1) Let friends here the huge sonic and musical improvements afforded by SACD in your system.
Let them hear first hand how great SACD sounds, how enjoyable and relaxing it is. Play their favorite music for them and watch their faces light up with pure musical joy.
2) Tell the truth about low resolution CDs.
Never under any circumstances sugarcoat CDs sound quality, always be brutally honest about all of CDs shortcomings either in person or when posting on the Internet. Remember most SACDs do have a CD layer so those who actually prefer low resolution can still listen to low resolution so do not feel sorry for them. It is more important to get the truth out about low resolution to insure the retirement of single-layer CDs and all recordings issued as hybrid SACDs. So if on the off chance you do find a decent sounding CD it would be better to the future of SACD if you kept that a secret.
3) Let people read Mark Levinson's essay "CD vs. SACD and LP"
"Most music lovers feel that there is something wrong with the CD. Many prefer the sound of their LP's, or have cut down or stopped listening to music without even realizing why. Classical CD's aren't selling, while LP's of the same repertoire fetch hundreds of dollars a copy. People used to have 20 or 30 LP's and enjoy them, while now, people have hundreds or thousands of CD's which they rarely listen to, and almost never hear all the way through. What's going on?
Research shows that the pulse code modulation (PCM), the operating system of the CD, has limitations that so far cannot be overcome. There is something about listening to sound that has been processed with PCM which is stressful - the opposite of what most people seek in listening to music.
Sony has introduced a new digital operating system called Direct Stream Digital (DSD) which doesn't seem to create this stress reaction. DSD sounds much better than PCM, but more importantly, it is like analogue in the sense that it is very relaxing and joyful to listen to. DSD is the operating system of the new Super Audio CD (SACD). With good SACD recordings, people find they want to listen to music again with excitement and satisfaction. Because of DSD, it is now possible to revitalize the music world. Combining SACD with RRM equipment brings out the full benefits of SACD."
4) Let people read Super Audio Compact Disc - A Technical Proposal
Some folks believe that the best way to promote the SACD format is by making SACD players capable of good CD playback as many music lovers have large libraries of CDs. They feel that when people read accounts from SACD owners of CD playback so poor that they never listen to them because SACD is so superior, that they will not purchase an SACD player.
I believe this makes no difference at all as once music lovers experience the sonic revelation from the finest SACDs their CDs will remain on the shelf and CD playback ability will not matter at all. Indeed a new SACD owners biggest problem is the cost of acquiring new SACD software and frustrations of some of their favorite artists now being available on SACD yet. We all hope this will change and everything becomes available on SACD but this will take time and pressure from consumers.
SACD is not just another option along with CD playback, historically SACD/CD hybrids are designed to replace single-layer CDs.
I believe that people should hear for themselves how bad all CD players (even megabuck ones) sound and not to magically expect even better sound from the CD section of an SACD player. CD is only 44.1 kHz PCM while SACD is 2.8824 MHz. Once anyone owns an SACD player it makes playing CDs a waste of time.
What I want is ALL music lovers to get so MAD at the record companies for offering only low resolution CDs for over 25 years that they DEMAND all recordings be only offered on SACD from now on! I want them to be so mad at the record companies that they never buy another low resoltuion CD!
In my humble opinion, once one experiences superior SACD playback, CDs will set on the shelves unplayed to be soon sold on the Internet or donated to a good cause. I firmly believe true music lovers will not find CDs acceptable on any machine. Indeed many of us never found CDs acceptable and are not stuck with large libraries of worthless CDs to dispose of.
The record companies should have went straight from analog to DSD, bypassing PCM completely. Because they got greedy and did not we are stuck with decades of worthless low resolution master recordings and billions of low resolution CDs.
CD was a mistake, Sony made amends by inventing SACD. Sony admited their mistake, it is time the nay-sayers see the light and actually listen to SACD under ideal conditions and hear the difference for themselves.
So how do we present SACD in the most positive light possible while at the same time exposing the truth about low resolution CD? We really just need to get music lovers curious enough to at least listen to SACD.
