal perspective).
When any well-funded amateur musician can walk in and buy a personal digital multitracker for under $2000 on the street (remember that the early Tascam Portastudio four-track cassette recorders were quite expensive), capable of recording at least six to eight tracks in uncompressed 96 kHz / 24-bit data depth, the format war is over (I never even received a draft card)--if anyone even noticed in the first place.
The real battle is DSP technology (unpacking lossy-/non-lossy compressed files) rather than DACs and file formats, I'm afraid--but there is still plenty of work to do in getting a jitter-free music signal out of the mess, let alone sending it around your house (wire or wireless, anyone?), no matter what the sampling rate or bit depth. (Note the bias--I guess I've grown up taking Pulse Code Modulation for granted, just like interlaced NTSC frames!)
The days of linear uncompressed audio / video in the digital domain will eventually disappear, unless you are a content author--but the skill to get decent quality out of the "bits is bits" mess is what makes the difference.
Dave Dever, NANA
P.S. I still get a thrill out of 16-bit / 44.1 kHz CDs when they're really good. No fooling.
[This message was edited by David Dever, NANA on FRIDAY 05 January 2001 at 01:52.]
My dealer had proposed this player as an upgrade from CDI for CD while retaining a foot in the SACD camp if and when discs become more available.
(This machine costs about £2500).
In short, I have decided to buy a CDS II. This will dramatically improve my enjoyment of my existing 700 discs. I don't believe that any manufacturer will release an SACD player which will play CD's better than a CDS II. I also believe that my beard will be white before I can buy even 20% of my existing CD collection in SACD format - so there's no real risk involved.
I came to the same conclusion on the Sony machine. I am evaluating the Marantz SA-1 and comparing to the CDS-II this weekend. My instinctive feeling says that I'm going to plumb for the CDS-II but I am open-minded at the moment. Eliminated the excellent Linn CD12 on price - good but not that good.
Nigel