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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
cerrot's avatar
cerrot
1,700 posts
 
totaly agree. if you cant discern a difference between a mofi sacd and a standard, your system is not revealing enouhg. It should be easy to hear the dramatic improvement of sacd.
akg_ca's avatar
akg_ca
2,178 posts
 
IMO a better comparison is to match up a quality XRCD against the SACD
XRCD is the uncompressed hi-Rez "normal CD pressing" without the max 16/44 format first introduced for airplay.

E.g. Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms discs are issues in both SACD and XRCD pressings.( there are many others including inter alia, The Eagles)

My observations

(1) Any comparison is system dependent sensitive for sure as highlighted by the prior posts . The better the system ...... Yada Yada ....

(2) I've heard both including A-B .

(A) In my system, the XRCD wins out and the difference is not subtle because of (1) above and also because of the preferred results embedded in the actual recording.

(B) I've heard them in more modestly priced audio systems and the the results vary even to the point that the SACD prevails.

(3) in all cases, audio reproduction through a multi channel receiver always lagged far behind the audio performance of hi-end and quality built separates. There is no escaping the time-honoured tenet in this hobby that you only get what you pay for.
washline
202 posts
 
It depends. When I first started listening to SACDs about nine years ago, I could certainly hear a significant improvement over CD. Much greater clarity, precision and quality. However, some SACDs are not of such good quality. There's a significant difference between the SACDs of Miles Davis released in the US versus those produced in Japan. The Japanese SACDs are a real marvel. The US pressings are not so much so. You do, however, have to have a decent player to notice the differences.
stringreen's avatar
stringreen
6,383 posts
 
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.
68pete
992 posts
 
I find it very from disc to disc. You said your disc player is new, the sound may change as you get more hours on it. then might see(hear) a difference. Not all SACD are great but i do like them.
enjoy Pete
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