[Castanza]

Can anyone tell a significant difference between these 2?
I assume it is best to buy a machine that can play both formats?
Are they any machines that are under $300 that are decent quality with good sounds?
I saw the thread on the pioneer 563as. Best Buy seems to have this machine on hand. Other than that, the hi fidelity store in Mobile, Fidler Hi Fi, carries denon products. The also carry pioneer elite, so I now they could order a unit. The salesman at Fidler said, he cannot tell any differences in the sound. He just suggested that I buy a machine that plays both.

[WerTicus]

well you cant really compare them because to my knowledge there is nothing out on SACD and DVDA.... but apparently audiophiles agree that SACD has the better quality...my system does not have the resolution to be able to tell you if SACD or DVDa was the better quality!

what i do know is that SACD is much better designed.  DVDA's are annoying at best... some playing automatically some putting you into a menu... other playing repeatedly or playing the surround version after you played the stereo without you asking it to do so.

DVDA seems to be a poorly designed format but it does sound great

SACD works just like a cd does... and that in itself makes it a better format.

so i would certainly get a universal player because who knows which will win out in the end.  i hope sacd because its easy to use!  

i personally use the denon dvd 2900 and its great  you might find cheaper players convert SACD and their dsd format to pcm so your losing the sacd quality right there.

[rosconey]

i tried the pioneer 563, it was bad bad bad for cd playback-sounded like shit.
floyd  dark side was ok in sacd, the stones in sacd was bad.
i,m going to get a good cd player and forget the universal ones

[petermwilson]

Hi,
Last Christmas I invested in a couple of components that I feel forgive alot of evils.

I got an Upgraded Denon 5800.  The upgrade gives it about 95% OF 5803 status.  It's 170 w perch (all channels drivrn) THX ULTRA II.

I also got a full set (5) of Totem Model 1 signature speakers (very revealing) and an NHT SUB II

Since the Denon has 2 sets of analog in's I got a couple of discontinued mltidisc players for each format.

It would seem that getting a combi is the most practical solution but reviewers can't seem to find a combi "at any price" where one format or the other doesn't suffer in their estimation.

My advice is keep trying till you find something you like with your system

I have the 5 disc Sony DVP-NC650V sacd and the 7 disc FA92SL dvd-a players.
I use a Panny rp82 for video so when I was shopping for HIREZ players, I didn't care about the video.

Goodluck,
Peter m.

[Dokter_doug]

I attempted to answer this question by ordering both the DVD-Audio and SACD versions of "Celebrating The Music of Weather Report" from Telarc. I intended to play them both on my Pioneer Elite 45A universal player. It seemed a reasonable way of answering that question, given the heavyweight lineup doing the playing.

BOTH WERE HORRIBLE!!! They were virtually unplayable. For some reason the weighting of the bass info through the mains and the LFE feed were so "hot" as to render both discs ununseable.

I emailed Telarc with my observations, and asked if they would have whoever mixed these monstrosities to listen for themselves. Telarc just sent me a stock "To return this merchandise..." response.

I invite others to try this A/B test of the two formats.

...and for the record, both were awful, but the SACD was "awfuller".

[Rob Babcock]

It's hard to do a fair comparison on a Pioneer player; those machines convert the DSD stream to PCM, so it's not an apples to apples deal.

There are very few things you can buy in both formats to make a comparison valid; the few albums common to both may or may not have been engineered in a way that makes comparison meaningful, either.

I've shied away from commenting on which format sounds "better"- to my ears, both trounce LPs and best any Redbook I've heard.  As there get to be more things available (especially more things that take full advantage of the extended resolution), I probably won't be able to hold my tongue forever!

At this moment, I have more great sounding SACDs, but my best sounding discs are DVD-A.  Hows that for diplomacy?

[EDS_]

It's hard to do a fair comparison on a Pioneer player; those machines convert the DSD stream to PCM, so it's not an apples to apples deal.

There are very few things you can buy in both formats to make a comparison valid; the few albums common to both may or may not have been engineered in a way that makes comparison meaningful, either.

