Zeev Schor helpfully posted a few paragraphs from CNet's website on SACD.
I probably shouldn't have posted it as it really had nothing to do with
music.  But I did lt it through with the intention of responding right
away to the extreme inaccuracies in CNet's discussion, but got busy and
didn't get to it last night, and so mayhem has ensued.  I have no trouble
with the discussion of technology or equipment here as long as the writer
explicitly makes a connection to something germane to this list.  Please
let's all remember to do that.

>From the CNet mess:

> 1.  "The SACD format employs a new technology dubbed Direct Stream
> Digital (DSD).  Proponents claim DSD is kinder and gentler to the music
> than CD's Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) format.  While CDs poke along with
> a 44.1kHz sampling rate, DSD cranks things up to a warp-speed 2.8224MHz.

This is utter nonsense - apples and oranges, or more like watermelons
and basketballs - on two levels.  First, CDs are (PCM) sampled at 44,100
times a second, but the sample size is 16 bits at a time.  DSD samples
only one bit each time, so the math gives CDs a sampling rate of 0.705
million bits per second, compared to 2.822 million bits per second for
SACD.  That's an improvement of about 4 times for the SACD sampling rate,
if that was the whole story, and it's not, because, secondly, PCM and
DSD are completely different digital encoding schemes and not directly
comparable based just on sampling rate.  So just to throw out these
numbers as an indication of audio quality is just meaningless.

> This results in vastly greater resolution, texture, and detail than CDs.
> Standard Super Audio CDs will run on only SACD players, while newer
> hybrid SACDs will play on SACD, CD, and DVD players.

Most of them anyway.  I have a newer DVD/CD player that won't play hybrid
SACDs, and a 16-year-old CD player that will play them.  It should be
repeated that hybrid SACDs will play on most CD and DVD players, but only
at the standard CD resolution.

> To enjoy an SACD player's surround sound, you must use a receiver
> equipped with 5.1 analog inputs.

This is not strictly true.  A modern surround receiver with multi-channel
analog inputs makes life much simpler, but it is not absolutely required.
All SACD (and DVD-A) players have six analog outputs: 5 for front left,
center and right, as well as left rear and right rear speakers, and 1
for a subwoofer (hence the 5.1 designation).  But not all multi-channel
SACDs use all these channels.  The new Mercury Living Presence and RCA
Living Stereo releases, for example, are just 3.0 - left front, center
and right front.  Theoretically if you have a stereo analog setup and
wanted to listen to all three channels you could do so by adding a preamp
and amplifier for the third (center) channel.  Getting the balance right
would be tricky, but it could be done.  I do not recommend this approach
though because practically you need to have a single knob that controls
the volume in all channels at once, and only a multi-channel receiver
or controller can accomplish that.  (There are also issues of bass
management and distance compensation that are a little too complicated
to go into here.)

But it should probably be emphasized that the true benefit of SACD is
improved sound, period.  This applies to standard stereo setups, not
just surround systems.  If you have a stereo you are happy with, adding
a SACD player (of a quality commensurate with the rest of your system),
and no other equipment, will likely yield dramatically better sound than
a standard CD.

> A good-quality speaker system is required to appreciate the
> format's potential".

This applies to just about any format, doesn't it?

> 2.  "DVD-A offers 1,000 times the resolution of CD and can deliver up
> to six channels of ultrahigh-resolution sound.

Ignoring for the moment that this is meaningless marketing hype, I can't
do any math that comes up with this number, so I won't even try.  Just
take my word for it.  In general terms most people who've done direct
comparisons between SACD and 24bit/192kHz DVD-A have found the sound
quality to be similar.

For our purposes here though, DVD-A is something of a marginal format
so far as classical music is concerned.  We have a couple of Beethoven
cycles, a handful of releases from EMI, Warner, Telarc and a few others,
and that's about it.  For instance, MD&G has released a DVD-A of the
clarinet concertos of Cartellieri that is just beautiful, but it's the
only DVD-A release from them so far (compared to about a half dozen
SACDs).  Silverline has just released about a dozen titles from the
Vanguard back catalog of recordings by Abravanel and the Utah Symphony,
as well as Comissiona and the Baltimore Symphony and a few others, that
have received some good reviews.  But currently there is far more classical
music available on SACD.

> But to access those tracks, you need a DVD-Audio player, although
> almost all DVD-A discs have lower-quality Dolby Digital or DTS tracks
> that can be played by any DVD player.  DVD-Audio sound has great detail
> and texture, and it's more lifelike than CD.  DVD-Audio will be primarily
> of interest to audiophile-inclined home-theater fans.

The only reason this might be true is because of the inclusion of the
Dolby Digital and sometimes DTS surround versions that the DVD format
allows to coexist with DVD-A, and the fact that stereo SACD was originally
marketed to audiophiles.  Both SACD and DVD-A offer high-resolution audio
in stereo and surround sound.

Dave
http://www.classical.net/