Thanks, Mike, and to let you know that I've just subscribed to your channel. I've been an SACD fan for decades and have purchased a number of them from Analogue Productions and agree entirely with your comments. They are, without exception, superb and I can't think of one that has disappointed me. However, I continue to be disappointed that the format remains under-appreciated and under-supported. Whilst on the subject of equipment, I also have the Sony XA5400ES and had it extensively modified in Australia many years ago. (I live in New Zealand). It is in my second system. In my main system I use the PS Audio PerfectWave SACD transport and the DirectStream DAC Mk 2 and love them. The latter employs Field Programmable Gate Arrays which can be programmed to do whatever the designer wants and I recently received notification of a free firmware upgrade to Mount Blue Sky and that has resulted in an improvement over the previous firmware version (Mount Massive), which was already marvellous. I can thoroughly recommend both items of equipment.
Thank you John! That sounds like an amazing playback system! When i was in Las Vegas this past summer lisening to the PS audio FR30 speakers on a complete PS audio system that included transport and DAC. The sound was simply amazing! I have always been impressed with PS audio equipment. Also agree with that SACD does not get the love it does deserve. I will be doing more SACD content as I do purchase them along with vinyl. Thanks again John!!
@@MikesVinylExperience Mike, "Done properly" is the key here. I have three boxes of all the Genesis albums on SACD bought many years ago and some of them sound awful. It sounds if they were done in a hurry, without taking necessary care of levels etc, and Phil Collins' drums and cymbals suffer the most. They were released in reverse order, with the early Peter Gabriel albums coming out last - and they definitely sound much better than the others - except for "Calling All Stations", which transferred at a highish level, sounds fine too.
Great to hear your opinions on these SACD releases. I'm 65 obviously grew up with vinyl and made the transition to CD around 1987. The last vinyl disc I bought was in that same year. Still have all the vinyl in excellent condition. Recently retired and decided to reconnect with my vinyl as I had more time on my hands for serious listening. Honestly the turntable is basically an expensive ornament- a bit like that gym equipment people buy and end up using as an underwear and socks drying rack! I just can no longer be bothered with the hassle associated with vinyl- too much faffing around and silly tedious rituals and. of course the rumble the background noise and the odd click and pop always at a key point in the music that spoils the entire experience. I have approximately 1,400 SACDs- like any format the quality varies but when you discover a well recorded, well produced/engineered disci takes the listening experience to a whole new level. For me it's the ACME of physical media. I have my fingers crossed that with any future uptick in CD sales as the vinyl hype and marketing BS subsides SACD can find a solid niche place in that market with more artists choosing to release their albums on the format. There is certainly a big uptick in the number of SACD players being produced with a good range of machines to choose from.
My collection of SACD's is much smaller than yours but still have collected around 300 ( and still growing) of them through the years, My CD collection is much bigger and still from time to time purchase CD's. I do spend most of my budget on music on vinyl followed by SACD. I do like the ease of storing and handeling of SACD/CD's over vinyl but still love the sound of vinyl. I do love and support the SACD format and will continue to purchase them into the future. Thank you so much!
SACD's is the way to go. They sound Awesome and are easy and inexpensive to clean. Easier to maintain all around. It takes up half the space in My Music Room. Great Video!
So few artists release on SACD & the Hybrid cd players are very expensive - circa £1000 + here in UK. The new MoFi Thriller Michael Jackson "One Step" re - release SACD £32 + P&"P UK The.limited vinyl (6000 copies) over 2 vinyls is £132 + p&p That's just 10 tracks 🤔 So sticking to cds 🎶
Thanks for the vid! I listen to CD’s for sure but nothing touches, for me, the inherent naturalness and musicality of a well recorded and mastered vinyl record.
