SACD

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applemarc
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SACD

Unread post by applemarc »

I'm just going to ask this question

Is it worth buying an SACD player or should I just buy a CD player ?
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hillsanddalesrover
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Re: SACD

Unread post by hillsanddalesrover »

Do you want to play SACDs ?

You could try an older "battleship" build DVD player, many of those will play SACD and sound good with CD.

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Classicrock
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Re: SACD

Unread post by Classicrock »

Get an older Denon Universal Player. They go for peanuts. Make sure it has the manual. For CD they are better used with an external DAC but do a nice job with SACD and DVDA. Later are scarce except for Steve Wilson remasters (King Crimson). Plenty SACD titles especially Classical and Audiophile labels. SACD certainly is a substantial improvement over CD but a really good CD transport and DAC can be close given a well mastered CD. Be warned that some SACDs were badly mastered with loudness wars tendencies (Moody Blues). Quite a few box sets have at least audio on DVD discs and sometimes true DVDA so these players are worth the £100 mark if in good shape. If you like SACD and accumulate quite a few discs then look for something better (and expensive). Still quite a few SACD/CD players out there as well as Oppo all purpose machines.
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Quarknosis
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Re: SACD

Unread post by Quarknosis »

I wanted to try SACD even though I only have 2 hybrid discs (and 1 of those I can't find at the moment) and another on order.

I bought a Denon 2910 from a business via ebay and found that it doesn't read most CDs and wouldn't read the SACD layer on my 1 disc. CDs did sound quite good, I might have been able to live with the sound quality with CD if I had had more chance to listen for longer but due to the problems that is going back without having listened to an SACD on it.

So yesterday I bought a Sony DVP NS900V player from the local Cash Converters for £40 but without remote. At first this wouldn't read the SACD but I cleaned it with soap and water which managed to get it to work but the settings are on Multi at the moment and I'm only listening in Stereo.

The disc was Dark Side of the Moon and I found an improvement in PRaT, bass seemed deeper and more controlled and dynamics were greater than any of my CD players. I thought the overall the improvements of each effect was quite subtle but when they were all added up the improvement was worthwhile.

I am planning to get a remote control for the Sony, hopefully being able to change the setting from Multi to Stereo will bring further improvement.

I'd like to find a good source for SACDs because most of the ones that I am interested in only seem to be available used at high prices.
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Re: SACD

Unread post by hillsanddalesrover »

Do you realise that you can't put "proper" SACD through a DAC ?

The SACD only comes out of the stereo RCA sockets, not as a digital stream like SPDIF.

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Re: SACD

Unread post by Classicrock »

You can put out SACD over HDMI but there are few DACs that do this and they are unaffordable. Ironically this can be done with the DACs in fairly cheap AV amps. Denon and Cambridge appear to be going down the route of Blue Ray/SACD/DVD transports that need one of their AV amps to decode. Does appear that hi-res formats are seen in terms of multichannel by the major manufacturers.
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applemarc
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Re: SACD

Unread post by applemarc »

I think I'll just have a CD for background music and the TT for listening to
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