I believe it is easier to convert LP and other analog lovers to SACD as almost no new classical music is being released on LP so having both LP and SACD is complimemtary. And SACD sounds very analog-like.
However converting CD music listeners is harder and I personally have had several visitors who have heard my system and dearly love the sound of SACDs but decided NOT to buy SACD as they would never want to hear their CDs again. So we come back to the money and availability problem again.
It seems to me that the benefits of SACD would be most apparent on a system with proper absolute polarity. I've read that many people aren't sensitive to it, but I find that difficult to believe because it makes such a big difference to me, and it's more noticeable with more coherent systems. I suspect that people who supposedly aren't sensitive to it just haven't trained their ears by comparing both polarities. I believe that eventually, the difference will become apparent.
ReplyDeleteHi Teresa,
ReplyDeleteTo state without qualification that music recorded on CD isn't worth listening to is absurd. It's clear that there are millions of listeners who enjoy the experience. Who are you to disparage that?
I have no issues with people who have the ability to listen around the many shortcomings of the CD format, it gives them more music to listen to. However it is not fair to push the CD agenda upon those of us who find the CD format unacceptable.
ReplyDeleteThis article is about how to PROMOTE the SACD format, sweeping the sonic problems of CD under the rug is NOT the way to do it. Being brutally honest about the poor sound of CDs especially with string tone is the way to do it IMHO.
Why do you wasted so much time and effort on a dead format? Even Sony has tacitly admitted that SACD has no future. They've gone end of life on their most recent SACD player, the 5400. There may be approximately five thousand SACD titles on the market, but there aren't likely to be many more. Without new product the format has no life.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the point? You're just tilting at windmills.
Because SACD is likely the last audio only high resolution physical format. There may be a few BluRay audio titles however BluRay's focus is high resolution video plus high resolution audio which is a great idea BTW, I just wish it was DSD instead of PCM but at this point we have to take what they offer.
ReplyDeleteMultichannel DSD downloads are coming. Once the problem of bandwidth and download times are solved I have no doubt most music will be available this way. But we cannot ignore music until then.
So we must tilt at windmills, as you say, until physical formats completely give way to high resolution DSD downloads. I do believe we will see steady SACD releases for at least another ten years. If the major labels leave it all to the audiophile and boutique labels it will be their loss.
As CD sales further decrease I do believe all record companies will see the logic of adding a stereo and multichannel SACD layer in order to sell more product. In the short term downloading which is killing CD will help SACD/CD hybrids. So don't get discouraged, have faith.
Hopefully our next computers will have 100 times the memory and 100 times the speed then high resolution downloads will take minutes instead of many, many hours.
So in the long term high resolution is what everyone will be listening to.
Your poll offers this choice:
ReplyDelete"Not important, I don't care about sound quality."
But you left out the most important choice "Not important, as no good evidence exists that DSD, of itself, improves audible quality of home audio."
Better mastering and your own bias are the more probable reasons you find 2-ch SACD* so entrancing compared to CD. If the same recording was identically well-mastered to both CD and SACD, you probably couldn't tell them apart in a proper comparison.
(multichannel is a whole other topic, but here again there's no particular reason to buy SACD multichannel versus, e.g., DVD-Audio, or even DTS and Dolby Digital, as again the evidence from fair comparison that multichannel SACD is audibly superior, is lacking)
It is quite simple "Not important, as no good evidence exists that DSD, of itself, improves audible quality of home audio." is NOT a logical choice for the poll. Because it is a blatantly and completely false premise used by anti-SACD propagandists!
ReplyDeleteDSD does not sound anything whatsoever like low resolution PCM, indeed it has the comfort levels and musicality of the very finest analog. All one has to do is listen to SACDs from PURE DSD masters or SACDs from high resolution analog masters to hear for oneself. The fact that some recording companies release 44.1kHz PCM on SACD that are hard to tell from CD does not bring the rest of the superb SACD releases down to this low resolution level, it just means there are some SACDs to avoid.