@ thx - check out the specs for the Aesthetix Romulus CD player - it’s incredible and made in California. I believe it made the Absolute Sound’s top tier list-
I have both vinyl and SACD's, as well as DSD downloads and I prefer the lack of noise (pops, ticks, scratches etc) on digital formats over vinyl. I have quite a few the AP SACD's and most are remastered brilliantly and give vinyl a real run for the money. In fact, I bought AP's the Wonderful Sound of Quality Record Pressing (on vinyl of course) and ended up buying the SACD version because AP's pressing had too much noise.
@@CliffCollipriest2013 I acutally have the wounderful sound of quality record pressing coming on SACD. I do have several AP vinyl records and found them to be at least to my ears very quiet. Of course SACD will and schould always have a much lower noise floor than vinyl. Thank you.
Adding one of those new Moon North Preamp/DACs to the mix would put your system into the stratosphere. The synergy of the system would be next level Mike.
Still trying to figure what what to do, I have been looking at Mcintosh, Moon, Lumin digital, PS Audio and a few others. I have been super impressed with the Moon Pre and power amps but they are pretty costly. Hope to pick something by summer. Thank you James!
Thanks for sharing a well reasoned, common sense perspective on your listening to these SACDs. IMO, it's especially of value since so little attention is now given to SACDs. That said, for casual listening I prefer Streaming, as for me nothing beats a personally selected playlist. When I listen critically, I prefer Vinyl and SACDs and Hi-Res downloads. I'm agnostic in that regard, whichever format provides the best recording is my foremost priority. That determination with classical music is affected by the conductor, performance and the recordings engineer. No matter how well engineered, if the emphasis the conductor places in the performance doesn't resonate, I will prefer another even if less well engineered. When it comes to evaluating equipment fidelity, I greatly prefer acoustic instrumentation. As we all intuitively know what a violin/piano/drums should sound like and thus have a frame of reference.
Thank you! SACD doen not get enough love which is sad because it really can be an excellent sounding format. When shopping for new speakers this past summer, I would always take a few vinyl albums and a bunch of SACD's to audition speakers. A lot of audio stores do not have vinyl playback set up on all of the systems they have. Most use streaming and usually have a cd/sacd playback system as well. Like you critical listening is vinly and SACD/CD. Thanks again!
Love this video Mike and very timely that im setting up my system after it being in flight cases for 18 months. I know a fair amount of the chain and how a tape gets to a vinyl pressing but the SACD format is a bit hazy for me. I'd love if it you expanded on that as you touched on it a little in the video. Cheers from Craig
Thank you! The short anserwer is, Analogue Productions indicates they take the original anoalgue master tapes and then whatever mastering engineer is doing that particular album will master the orginal tape directly to DSD. And that file goes to the SACD manufacturing companty for production. I will try and get a step by step process from AP and share that. Hope that helps a little. Thank you again.
You can listen to SACDs in DSD64. You need a DAC that has i2s input, a Blu-ray/SACD player, and an HDMI i2s converter box. HDMI output on the Blu-ray to HDMI in on the converter box. i2s output on the converter to i2s input on the DAC. Theres RUclips videos showing how to do this. I have a Denifrips Enyo DAC and an older Sony Blu-ray I set up that way. Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon on SACD in DSD64 is phenomenal sounding!!
This is why I never got into the format, two many hoops to jump through. I just want to get the full bitrate into my Chord Dave, afaik there is no possible way even with the BNC connectors.
Thank you for the heads up. I will be looking at new DAC's this spring as am hopeful to replace my amp and pre amp. I also want ot update my phono preamp and didital playback as well. Thanks again.
Charles Mingus the Clown and Hootie & The Blowfish Cracked Rear View. On Cracked Rear View I did a review of the 45rpm album and decided to take it out so as not to make the video to long, and The Clown isn't my favorite Mingus album. Both sound really good but didn't want to get to long winded. Thank you!
