[rosconey]

worth a read
http://www.audiorevolution.com/news/0303/28.darkside.shtml

[azryan]

Anybody compare the CD layer to the 2 chan. SACD layer of the Dark Side SACD?

I have NO doubt that this SACD disc is awesome and the 5.1 version has it's advantages regardless of resolution but....

This is such an old recording I'm thinking that the CD PCM layer should sound the same as the SACD layer.

If it doesn't it's because...

1) They goosed the SACD ver. or compressed of in some other way degraded the CD layer.

or

2) You can hear beyond ~20K.

I just listened to my Mobile Fidelity version of Dark Side last night and while slightly better than the standard version I've got (more tape noise, but more detail and louder bass, but overall 6db quieter than the reg. version), it's sounds veiled and distant overall, and dull on the high end.

It's crap compared to say Roger Water's 'Amused to Death' which was done about 15 years after Dark Side and recorded in Q-sound sounds exactly like many effects and voices are comeing directly from the surrounds.

A quote from Audio Rev.'s review -"-More evident than on the CD mix of Dark Side is the spoken word vocal saying, “There is no dark side of the moon.” I had never really paid attention to this line during the previous thousands of times I have heard the record."

Even on what I just called my fairly dull and distant CD versions this line is very easy to hear IMO, but this guy never noticed it in the past Thousands of times he's heard the disc??

The whole line is "There is no dark side of the moon. Matter of fact the whole thing's dark." Or something like that. Didn't memorize it.


I'm just trying to figure out if old recording that to me seem like they should be able to be fully resolved within CD's 16/44.1 limitations really sound better channel for channel on SACD (or DVD-A).

Like the Stones recent release. There's so much noise on those things (understandable so) that you shouldn't need to go beyond CD's 96db dynamics and while I 'might' find some audible benefit of recording past a brick wall of ~20kHz.... really I doubt it.

BTW... yes I don't have SACD or DVD-A player, but I've heard both several times on very high end amps and speakers (recently DVD-A on $14K KEF's, and SACD on $3K Revel F30's), and have never heard anything that bettered the best recorded CD's I have -'cept in that some tracks were multi channel.

Any thoughts on my comments?

[pjchappy]

I don't see why the SACD and CD layer would sound the same. . .

The analog to digital process is one of compression. . .the CD layer is compressed much more than the SACD layer, hence, a loss of data.  The SACD layer, as I said, holds more uncompressed data, and all things being equal, should sound much better.

p

[azryan]

Compression?

16bit PCM isn't compressed audio?
It's limited in bandwidth and dynamic range, but not a compressed lossy format.
And if the recording falls within that dynamic range (and I'd think an old recording like Dark Side would be w/ a highish noise floor), and you concede that you can't really hear much if anything about ~20kHz then the CD version should be lossless.

Maybe you're thinking of mp3's? just kidding.

Maybe I don't understand your use of the term compression here.

I only have a rough understanding of the Nyquist theorem that defines what you need to turn analog waveform into a digital lossless copy.

[BlackCat]

Basically the Nyquist theorem only says that the sampling rate must be two times the highest frequency you wish to resolve.  Therefore, on a standard CD sampled at 44khz, you should be able to resolve 22khz, which you can't hear anyway.  To me, of more concern would be the size of the Fourier Transforms used in the A/D and D/A conversions.  When you do a Fourier Transform, you basically dump frequency "bands" into "bins", and the that is the maximum resolution you would have - the number of individual Hz per bin.  In other words, the CD (or SACD) has all the digital information on it necessary to resolve 1hz - 22khz (higher for SACD??), it's up to the converters to get it back out to you.