Better mastering DOES NOT EXPLAIN the gigantic differences between low resolution digital sounding CD and high resolution smooth sounding, analog-like SACDs from DSD masters. It is pure and simple, DSD is a much better way to record music. And once again it can be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt by simply listening to music in both formats.
Your comment is very anti-SACD, anti-high resolution and anti-music and your suggestion for another option in my poll is rejected as destructive and illogical.
"Not important, I don't care about sound quality." nicely covers those who do not believe their own ears but trust in so-called scientific evidence to tell them what to hear. Either way they do not care about sound quality, pure and simple!
"1) Let friends here (sic) the huge sonic and musical improvements afforded by SACD in your system."
ReplyDeleteThe problem, as I'm sure you know, is that most people even upon hearing the superiority of SACD vs. CD will not care. Their priorities are convenience and price. I think that even if the record companies had promoted SACD, it would have made little difference in terms of its acceptance. There's just no room left in this world for high-quality audio recordings, except for the few of us who try to keep the flame burning.
If Sony & Philips want SACD to succeed, they need to make the format more available. Most SACD players available are "SACD compatible", SACD through PCM DACs! The cost of a true SACD player is still very high! With mass production and competition the price would drop, just look at how the price of blue ray players has dropped.
ReplyDeleteWith more SACD players the demand for SACD discs would increase, thus ensuring the survival and spread of SACD, and hopefully the death of the CD format. 44kHz/16bit sampling was state of the art 40 years ago!
The Chicago Audio Club/Society, www.Chicagoaudio.org, did a comparison on the same Sony machine of CD sound quality followed by SACD sound quality. I don't think anyone was envious of the CD sound. SACD was more colorful without adding false colors. SACD had what I would call more weight, though others might call it something else.
ReplyDeleteIt's true though, as the poster said, that many members had already made big purchases of their CD players or separates. They didn't go out and buy a SACD player.
However, a friend has me so hyped over his SACD sound that I'm thinking about it. I also found out, didn't know it until last week, that Wadia's new players have SACD. I hope to hear the Wadia player, if I can track one down.
I agree also the CD sound worce over the SACD releases, also i have to say that it looks like that too badly a lot of young people love there ipods and that kind of stuff. the use computers and doesn't own a good Stereo/multichannel receiver anymore exept a all in one unit from the local store for a few hundred $ and doesn't know there is way better sound to get with better seperates.
ReplyDeleteI hope also that the time will come soon that there are only from now on SACD/vinyl releases.
No more CD's.
I have a sacd player and i listen to it on the valve headphone amp and sounds surpurb and i do ask in music shops when are sacd's coming back a lot say that they haven't herd but they do agree with me and I'm someone that likes to go into a shop and buy a disc and look at the cover while playing the disc and i would be happy if they use blu-ray disc and use the highest bit rate that is posable and in 7.1 surround sound and maybe the making of the album or with a movie have an audio only of the soundtrack album and that would be great or bring back sacd and have sacd extra songs that shouldn't be on iTunes or cd like they did with cd's in the late 80's here in Australia and i only download albums so i can listen to them when i'm away from home
ReplyDeleteif you listen to mainstream music, does it really matter at all? the producers will just compress any life out of the sound anyway, for the sake of making it sound loud, regardless of format.
ReplyDeleteAs a recent convert to SACD I would be very sad to see the format die. I totally agree about the CD sound being 'tiring' on the ear. Sadly more and more of the SCAD supporting companies seem to be reverting. Recent releases from Chandos seem to be CD only. I have emailed them to ask if there was a change of policy but have received no reply. A lot of Telarc SACDs seem to be out of stock (deleted?). I personally am not into multi channel but I think this has clouded the issue. Some people seem to think that SCAD is only about multi channel and maybe this is where the problem arises. I have tried hires downloads and whilst far better than CD there is still something more pleasant about SACD. Interested to hear others experiences.
ReplyDelete