Hi Bill,
The SACD player I had was of very poor quality and so I never used it for SACD. I can't compare between the two formats. Surprisingly, I'm just reading an article from the founder of 2L Recording Studios Morten Lindberg who prefers PCM 192 kHz to SACD's DSD format. This is significant because he sells the SACD format as well. Heres an excerpt of the interview from a link at the iTrax site:
BPBS: On your Blu-ray audio disc release, DIVERTIMENTI with TrondheimSolistene, you utilize not only uncompressed PCM at 192kHz/24-bit in stereo and 5.1, but also both of the new lossless audio codecs, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA, at 192kHz/24-bit - what was your reasoning behind this? Was it done solely to give audiophiles a chance to compare the different high resolution options, or do you and the rest of the team at 2L believe there is an audible difference between the formats? I'm also wondering if you have a preference between releasing on SACD versus releasing on Blu-ray Disc?
ML: Blu-ray is the first domestic format in history that unites theatre movies and music sound in equally high quality. The advantage of Blu-ray is the high resolution for audio, and the convenience for the audience as now one player will handle music, films, their DVD-collection and their old library of traditional CD. I personally prefer extremely high resolution PCM over the DSD. All resolutions found in the DIVERTIMENTI package are sample rate converted from the same DXD source files. Comparing them in our studio we find only subtle differences from DXD (24BIT/352.8kHz) down to 192kHz and 96kHz. The obvious degeneration is from 96kHz down to 48kHz. I find DSD, as found on the SACD, somewhat different in the colour from DXD and 192kHz PCM; in some mysterious way DSD is softer and more beautiful but slightly less detailed.
Cheers, MD
