I would say that, in my setup, most of the time my SACDs do sound better than the "regular" CD, MQA from Tidal and high-res downloads, but not always.
Most of the time the mastering seems to produce a more "musical" result, but not always. With just a few of my SACDs I wonder if the mastering engineer ran the CD quality digital files thru some sort of "up converting" algorithm. I have the latest CD master of the Steely Dan "Aja" album, which IMO sounds significantly better than the SACD.
Most of the time the mastering seems to produce a more "musical" result, but not always. With just a few of my SACDs I wonder if the mastering engineer ran the CD quality digital files thru some sort of "up converting" algorithm. I have the latest CD master of the Steely Dan "Aja" album, which IMO sounds significantly better than the SACD.