Oh Ye of Little Format


Tonight our group of 13 people held a blind A/B/C  test comparing

Formats of CD, SACD and Apple Sound.

We listened to one minute three formats of five different cuts

ranging from Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, Santana

Celine Dion, & one other.

 

The cuts were removed from the same CD using different layers.

 

Bottom line- Nobody zeroed in on anything! The Apple Sound actually

was slightly the favorite. Try it yourself.

 

Sound leveling software was employed and were the services 

of sound engineer. 

 

I always thought SACDs were nothing special. 

Now if an XRCD had been included I think it would have been preferred

but you can perform the same test using XRCD due to the way

it is recorded.

 

The fun never stops here...

 

 

 

 

chorus

Showing 2 responses by cd318

It's no surprise to me either.

Don't Apple still use their own proprietary 'mastered for iTunes' for their music?

It might explain the preference.

 

As you say, the fun never stops when you're an audiophile.

Especially amongst like minded friends.

It's almost a definition of happiness.

How about a 21st century remake of Guys and Dolls with a bunch of fellows trying to organise an illicit hush hush sound comparison test?

Time for a gross generalisation interlude?

 

Music in the 50s was made for radiograms?

Music in the 60s was made for Dansette type record players which had a speaker built inside it's console?

Music in the 70s was made for listening to in cars.

Music in the 80s was made for walkmans?

Ditto the 90s.

Music in the 00s was made for the iPod?

Music in the 10s was made for the smartphone?

 

Perhaps one day we might finally see music recorded for first rate audio playback systems?