Erich Kunzel, Cincinnati Pops Orchestra
Telarc CD-80251
- versus -
James Bond Themes
Carl Davis, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Membran SACD 222910
Some CDs I bought and sold as many as 8 times as I fell for the next so-called improvement to make CDs listenable.
Several years ago I bought and sold two small CD collections. First when I bought my Xindak SCD-2 as some reviewers said CDs sound better on this tubed player than SACDs do on some lesser players. They did sound listenable for about 2-3 playings then after that I could no longer listen around their edgy sound with shrill upper midrange, rolled off highs, cold bass and the timbre of most instruments was still wrong! So it turned out not to be true for me!
And then a few reviewers (different ones) said Shine-Ola CD cleaner made CDs sound as good as SACDs, untrue again!
The thing that sealed CDs doom forever in my home was a comparision between Telarc's CD "Bond and Beyond" versus Membran's SACD "James Bond Themes" - The Membran SACD won hands down it was more realistic, vivid and it actually sounded like music.
The Membran SACDs are some of the worst sounding SACDs I've ever heard but they sounded about ten times better than a Telarc CD. And by contrast a Telarc SACD sounds about ten times better than a Membran SACD. So I learned that Telarc SACDs are among my favorite SACDs, but not even Telarc can produce a listenable CD. And that any SACD no matter how bad sounds world's better than even the best CD to me.
So at this point I am not willing for fork over money for CDs again, it is true I bought most of these used but even at that it is hard to sell CDs even from Audiophile labels unless they are Mobile Fidelity's that have been out of print for a while. Not at all like when I gamble on a new SACD and don't like it, SACDs are real easy to sell and get a decent return. I just can't gamble with CDs anymore as I always loose sonically and monetarily.
Now I just know someone will try to say that Bond and Beyond is not one of the best sounding CDs, if so why does Cary Audio use it as a demo CD at Audio Shows with their tubed CD player? I will not say it is the finest sounding CD I've owned but it is damn near the top and I have owned CDs from ALL of the audiophile labels. All CDs are sonically unacceptable in my opinion, especially after experiencing SACD, high resolution digital or high quality analog playback.
SO THERE YOU HAVE IT, ONE OF THE WORST SOUNDING SACDs VASTLY SONICALLY SUPERIOR TO ONE OF THE BEST SOUNDING CDs!
Just so you know, the Membran SACD was sourced from 44kHz so it looks like just an upsampled CD!
ReplyDeleteIt is true the Membran SACDs are from 44.1kHz masters however they were at 32 bit. And they don't sound nearly as good as the BIS SACDs from 24/44.1kHz masters. What this article proves is that 16 bit is not enough in the PCM realm. 1 bit works with DSD as the sampling rate is very high, 2.8224 MHz.
ReplyDeleteAs I said this is one of the worst sounding SACDs I've ever found and yet it was still more enjoyable than one of the best sounding CDs. I chose it for this article because many of the selections were the same and the Bond and Beyond CD was used for demo by Cary Audio back when it was new.
Another thing that hurts the Membran SACD is it was recorded with 48 microphones. Still it sounded much better than a well engineered Telarc audiophile recording presented as a redbook CD. Thus CD is in my opinion not good enough for music.