SACD... can you hear the difference?


I'm fairly new to SACD as it's only been a month since I purchased my first player that takes advantage of the format. Some say even on a good system which is set up properly that they can not notice a difference between SACD and standard CD.

For example my Wife is a huge James Taylor fan. A couple weeks ago I found 2 original master recording SACD disks from a company called Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs. Both James Taylor just as she has on CD. I dialed them in perfect and OH MAN! To me the difference was like night and day, but she couldn't tell the difference in sound quality.

So either I'm imagining things or I'm able to pick up on musical pitch and clarity much better than her. I'm sure of what I'm hearing with no doubt, but she thinks I'm crazy.

Can anyone here notice how much better SACD sounds on their system verses a standard CD.
pigchild

Showing 1 response by johnnyb53

Under perfect circumstances, SACD provides an incremental improvement over CD. But the dramatic difference occurs in vinyl. Check the numbers; audiophiles have voted decisively with their wallets for vinyl.

Examples:

AcousticSounds offers 1,614 titles on SACD and 28,670 on vinyl. MusicDirect offers 140 titles on SACD and another 20 or so on DVD-A. They offer easily over 1300 audiophile reissues of LPs. Over the last 7-8 years enthusiasts have voted decisively with their wallets for LP as the high-res medium of choice.