I've shied away from commenting on which format sounds "better"- to my ears, both trounce LPs and best any Redbook I've heard.  As there get to be more things available ...

I agree with R/B.....both hi-rez formats are a big step up over CD. Esp. when one considers bang for the buck. Some quite cheap SACD and DVD-A players sound quite good. Most medium priced players sound wonderful.

I've had both SACD and DVD-A playback for a while now. The lack of DVD-A titles is a drag. Some DVD-A disks are a pain to play. Generally I think DVD-A sounds better. But this is a gut feeling more than anything else. As R/B and others have noted there may not be any good recordings available to the public that offer the identical masters applied to each hi-rez format. FWiiW I will add this--a guy I know a little was able to hear a disk of "Latin" music mastered identically on SACD and DVD-A disks. Each disk was played many times through the same system. He said  DVD-A seemed more real and somehow faster. BTW-this guy works for one of the big record companies.



Mostly on the oblique advice of TAS I bought The Beach Boys "Pet Sounds" on DVD-A....greatness.
I also recently picked up the "The Best of Motorhead--Deaf Forever" DVD-A disk. M/H's version of "Louie Louie" is my favorite of that song.

[John Kotches]

There is precious little head to head valid comparison material for DVD-A and SACD.

Celebrating the Music of Weather Report (Telarc)?  DSD capture.
Swing Live (Chesky)?  24/96K PCM capture.

Soular Energy (Hi-Res Music DVD-A), (Groove Note SA-CD)?  both from the same analog masters, but SA-CD had additional EQ that the DVD-A does not.

Universal dual format releases?  Supposedly all hit 24/96K PCM before transcoding.  I cannot personal verify this.

In my main system, heavily biased towards DVD-A, DVD-A wins.

Cheers,

[Ears]

There both superior to cd in every way but I would describe dvd-a as a cleaner sounding cd that verges on being sterile sounding at times.
SA-CD is smoother sounding and more like analog.
There are crappy discs on both formats and I belive anyone who was raised on or ever had a decent vinyl setup would prefer sa-cd and those rasied on cd, would probably prefer dvd-a in most cases.

As far as #'s go , it is not even close as sacd has an 8 to 1 advantage over player sales over dvd-a and this counts all the dvd players that have one or both formats included.

The software sales are even more lopsided in sacd's favor if you believe sales/marketing reports.

I say...get both and buy any quality releases your interested in and don't worry about which may or may not be better as its all about the music when all boiled down.

[John Kotches]

Ears says:

As far as #'s go , it is not even close as sacd has an 8 to 1 advantage over player sales over dvd-a and this counts all the dvd players that have one or both formats included.

If you believe CEA figures the player sales are somewhere around 4:1 in favor of DVD-A capability.  Whether this is accurate or not is another story.

Both formats have garnered most of their unit sales in a "stealth" fashion, included as part of a DVD player sale.  It's a logical place to gain the sales, since the players are literally flying off the shelves.

The software sales are even more lopsided in sacd's favor if you believe sales/marketing reports

In mass market terms, the sales for both formats are vanishingly small.  The only titles that have moved any volume have been the SA-CDs that were stealth releases (Stones, Dylan, Sting, Pink Floyd).

Anyone who thinks these titles would have sold 1/8th of their quantities as SA-CD only media is deluding themselves.

My biggest concern is that we have two better alternatives to CD and that neither of them may survive in the long term.  


Cheers,

[Marbles]

John,

I think both will survive in some fashion and get quite a boost when Blu-Ray gets here (best guess is 2006).

What are your thoughts on Blu-Ray?

[Ears]

The only real indicator of sales is the recent Audiophool survey in Stereophile which clearly puts 8 to 1 sacd players to dvd-a players among audiophools.

There is marketing all over for sa-cd like in the recent issue of rolling stone were they gave away a sampler and all stereo rags have sa-cd marketing.
I even saw a commercial on tv which I hardly ever watch.
There is no marketing to speak of for dvd-a.

I do no that there are at least 60 different sa-cd players available from at least 15 different manufactuers whith quite a few very hi end models and dvd-a has a couple if you include multi players.
The only real hi end dvd-a that I know of comes from Meridian who has a deeply vested interest in dvd-a.


