I buy more cds from amazon now than I did 20 or 30 years ago. Cheap and lovely.
thegrimyeaper
I love listening to SACDs through my Sony DVP-CX777ES 400-disc changer. Superb sound!
dannymcneal
The slow take up of SACD is a real shame and waste of a great opportunity. I love physical media.
alext
SACD is the best format ever in my opinion, I buy them as often as I can, they are increasingly hard to find and they ain’t cheap, but they sure do sound the best
dempsey
What's most important in my humble opinion is the recording/remastering process and not the format. I've heard Redbook CD's that sound fantastic or bad depending on the process involved around the recording or final mastering. Ditto for DSD or PCM Hi Res. I feel that as yet the full potential of red book CD hasn't been harvested and that may hold true for the higher res formats as well.
Luvdac
I have a few sacd' s about 30 albums, and feel the mastering is better most of the time on sacd then cd, i Think personnally sacd is best overall.
planchernewfinish
The Carpenters Singles 1969-1981 on SACD sounds fantastic on the stereo and multi tracks.
nespressoman
I think MQA was created for the sole purpose of generating revenue, I have no problem with making money but the creation of MQA was not to overcome some problem that was preventing music from reaching people's ears. The addition of a corresponding light on audio gear to show that MQA is being received is a stroke of genius from a purely business point of view. A listener doesn't get anything that cannot be provided by existing formats but it is possible to check you are getting what you paid for with those formats. MQA has a little colored light that appears to make people think they're getting what they paid for when they may not be.
mrfrosty
I glommed on to SACD back in the day as it was the only digital format that I could stand to listen to more that one album before my ears started objecting. I have compared directly, vinyl, redbook, hi-res, MQA (software only) and DSD. What I have learned is that the most important thing in digital is the DAC. And probably the most important part of the DAC is the analog output stage. I have had a copy of "Jazz at the Pawnshop" on vinyl for many years. I bought a copy in DSD directly converted from analog. Playing the record followed by the DSD, it is like a curtain had been blocking the players and was lifted for the DSD. The improvement is so great that I suspect the recording was remastered. I never thought I would say this, but digital is now equal to analog, and can be superior in some cases, and as it turns out, always has been. It just took this long for people to start treating the digital to analog conversion seriously.
So here is my hierarchy from worst to best: MP3, higher bit rate MP3, cassette (had to throw that in, and yes I have a Nak), CD and MQA (again software decryption only) are equal, 192/24 high res files, vinyl although a remastered high res can sound better, and DSD that is not converted from PCM. Although 44.1/16 PCM can sound very good, high res is better despite theories that say it is not, probably because the brick wall filters are set at a higher frequency and have less effect on the audible frequencies. MQA should have this same advantage.
johnlebeau
A first-rate and often very expensive disc player will show SACD and CD to be far better sonically than I believed possible. Much much closer to high speed analog tape, which for these older recordings at least means a closer approach to what was put on the master tapes.
stangowin
Personally, I don't want anything to do with MQA. Anything that requires my stereo to have an internet hookup to get maximum sound quality is a non-starter for me. No, thanks, even if it was the best sounding format ever.
SACD, on the other hand, I absolutely love. Whether the format itself sounds better, or whether it is simply better remastering, I don't know for sure. On second thought, I have many hybrid discs and the SACD layer is inevitably better. Not only the Rolling Stones, but the Police and Peter Gabriel released their entire catalogs on SACD, and Bob Dylan the majority of his. Then there are audiophile labels like Mobile Fidelity, Audio Fidelity, etc. who regularly release SACD titles: Stevie Ray Vaughan, Norah Jones, and on and on. Dire Straits' remaining titles will be out soon from Mobile Fidelity. Then there are countless Japanese releases, from Rock to Jazz to Classical, all easily available to order online. Apparently, SACD is big in Japan. Most of what I've bought sounds exceptionally good. Then there is the Classical market. Many, many Classical titles are still released on SACD and sound absolutely stunning on that format. Rachel Podger's new "Four Seasons" is a great example. Yeah, there are a hundred "Four Seasons" already, but this one is really something special, in both performance and sound quality. And I could go on for hours. There is an ever increasing number of absolute treasures in the best available sound quality on SACD. Sure, it's an audiophile format for a niche market, but so is everything else not named "CD" or "mp3". I actually enjoy tracking down rare discs. I enjoy owning physical media. No streaming for me, no downloads. We all have brands of stereo equipment that the average person has never heard of. We all hopefully put in a little effort to acquire the best sounding releases we can find, if there's a choice, regardless of the format. I started in audio with vinyl records. I own several thousand CDs that I still enjoy immensely. I started buying SACDs back when they were first introduced in 1999, I think it was, and I own several hundred. SACDs just sound best to me. Here we are nearly twenty years later and SACDs are still being released all the time, hardly the mark of a dead format. Niche format may be an apt description, not dead. But we are audiophiles; some would say the entire industry that supplies this hobby is dead. Not to me. Not till the fat lady sings. When it's an option, I will choose SACD every time.
brianmoore
It is really important to note that most SACDs are hybrid with a CD layer on the disc as well as the SACD one. This means that any Cd player can play them. As can any SACD player.
alanus
You just explained why it's so difficult to try to find used SACD titles mixed in with regular CDs at record stores, thrift stores, flea markets, etc. -- they often don't even mention SACD or have the logo on the covers or spine, and often come in regular CD cases. And even just looking for the rounded Super Jewel Boxes that many SACD titles came in isn't foolproof, as some regular CDs came in a Super Jewel Box as well!
vwestlife
Your ~3 year old video is floating back up to my suggestions, because I've been hearing about MQA, and the how it is not what it claims to be.
NeilBlanchard
I guess the reason why DSD/SACD is only really happening in the classical world is that as soon you're using some kind of digital audio workstation like Pro Tools etc. during production, you basically have to use PCM for that. So apart from music that is essentially recorded straight from microphone to master or recorded mostly analog and only then transferred to digital, DSD just doesn't make much sense, because you'd have to convert from DSD to PCM and back anyway during production.
StefanWiesendanger
Most people that claim there is no difference between Normal cd (44.1) and High Rez formats, They also can't hear a difference between 320 mp3 and lossless. So I have no more to say.
HASHEAVEN
I have over 40 sacd...love them all...some of them are rare and worth $$$
EARLandPEARL-ci
Oh yeah, we're going there! I'm still digging hdcds! lol! Neil YOung, Joni, Beach Boys, Cars, Roxy, Ferry, Dead, and many more all sound great to me with my hdcd player and Pacific microsonics hdcd player processor chip. The Stone sacd drama is even crazier than that as they released jewel cases claiming sacd and the discs inside were just regular cds! The digipaks have the sacds.
mondoenterprises
The future of sound right now is immersive audio.
3D sound using Auromatic up mixing of SACD (hi resolution) or hi resolution files that Apple and Amazon are now producing with Atmos encoding (yes-new offerings daily) is addictive. We have rediscovered not only our SACD’s but our CD collection playing them on a 7.2.6 (13.2) system using the Auro 3D codec (even if released in Atmos format). Thank you Wilfried!