Hi Mike, this is my first time watching and am so impressed with your YES review and comparison in the other video (where I can see my Childhood framed on the wall behind you) just a heads up on the part mentioning a new Streaming DAC and using the Sony as a transport. Chances are the Sony won't spit out DSD over TOSLINK or Coax as DSD was locked in over Firewire i-connect to prevent coping on original 2000's players (remember this was the start of Mp3 file share at the time) so you could send the CD layer over digital. But the SACD DSD data DAC converter would still be your Sony. You would need a new SACD transport DAC that can spit out the DSD data, I think PS Audio support that over HDMI? As they production label "Octave Records" produce on DSD and sell physical SACD releases and higher DSD-256 files for their own gear.
Yes, that may not work as hoped, So likely need to look at a new transprot or something. PS audio is great stuff, I will be checking them out as I get closer to deciding what to do about new Pre and Power amp. When listening to the speakers that I eventually bought they had a stack of DCS products that they used to play my SACD's I had to demo speakers. DCS is way out of my league to consider but I was stunned at how wonderful it sounded. Looking forward to finding the right stuff to continue on the Digital and analogue side of my system. Thank you!
Nice review; didn't a lot of those Atlantic tapes perish in the 2008 fire? I know that the list of what was lost was not 100% accurate, but certainly a lot was.
Thanks so much for the great video. I’ve been looking for a video about the Atlantic 75 series on SACD for months and couldn’t find anything. Thanks. BTW, what discs did you buy that were only ok? I want to know which would be best on vinyl.
Hootie & The Blowfish and Charles Mingus Clown. They are both excellent sound SACD's. The Clown isn't my favorite Mingus album and I did Vinyl review of the Cracked Rear View 45rpm. I didn't want the video to be too long as I tend to get a little on wordy side. Both are excellent sound SACD's! Thank you.
I've tried using my sacd player as a transport and using my dac as the encoder and it doesnt work because of an sacd encoding chip has to be built into the unit. Sony did that for copyright protection so I think If you want to upgrade you'll have to get a better sacd player all together.
That is likley what I will need to do since my player is getting old. I will start looking at options to consider. There is still some great players being made today. Thank you.
You would think that SACDs would sound way better than the regular redbook cds with it's over 20 times more sampling rate. Of course Acoustic Sounds is not your usual run of the mill label. They do things way better and with more dedication, care and good judgement than most. Some SACDs on other labels are not 100% guaranteed to sound better than the redbook version. I think the RCA Living Stereo cds lack a bit of deep tone color compared to some of the regular redbook cds; which do sound better in some ways. I have not been disappointed on Mercury Living Presence SACDs; and some others. Would like to try some Acoustic Sounds SACDs.
Let me know if you do. I think Acoustic Sounds is doing a wonderful job with them. One of my best sounding SACD's is Analogue Productions release of Lils Lofgren Acoustic Live. It is simply stunning. Thank you!
Recently I bought a Denon SACD player and am loving the sound quality on every CD I play on it Granted. It was expensive and has a good DAC in it but on my system which is MacIntosh it’s hard for me to tell the difference between a SACD and a regular one When I paid the price for a SACD player I thought there was a bigger difference between the two but maybe my expensive CD player is improving the quality of the regular CDS I own
Very possible. I used to have an OPPO BDP 105D Universal player along with my Current Sony player. I felt the SACD playback on the OPPO might have been a tiny bit better than the Sony, but on redbook CD the Sony smoked the OPPO. So yes the better the player/dac for CD is the better the sound will be. Thanks Dave!
There was one other point I wanted to talk about - and you did briefly mention it - and it is the waiting time for SACD delivery from Acoustic Sounds. An SACD friend of mine told me that there are only two SACD pressing plants in the world now - one in Austria and the other in Japan - so I guess one has to expect delays. However, I have been ordering the Steely Dan SACD catalogue from Analogue Productions and in the first instance I waited almost a year for the order to be completed and despatched and for a second order I have been waiting several months so far with no word as to when two of the albums are going to become available. What concerns me is that some people might end up cancelling their orders not being prepared to wait and Acoustic Sounds will end up thinking not enough people are interested in SACDs.
