Both the Esoteric DV-50S or Krell SACD Standard Mk III can be found for under $1,500 and represent terrific performance for their cost.
Should I buy SACD's or Buy Quality Multi-Format CD player and use Old Digital CD's?
Hello,
I'm about finished upgrading my system and want to know if audiophiles are now paying $$ for SACD's with their multi-format CD players or are they buying quality multi-format CD players and playing old digital cd's collected over the years?
I'm about finished upgrading my system and want to know if audiophiles are now paying $$ for SACD's with their multi-format CD players or are they buying quality multi-format CD players and playing old digital cd's collected over the years?
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The problem with that observation is that SACD masterings are rarely the same as those for RedBook. I have a BD recording of Strawinsky ballets by Gergiev and the sound is indeed spectacular. Is that due to the HD format, or to the mastering that maintains the full dynamic range? The only way to decide this is to downsample the SACD recording to 16/44 and see if it sounds the same as the SACD, or not. There have been some efforts to do this under controlled conditions, and the results indicate that the 16/44 sounded just as good. But we need more experiments. |
I have never found sacd's to sound better than redbook, and I have a Sony 5400ES. 99% of the time I stream from Tidal, the sound is great with over a million albums. and lots of MQA files, over 3000. They only list 500 but there are way more Alan, really?? I find this amazing as to my ears SACD and DVD-A are several order of magnitudes better than redbook. |
I have a stock 5400ES and a ModWright 5400ES. There is quite a jump in sound quality from a well-mastered SACD over Redbook with the same material on the stock 5400ES. Not subtle. I would say the stock 5400ES is a good Redbook player and a very good SACD player. The MW 5400ES is in a different league and Redbook is very close in sound quality to SACD. The MW mod improved the Redbook sound quality tremendously and the SACD quality significantly but not as dramatically IMO. Tidal is great but sound quality is obviously dependent on the streaming gear and the DAC. It takes a VERY good music server and DAC when streaming TIDAL to get close to the sound quality of the MW 5400ES with Redbook. My computer audio DAC is not MQA capable, so MQA titles on Tidal are a mixed bag. I find no more correlation between improvement in sound quality of the MQA version vs the non-MQA version than I find from one non-MQA title to the next based on recording/mastering quality. All MQA versions are remastered by necessity to embed the MQA packet and the sound quality of the remastering varies greatly just like mastering/remastering quality of non-MQA titles. There are some real sonic stinkers in the Tidal MQA library just as there are for non-MQA versions. Some titles sound better in their original non-MQA version. Again, without a MQA-capable DAC, titles designated as MQA on Tidal do not guarantee a better sounding version than the original IME. It depends on the quality of the MQA remastering. Dave |
Just as a note, I have a regular CD player (beosound 9000) but I’ve supplemented it with an NAD M50.2 digital player. It can rip my CD collection (2 TB, in a RAID mirrored setup) but also links to Tidal (and decodes MQA to 24/96) and downloads my purchases from HDTracks.com. Both players are connected to the DAC on my pre/pro (emotiva XMC-1, burr brown DSP). I was going to get an SACD player, but I went with the M50.2, which I thought was more functional. I will admit that I’m a little annoyed that DSD support may not come for this device, but as a ripper/streamer, it has 90% of the features I want at a very reasonable price. |
As I mentioned above, Additional Bluesound Vault 2 info (this is background info on one of many options): http://www.bluesound.com/en-us/products/vault-2/ https://www.crutchfield.com/p_813VAULT2B/Bluesound-Vault-2-Black.html A 2 TB hard drive will let you rapidly rip all your CDs in lossless high-resolution or space-saving MP3 formats, and download and store high-res tracks. No computer necessary. Access and share your digital music library, and stream it in studio quality to multiple rooms in your home. Store and protect your entire digital music library on a 2TB hard drive Rip your CDs in high resolution FLAC format, space-saving MP3, or both Stream music to multiple Bluesound Players all over the home Access and connect to internet radio stations, cloud music services, and your own local music library Control music wirelessly with an intuitive Controller App for iOS, Android, Kindle Fire, and Windows & Mac OS X desktops Instinctive touch control on unit Simple setup, easily expandable. |
+1 for Tidal Streaming. As was mentioned above, Tidal offers uncompressed albums whose sound quality is excellent. You search for your album, and if you like it, make it a favorite for future listening. Tidal Streaming offers playlist selections for jazz, classical, folk, blues, etc. You can build your own playlists and Tidal also offers 500+ MQA albums. I listen to Tidal Streaming most of the time fur its musical selection and sound quality. Tidal does not have every album in its library but I can easy find something I like. Since your source is digital, you are going to need a DAC to convert the digital signal to analog. Pricing for DAC’s range from $99 to $20,000+. I do not know your equipment or budget. For example, I own the Ayre Codex DAC $(1,995) and it sounds excellent. Schiit has received good reviews and they make several DAC’s priced from $99 to $2,395. Mytek also makes several different DAC’s. You have many DAC’s available for you to consider that have many different features, capabilities and prices. I do not know. Maybe you should buy the Bluesound 2 Streamer that includes a DAC. The good news you have many options to choose from to meet your needs. Have fun. |
As much I love the convenience of streaming over Tidal, I still very much enjoy spinning my SACD’s and 24bit HDCD’s. It really boils down to one’s personal preferences. If you’re shopping for a player, Oppo UDP-205 with a very decent internal DAC to consider. Like it or not, HiFi Streaming and High-Rez downloads is the way forward. |
I’ve been looking at some SACD players, but if you want multichannel, there aren’t too many options. I liked the classic XA5400ES for multich, especially since my pre/pro could do DSD over HDMI. However, with the ability to just download DSDs, I think the best way to do it is to just download them, getting a bit perfect copy, and use a multichannel DAC like the e38 or a surround pre/pro that can accept multichannel DSD input. It’s getting real tough to justify a dedicated multichannel SACD player if you can get the few decent multichannel DSDs directly. |
