SACD vs. DVDA Which do you like better?

[Camaero]

Just curious. I have not heard either of them to be honest.

[bradclark1]

What in Sam Hill are you talking about?

[tycho102]

DVDA, but I've never used it. PCM audio is stupid in comparison to ACC and AC3. Being able to put 6 hours of music in DVDA, or 40 hours of music if you encode a blank video stream with AC3 audio.

SACD is sony audio. No thanks.

[SUBMAN1]

Not sure who wrote about the PCM audio above, but that is about as far from the truth as one could get. It is quite actually it is the best type of digital audio you can get and still is. DVD-Audio is based on PCM technology.

AC3 is a very flat sounding spec. It is highly compressed and it is a lossy format. It is designed for DVD movies and is barely adequate for the job.

dts is actually quite superior to AC3 and even better (theoretically) than CD's in some cases. It could be considered a lossless format, but it does not have the resolution as found in the high bandwidth PCM or DSD. If this tells you anything, I refuse to buy a DVD movie anymore without a dts track on it. AC3 sounds terrible to me.

SACD uses a small 1 bit stream and then pounds it with a massive sample rate of even up to 1 million samples a second. In theory, this is a good idea, but in practice it actually induces artifacts into the stream, and I thought audio quality and perfection was what we were after in the first place with high bandwidth digital audio? Don't get me wrong though, SACD still sounds very good as compared to a normal audio CD, and is a massive step up in audio quality.

So for someone with access to both formats, the better format is DVD-A. THis is assuming you have proper D to A converters to hear it properly. I have seen some DVD-A players that have bad D to A chips in them that make the DVD-A sound muddy to me.

Last I heard by the way, SACD's were recorded from PCM streams even, so any conversion can only have audio quality loss, and never a gain.

-S

[SUBMAN1]

By the way, you won't find something like this for SACD too - http://dvd-audio.sourceforge.net/

And, I have Dark Side of the Moon (recorded from the master tape) on DVD-Audio (5.1 channel )and love it! It was given away freely and I can tell you how to get it if you plan on picking up a DVD-A player.

-S

PS. Ever noticed the Audio folder on your DVD movies? Now you know what it is for.

[Camaero]

Is there any way to get these new high quality music cds onto your computer with nearly no quality loss? I am pretty sure I heard that it is not possible with SACD but I am not sure about DVDA. That part really sucks. I have one player in the whole house right now that can play SACDs and I think DVDA as well, so that really limits me to the amount of times I can use it because it is in the living room where everybody else hangs out. :damn:

[Camaero]

Ok well you just pretty much answered my question before I even asked it. Your good man. :D

Do tell on the Dark Side album with DVDA player!

[SUBMAN1]

Is there any way to get these new high quality music cds onto your computer with nearly no quality loss? I am pretty sure I heard that it is not possible with SACD but I am not sure about DVDA. That part really sucks. I have one player in the whole house right now that can play SACDs and I think DVDA as well, so that really limits me to the amount of times I can use it because it is in the living room where everybody else hangs out. :damn:

Yes, DVD-Audio has been cracked. SACD, I don't think so, or I have at least not seen any tools for it. That is why there are tools to create DVD-Audio files now - the spec is know as to how it goes together. Good luck finding the tools for SACD because I think every SACD needs to be approved by the spec manufacturer.

I have the tools to rip a DVD-A and convert it to WAV or whatever format I want, but this board is probably not the place to discuss such things.

-S

[Camaero]

Well DVD-A wins in my book just because of that!

Just incase you missed my double post as you were answering, who is giving away the DVD-A Dark Side with the purchase of a DVD-A player? :cool:

[SUBMAN1]

It doesn't come with a player, but is given away freely on the net, with the owner of the master tape wanting any royalties. You cannot buy it.


-S

[SUBMAN1]

Oops - I forgot, the Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon is the original Alan Parsons Quad mix, with an LFE channel added, so it is technically 4.1, not 5.1.

-S