There are currently 3 SACD pressing facilities....in Japan and Austria (owned by Sony DADC), and in Germany (owned by Sonopress). Mobile Fidelity uses both the Austrian and the German plants. In terms of the number of SACD titles being released each year, both Analogue Productions and Mobile Fidelity are relatively small players when compared to labels like BIS Records of Sweden (classical music label now owned by Apple) and Asian labels like Japan Universal Music or Hong Kong Universal Music; these labels release upwards of 70-90 new releases each year. I really think the delayed releases of SACDs is planned to maximize profits and not because of production capacity limitations.
@@dannytse8767 Thanks, Danny, for the info about the third SACD pressing plant. My friend is usually very knowledgeable about such matters so I simply took his word for it. I'll let him know about the Sonopress German plant. I have quite a number of BIS SACDs as well as those from Chandos, Hyperion (before it was involved in that law suit that almost bankrupted it and resulted in it dropping SACD - a pity, because the ones I have from it are superb too), ONDINE, Octave Records and a few from Japan. I also bought a number of the very early Sony single layer SACDs (promotional, I guess) and they still sound surprisingly good. As far as the Analogue Productions SACDs are concerned, I suspect you may be totally correct in your assessment of the situation. Acoustic Sounds is making its money selling vinyl and wouldn't want to "rock the boat" with people switching to buying SACDs instead.
That is a concern. I have been purchasing the ones i'm interested in when they are released. For some reason and I don't know the answer but MOFI seams to have SACD's available the same time the vinyl is available. I hope Acoustic sounds don't give up on SACD's I love what they are doing. Thank you John!
@@MikesVinylExperience Correct me if I am wrong but I think both MoFi and Acoustic Sounds own their own respective record pressing plants. If so, then it seems MoFi is doing a better job of planning their releases. I don't believe Acoustic Sounds/Analogue Productions is in the dark when it comes to when they will get deliveries of their SACDs from the pressing plants. Also, and I mean no disrespect to either the music or the artists, but I do think there is less demand for 50 or 60 year old jazz recordings on SACD than, for example, Whitney Houston's debut album on SACD (Music Direct is out of stock and the title is listed as out of print).
@@dannytse8767 I can't speak for MoFi but Acoustic Sounds definitely owns its own vinyl pressing plant. I wonder if Chad has ever thought of setting up his own SACD plant? With regard to your last paragraph, and I'm really thinking of vinyl releases, Chad, it seems, will release what his musical tastes dictate and 60s and 70s jazz is clearly one of his loves.
I think a more useful review would be comparing the SACD to the standard CD version to determine whether the more expensive player and discs are worth the money.
That's a good idea. On my next SACD Review I will do that. That could also be done when comparing Vinyl, SACD along with CD. Thank you for suggesting this.
I was all in on the Steely Dan SACD's and thought they were so poorly done I just can't get myself to pull the trigger on these. I was considering the Genesis release of Lamb but for a few bucks more can get the coming box set, so might just wait on that.
I too am interested in the upcoming boxset. One thing about the atlantic 75 sereies, is I don't think they have any limited number of vinyl/SACD that they will be doing so it should be in stock of a good long time. My original pressing of the lamb lies down on broadway actually really sound very good to me so I will have to evaluate when they drop. Thank you!
Mofi does master tape onto A/d converter 4x Dsd and then back down to 1x 64dsd . No pcm except the 16/44 cd . But the Dsd on Mofi sounds like vinyl . Not sure how AP does their mastering process
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Thanks, Mike, and to let you know that I've just subscribed to your channel. I've been an SACD fan for decades and have purchased a number of them from Analogue Productions and agree entirely with your comments. They are, without exception, superb and I can't think of one that has disappointed me. However, I continue to be disappointed that the format remains under-appreciated and under-supported. Whilst on the subject of equipment, I also have the Sony XA5400ES and had it extensively modified in Australia many years ago. (I live in New Zealand). It is in my second system. In my main system I use the PS Audio PerfectWave SACD transport and the DirectStream DAC Mk 2 and love them. The latter employs Field Programmable Gate Arrays which can be programmed to do whatever the designer wants and I recently received notification of a free firmware upgrade to Mount Blue Sky and that has resulted in an improvement over the previous firmware version (Mount Massive), which was already marvellous. I can thoroughly recommend both items of equipment.
