[rmurray]

With all the debate about resolution (or the lack of it on cd format) does Bryston have any future plan to develop a sacd player? As with vinyl I know the selection is limited to certain types of music but to attain greater fidelity is there a good enough market to support it? 

[Mott]

With all the debate about resolution (or the lack of it on cd format) does Bryston have any future plan to develop a sacd player? As with vinyl I know the selection is limited to certain types of music but to attain greater fidelity is there a good enough market to support it? 

I think all this debate about "resolution" is kinda funny. It really is all in the source and mastering. All the resolution in the world won't better the source and won't open up squashed dynamics.
I own many Sacds and DVD-As and most of them are bettered by CD versions of the same titles because the mastering is better. For example, the old MCA Elton John CDs kill their SACD counterparts. The old Warner Brothers CD of Alice Cooper's Billion Dollar Babies betters the DVD-A version. The higher res formats are too often ruined by compression and digital tweaking ...  It's a bummer. The Mofi Beck gold CD of Sea Changestrumps the SACD and DVD-a versions, in every way. On the other hand, nothing can touch the Mofi SACD of Marvin Gaye's What's Going On.
I own a BCD-1, which, funny enough, when spinning the aforementioned Gaye album pretty much equals in sonics and resolution my more-expensive Luxman universal playing the SACD layer. Same thing against the Nad M55 universal, to which I've compared

[Phil A]

With all the debate about resolution (or the lack of it on cd format) does Bryston have any future plan to develop a sacd player? As with vinyl I know the selection is limited to certain types of music but to attain greater fidelity is there a good enough market to support it? 

I believe Bryston already went through this debate when they developed the BCD-1.  As noted in the other post, there is an art to mixing and mastering.  Yes, a well mastered SACD or DVD-A is better than CD.  I'm hoping when the SP3 is developed there is some thought into taking high rez PCM via HDMI.  SACD is a niche format (a decent amount of new classical releases) and DVD-A is basically on life support.  You see a DVD-A title here or there but it is basically dead.

[Mag]

I'm sure if Bryston made a dedicated sacd player it would be worth considering for MC enthusiasts. I would like to see it incorporate DSP in some manner so that I can apply digital enhancing to the output. Having said that sacd would have to get more diversified in genre selection for me to dedicate my music purchases to that format.

Cd in its native format may be low resolution. But after applying multi-bit delta-sigma dac processing to PCM coding. I don't see it being low resolution at all. It's now equal to or exceeds sacd resolution. A dedicated sacd player by Bryston may vault sacd into undisputed #1 resolution format.

[95Dyna]

Hi rmurray and thanks for starting this thread as I am in the same thought process as you right now.  I am going to buy a new digital source to go with my new 7B's and BP26 and have it boiled down to the Cary 306, Esoteric X-05 or SA-50 and the BCD-1.  I'm basically completely locked up on these very questions.  This is not the first thread where virtues of properly recorded CD rivalling SACD has been discussed along with the preponderance of SACDs that are not well recorded.  Even with money no object it is getting tougher to immagine spending 2-3 times the price of the BCD-1 to get the SACD playback.  I can basically buy the BCD-1 and BDA-1 for less than the price of any of the SACD players giving me the ability to play Hi Rez files as they become better and more readily available.  Am I thinking straight??

Regards,

Bill

[rmurray]

Hello in digitaland Thanks for all the great insight concerning this issue. I am running the Carey 306-200 and it has brought details never heard on my redbook collection. I am very exited by possibly getting a BCD-1 as a basstion to future obsolecence. Anyway , yes, the humble cd has never been this fine. ( for me)

[Phil A]

Hi rmurray and thanks for starting this thread as I am in the same thought process as you right now.  I am going to buy a new digital source to go with my new 7B's and BP26 and have it boiled down to the Cary 306, Esoteric X-05 or SA-50 and the BCD-1.  I'm basically completely locked up on these very questions.  This is not the first thread where virtues of properly recorded CD rivalling SACD has been discussed along with the preponderance of SACDs that are not well recorded.  Even with money no object it is getting tougher to immagine spending 2-3 times the price of the BCD-1 to get the SACD playback.  I can basically buy the BCD-1 and BDA-1 for less than the price of any of the SACD players giving me the ability to play Hi Rez files as they become better and more readily available.  Am I thinking straight??

Regards,

Bill

It depends on how many hi-rez discs you have and think you'll end up with.  To a big classical music buff there is lots out on SACD and releases on a steady basis.  I have about 260 SACDs but only a couple of dozen or so classical ones.  We're bound to see some hi-rez PCM from Blu-Ray but it's hard to say how much.  I had a Modwright XA-777ES but sold that just under 4 years back and have a Marantz DV9600 but will end up with something a bit better.  Modwright will have mods for the Oppo BDP-83 (which I have already) and the newer Sony 5400ES.  I only end up buying about 8-12 SACDs/year at this point so I bought a Torus RM20 for now.

[rmurray]

Roger that Phil. I didn't realize there were that many sacd's out there! Do you find any significant compression in these discs? 

[Jeffr1966]

From a transport design standpoint, I don't know that many (any) manufacturers can touch the quality offered by Teac/Esoteric.  From what I understand the cost of using their superb transports is VERY high which is why you see them used by other manufacturers only in ultra high price categories of gear.  The transport  is not the ONLY factor in CD/SACD sound but certainly a large one.

[Phil A]

Roger that Phil. I didn't realize there were that many sacd's out there! Do you find any significant compression in these discs? 

Much depending on the mixing and mastering regardless of format.  For me, I have a tough time spending tons on a player for a format where I have some discs and the collections is not growing.  It was the same when I got into LD late.  For the amount of LDs I have (maybe 130) it didn't make sense to over spend on a player.  If I spend $3k to get SACD playback that works out to over $10 per disc just to play them.  If SACD was more mainstream with dozens of discs released that I'd want ever year, it would be different.  I have 260 SACDs now and it may take me 3-5 yrs. to reach 300 at the rate they are coming out with stuff I might want.  I'm probably going to buy a lot more CDs than SACDs.

[1oldguy]

Hi Phil

I agree which is why I went with the BCD-1.Unlike yourself I don't have any SACD so with the price of the player on top of zero titles I figured why bother.Tough If I had unlimited resources then it would be different.Hence the direction I went with.At some point I do want a DAC then I'll be set.