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 3 responses by stringreen

I use an Ayre C5xemp which plays both CD's and SACD (and DVD's too)...anyway, I've come away with the view that both are good and there is little to distinguish between them. Really depends on how it was produced.
Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't.....many of my Redbook CD's are better than SACD's
ZD....as I said in my original post, the way the recording is produced has a marked effect on the sound. I have a Jamie Johnson (my favorite country and western guy) recording on Redbook CD....I also got the LP version for a hoped for sound improvement... (I have a very good phono set up) ....the CD kills the vinyl. Just shows to go ya....