Thank you John! That sounds like an amazing playback system! When i was in Las Vegas this past summer lisening to the PS audio FR30 speakers on a complete PS audio system that included transport and DAC. The sound was simply amazing! I have always been impressed with PS audio equipment. Also agree with that SACD does not get the love it does deserve. I will be doing more SACD content as I do purchase them along with vinyl. Thanks again John!!
Mike, thank you for great SACD's review. This is by far the best sound quality, DSD audio is incredible. *SUBSCRIBED*
Thanks Danny, And yes done properly DSD can be amazing! Thanks again!
@@MikesVinylExperience Mike, "Done properly" is the key here. I have three boxes of all the Genesis albums on SACD bought many years ago and some of them sound awful. It sounds if they were done in a hurry, without taking necessary care of levels etc, and Phil Collins' drums and cymbals suffer the most. They were released in reverse order, with the early Peter Gabriel albums coming out last - and they definitely sound much better than the others - except for "Calling All Stations", which transferred at a highish level, sounds fine too.
Great to hear your opinions on these SACD releases. I'm 65 obviously grew up with vinyl and made the transition to CD around 1987. The last vinyl disc I bought was in that same year. Still have all the vinyl in excellent condition. Recently retired and decided to reconnect with my vinyl as I had more time on my hands for serious listening. Honestly the turntable is basically an expensive ornament- a bit like that gym equipment people buy and end up using as an underwear and socks drying rack!
I just can no longer be bothered with the hassle associated with vinyl- too much faffing around and silly tedious rituals and. of course the rumble the background noise and the odd click and pop always at a key point in the music that spoils the entire experience.
I have approximately 1,400 SACDs- like any format the quality varies but when you discover a well recorded, well produced/engineered disci takes the listening experience to a whole new level. For me it's the ACME of physical media.
I have my fingers crossed that with any future uptick in CD sales as the vinyl hype and marketing BS subsides SACD can find a solid niche place in that market with more artists choosing to release their albums on the format.
There is certainly a big uptick in the number of SACD players being produced with a good range of machines to choose from.
My collection of SACD's is much smaller than yours but still have collected around 300 ( and still growing) of them through the years, My CD collection is much bigger and still from time to time purchase CD's. I do spend most of my budget on music on vinyl followed by SACD. I do like the ease of storing and handeling of SACD/CD's over vinyl but still love the sound of vinyl. I do love and support the SACD format and will continue to purchase them into the future. Thank you so much!
SACD's is the way to go. They sound Awesome and are easy and inexpensive to clean. Easier to maintain all around. It takes up half the space in My Music Room. Great Video!
Very true! Much easier to store and handle. Thank you.
So few artists release on SACD & the Hybrid cd players are very expensive - circa £1000 + here in UK.
The new MoFi Thriller Michael Jackson "One Step" re - release SACD £32 + P&"P UK
The.limited vinyl (6000 copies) over 2 vinyls is £132 + p&p
That's just 10 tracks 🤔
So sticking to cds 🎶
Thanks for the vid! I listen to CD’s for sure but nothing touches, for me, the inherent naturalness and musicality of a well recorded and mastered vinyl record.
I too have that same feeling. For me my Vinyl is the first choice. I do want to improve my CD and SACD playback system as well. Thank you!
@ thx - check out the specs for the Aesthetix Romulus CD player - it’s incredible and made in California. I believe it made the Absolute Sound’s top tier list-
@@SAGNI0971 I will! I actually have an Aesthetix dealer that is pretty close. Thank you!!