I do not expect either format to ever take hold of the mass market, but audiphools clearly prefer sacd.

[WerTicus]

yeah to fairly compare the formats you would have to have the 'best' DVDa player next to the BEST SA-CD player hooked into exactly the same gear... playing the same thing that was recorded directly from analogue to dsd and analogue to 196khz

[John Kotches]

Ears,

If you really think that audiophiles drive mass market acceptance, you're a bit off the mark.  Never mind that the S'phile "survey"  results are not particularly scientific or done with controlled conditions.

I have no doubt that SA-CD has greater market penetration amongst audiophiles, Sony is very good at marketing.

Cheers,

[John Kotches]

Marbles,

I think that Blu-ray is a step backwards from HD-DVD (formerly AOD) for these big reasons:

1)  Insistence on sticking with dated MPEG-2 technology.  Clearly H.264 (MPEG-4) and VC-9 (aka WM-9) provide better results with less bandwidth.

2)  Blu-ray media cannot be replicated at existing facilities, requiring all new infrastructure.  HD-DVD can use existing DVD production faciliities.  This means media (from a manufacturing perspective) will not have a significant cost change from existing DVD-V, which is highly successful.

Blu-rays advantage in bandwidth and absolute storage capacity are negated by their use of MPEG-2.

At this point, there is no provision for DSD encoding in either Blu-ray or HD-DVD, which is very interesting to say the least.

Regards,

[Marbles]

Thanks John, I was not aware of those limitations.

[Ears]

Ears,

If you really think that audiophiles drive mass market acceptance, you're a bit off the mark.  Never mind that the S'phile "survey"  results are not particularly scientific or done with controlled conditions.

I have no doubt that SA-CD has greater market penetration amongst audiophiles, Sony is very good at marketing.

Cheers,

SA-CD has marketing and dvd-a has none to speak of...that is the point.
Whith a choice of either marketing hype from either camp or a survey of the market that currently keeps hi rez alive...which one is the lesser of two evils?
I will take the survey as there is no hidden agenda.

I never said audiophools drive any market...what I am saying is that there is no mass appeal for hi rez and there never will be.

You must not have kids or know very many young people as there into free or cheap music and could care less about cd....let alone hi rez and young people are the mass market future.

[Dokter_doug]

...what I am saying is that there is no mass appeal for hi rez and there never will be.

LOL...a statement to live and die by.

Who was it said there would never be a market for more than 4 computers in the world? CEO IBM, or someone like that?

[Ears]

...what I am saying is that there is no mass appeal for hi rez and there never will be.

LOL...a statement to live and die by.

Who was it said there would never be a market for more than 4 computers in the world? CEO IBM, or someone like that?

Your comparison is rediculous as computers had no competition and young people[the future mass and some of the current mass market] DO NOT CARE about sound quality so if you have any evidence that they do, I will be waiting for a reasonable reply.....but I will not be holding my breath.

You do not need to be a marketing wiz to no what todays youth are using as there format of choice.

Even if young people did prefer hi rez over good enough free downloads, there is little that they would be interested in available in either hi rez format which is an obvious answer to who the hi rez target audience  is at this time.
Hi rez has been around now for at least 4 years and I highly doubt 10% of the U.S. has ever even heard of sa-cd or dvd-a.

[Rob Babcock]

On the other hand, it's really surprising to watch the kids checking out the SACDs & DVD-As at BB.  You see quite a few early-20's types buying hirez discs.  I don't know whether it's novelty, MC or the hi rez aspect.  Of course, this is anecdotal, not empiracle, but young people by and large seem to be reasonably hip to it, at least where SACD is concerned.

High end in general is pretty much a blip on the average Joe's radar.  Case in point:  the bank where I work gave away a bundle of a DVD player & a movie (Dicken's "Christmas Carol") to each employee today.  A few of us got to talking about movies, and pretty much everyone thought I was f'in nuts when I described my HT system.  Seems like anything over $600 is frivolous, at least to my stuff coworkers.  Try to sell them on a $5k SET tube amp...