I have both vinyl and SACD's, as well as DSD downloads and I prefer the lack of noise (pops, ticks, scratches etc) on digital formats over vinyl. I have quite a few the AP SACD's and most are remastered brilliantly and give vinyl a real run for the money. In fact, I bought AP's the Wonderful Sound of Quality Record Pressing (on vinyl of course) and ended up buying the SACD version because AP's pressing had too much noise.
@@CliffCollipriest2013 I acutally have the wounderful sound of quality record pressing coming on SACD. I do have several AP vinyl records and found them to be at least to my ears very quiet. Of course SACD will and schould always have a much lower noise floor than vinyl. Thank you.
Adding one of those new Moon North Preamp/DACs to the mix would put your system into the stratosphere. The synergy of the system would be next level Mike.
Still trying to figure what what to do, I have been looking at Mcintosh, Moon, Lumin digital, PS Audio and a few others. I have been super impressed with the Moon Pre and power amps but they are pretty costly. Hope to pick something by summer. Thank you James!
Thanks for sharing a well reasoned, common sense perspective on your listening to these SACDs. IMO, it's especially of value since so little attention is now given to SACDs. That said, for casual listening I prefer Streaming, as for me nothing beats a personally selected playlist. When I listen critically, I prefer Vinyl and SACDs and Hi-Res downloads. I'm agnostic in that regard, whichever format provides the best recording is my foremost priority. That determination with classical music is affected by the conductor, performance and the recordings engineer. No matter how well engineered, if the emphasis the conductor places in the performance doesn't resonate, I will prefer another even if less well engineered. When it comes to evaluating equipment fidelity, I greatly prefer acoustic instrumentation. As we all intuitively know what a violin/piano/drums should sound like and thus have a frame of reference.
Thank you! SACD doen not get enough love which is sad because it really can be an excellent sounding format. When shopping for new speakers this past summer, I would always take a few vinyl albums and a bunch of SACD's to audition speakers. A lot of audio stores do not have vinyl playback set up on all of the systems they have. Most use streaming and usually have a cd/sacd playback system as well. Like you critical listening is vinly and SACD/CD. Thanks again!
Hey Mike,
Enjoying your thoughts and videos! Keep the videos coming 👏
Thank you!
Love this video Mike and very timely that im setting up my system after it being in flight cases for 18 months. I know a fair amount of the chain and how a tape gets to a vinyl pressing but the SACD format is a bit hazy for me. I'd love if it you expanded on that as you touched on it a little in the video. Cheers from Craig
Thank you! The short anserwer is, Analogue Productions indicates they take the original anoalgue master tapes and then whatever mastering engineer is doing that particular album will master the orginal tape directly to DSD. And that file goes to the SACD manufacturing companty for production. I will try and get a step by step process from AP and share that. Hope that helps a little. Thank you again.
You can listen to SACDs in DSD64. You need a DAC that has i2s input, a Blu-ray/SACD player, and an HDMI i2s converter box. HDMI output on the Blu-ray to HDMI in on the converter box. i2s output on the converter to i2s input on the DAC. Theres RUclips videos showing how to do this. I have a Denifrips Enyo DAC and an older Sony Blu-ray I set up that way. Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon on SACD in DSD64 is phenomenal sounding!!
This is why I never got into the format, two many hoops to jump through. I just want to get the full bitrate into my Chord Dave, afaik there is no possible way even with the BNC connectors.
Thank you for the heads up. I will be looking at new DAC's this spring as am hopeful to replace my amp and pre amp. I also want ot update my phono preamp and didital playback as well. Thanks again.
Would be interesting to hear about the ones that didn't make the cut and why.
Charles Mingus the Clown and Hootie & The Blowfish Cracked Rear View. On Cracked Rear View I did a review of the 45rpm album and decided to take it out so as not to make the video to long, and The Clown isn't my favorite Mingus album. Both sound really good but didn't want to get to long winded. Thank you!
Hi Mike, this is my first time watching and am so impressed with your YES review and comparison in the other video (where I can see my Childhood framed on the wall behind you) just a heads up on the part mentioning a new Streaming DAC and using the Sony as a transport.
Chances are the Sony won't spit out DSD over TOSLINK or Coax as DSD was locked in over Firewire i-connect to prevent coping on original 2000's players (remember this was the start of Mp3 file share at the time) so you could send the CD layer over digital. But the SACD DSD data DAC converter would still be your Sony.
You would need a new SACD transport DAC that can spit out the DSD data, I think PS Audio support that over HDMI? As they production label "Octave Records" produce on DSD and sell physical SACD releases and higher DSD-256 files for their own gear.
Yes, that may not work as hoped, So likely need to look at a new transprot or something. PS audio is great stuff, I will be checking them out as I get closer to deciding what to do about new Pre and Power amp. When listening to the speakers that I eventually bought they had a stack of DCS products that they used to play my SACD's I had to demo speakers. DCS is way out of my league to consider but I was stunned at how wonderful it sounded. Looking forward to finding the right stuff to continue on the Digital and analogue side of my system. Thank you!
Nice review; didn't a lot of those Atlantic tapes perish in the 2008 fire? I know that the list of what was lost was not 100% accurate, but certainly a lot was.
I am sure there was some that were lost. I know the Steely Dan catalogue they are doing is from back up tapes that Donald Fagen had. Thank you.
Thanks so much for the great video. I’ve been looking for a video about the Atlantic 75 series on SACD for months and couldn’t find anything. Thanks.
BTW, what discs did you buy that were only ok? I want to know which would be best on vinyl.
Hootie & The Blowfish and Charles Mingus Clown. They are both excellent sound SACD's. The Clown isn't my favorite Mingus album and I did Vinyl review of the Cracked Rear View 45rpm. I didn't want the video to be too long as I tend to get a little on wordy side. Both are excellent sound SACD's! Thank you.
I've tried using my sacd player as a transport and using my dac as the encoder and it doesnt work because of an sacd encoding chip has to be built into the unit. Sony did that for copyright protection so I think If you want to upgrade you'll have to get a better sacd player all together.
That is likley what I will need to do since my player is getting old. I will start looking at options to consider. There is still some great players being made today. Thank you.
You would think that SACDs would sound way better than the regular redbook cds with it's over 20 times more sampling rate. Of course Acoustic Sounds is not your usual run of the mill label. They do things way better and with more dedication, care and good judgement than most. Some SACDs on other labels are not 100% guaranteed to sound better than the redbook version. I think the RCA Living Stereo cds lack a bit of deep tone color compared to some of the regular redbook cds; which do sound better in some ways. I have not been disappointed on Mercury Living Presence SACDs; and some others. Would like to try some Acoustic Sounds SACDs.
Let me know if you do. I think Acoustic Sounds is doing a wonderful job with them. One of my best sounding SACD's is Analogue Productions release of Lils Lofgren Acoustic Live. It is simply stunning. Thank you!
Recently I bought a Denon SACD player and am loving the sound quality on every CD I play on it Granted. It was expensive and has a good DAC in it but on my system which is MacIntosh it’s hard for me to tell the difference between a SACD and a regular one When I paid the price for a SACD player I thought there was a bigger difference between the two but maybe my expensive CD player is improving the quality of the regular CDS I own
Very possible. I used to have an OPPO BDP 105D Universal player along with my Current Sony player. I felt the SACD playback on the OPPO might have been a tiny bit better than the Sony, but on redbook CD the Sony smoked the OPPO. So yes the better the player/dac for CD is the better the sound will be. Thanks Dave!
There was one other point I wanted to talk about - and you did briefly mention it - and it is the waiting time for SACD delivery from Acoustic Sounds. An SACD friend of mine told me that there are only two SACD pressing plants in the world now - one in Austria and the other in Japan - so I guess one has to expect delays. However, I have been ordering the Steely Dan SACD catalogue from Analogue Productions and in the first instance I waited almost a year for the order to be completed and despatched and for a second order I have been waiting several months so far with no word as to when two of the albums are going to become available. What concerns me is that some people might end up cancelling their orders not being prepared to wait and Acoustic Sounds will end up thinking not enough people are interested in SACDs.
There are currently 3 SACD pressing facilities....in Japan and Austria (owned by Sony DADC), and in Germany (owned by Sonopress). Mobile Fidelity uses both the Austrian and the German plants. In terms of the number of SACD titles being released each year, both Analogue Productions and Mobile Fidelity are relatively small players when compared to labels like BIS Records of Sweden (classical music label now owned by Apple) and Asian labels like Japan Universal Music or Hong Kong Universal Music; these labels release upwards of 70-90 new releases each year. I really think the delayed releases of SACDs is planned to maximize profits and not because of production capacity limitations.
@@dannytse8767 Thanks, Danny, for the info about the third SACD pressing plant. My friend is usually very knowledgeable about such matters so I simply took his word for it. I'll let him know about the Sonopress German plant. I have quite a number of BIS SACDs as well as those from Chandos, Hyperion (before it was involved in that law suit that almost bankrupted it and resulted in it dropping SACD - a pity, because the ones I have from it are superb too), ONDINE, Octave Records and a few from Japan. I also bought a number of the very early Sony single layer SACDs (promotional, I guess) and they still sound surprisingly good. As far as the Analogue Productions SACDs are concerned, I suspect you may be totally correct in your assessment of the situation. Acoustic Sounds is making its money selling vinyl and wouldn't want to "rock the boat" with people switching to buying SACDs instead.
That is a concern. I have been purchasing the ones i'm interested in when they are released. For some reason and I don't know the answer but MOFI seams to have SACD's available the same time the vinyl is available. I hope Acoustic sounds don't give up on SACD's I love what they are doing. Thank you John!
@@MikesVinylExperience Correct me if I am wrong but I think both MoFi and Acoustic Sounds own their own respective record pressing plants. If so, then it seems MoFi is doing a better job of planning their releases. I don't believe Acoustic Sounds/Analogue Productions is in the dark when it comes to when they will get deliveries of their SACDs from the pressing plants. Also, and I mean no disrespect to either the music or the artists, but I do think there is less demand for 50 or 60 year old jazz recordings on SACD than, for example, Whitney Houston's debut album on SACD (Music Direct is out of stock and the title is listed as out of print).
@@dannytse8767 I can't speak for MoFi but Acoustic Sounds definitely owns its own vinyl pressing plant. I wonder if Chad has ever thought of setting up his own SACD plant? With regard to your last paragraph, and I'm really thinking of vinyl releases, Chad, it seems, will release what his musical tastes dictate and 60s and 70s jazz is clearly one of his loves.
I think a more useful review would be comparing the SACD to the standard CD version to determine whether the more expensive player and discs are worth the money.
That's a good idea. On my next SACD Review I will do that. That could also be done when comparing Vinyl, SACD along with CD. Thank you for suggesting this.
I was all in on the Steely Dan SACD's and thought they were so poorly done I just can't get myself to pull the trigger on these. I was considering the Genesis release of Lamb but for a few bucks more can get the coming box set, so might just wait on that.
I too am interested in the upcoming boxset. One thing about the atlantic 75 sereies, is I don't think they have any limited number of vinyl/SACD that they will be doing so it should be in stock of a good long time. My original pressing of the lamb lies down on broadway actually really sound very good to me so I will have to evaluate when they drop. Thank you!
Tell your findings to the musicians and ask them for a honest response on what they think about that.
Mofi does master tape onto A/d converter 4x Dsd and then back down to 1x 64dsd . No pcm except the 16/44 cd . But the Dsd on Mofi sounds like vinyl . Not sure how AP does their mastering process
They claim (AP) that they take the original master tapes and re-master them to 1/4" tape and from there straight to DSD for the SACD's. Thank you!
@ I think that’s a better process
What CD player are you using?
Sony SCD XA5400ES SACD/CD player. Using the internal dac to balanced out's.