SACD vs. Blu-Spec vs. CD - Janis Joplin "Cheap Thrills"

So I broke down and purchased a Blu-Spec CD of an album I have on regular CD and SACD - "Cheap Thrills"...... I was curious how the Blu-Spec CD would sound with regard to all three.

Well as I might have expected the SACD was the best. Sounded most balanced, less bright, more "analog"... just WAY better than either the Blu-Spec CD or regular CD.

Again, though, the Blu-Spec CD sounded better than the regular CD - just a bit more fuller, more definition and tighter bass and treble extension over the CD.

And so that I wouldn't totally drive myself crazy (which I almost did) - I did this comparision with only one song off of the album - "Piece of my Heart". I played the song all the way through on each disc starting with the SACD for the first go round, then starting with the Blu-Spec on the second go round. From there I listened to the first 1 1/2 minutes of each jumping back and forth (more like jumping up and down to change the discs) over and over trying to discern which was the best.

The SACD was always very evident - it sounded that much different than either the Blu-Spec or regular CD. The differences between the Blu-Spec Cd and regular CD were harder to discern (but I still put forth that all the Blu-Spec CDs I have now sound better than the same CD counterpart).

Also just so everyone knows - I used the most current re-master (from the Janis Box of Pearls) for the CD - which is the same issue as the SACD and now the Blu-Spec. So for all intents and purposes the mastering is the same or similar (by Vic Anesini).

 

Interesting. Thanks for posting.

 

Blu-spec is still hamstrung by the 16/44 bottleneck that Redbook CD requires. So your findings don't come as that much of a surprise.

 

Samples?

 

I was gonna buy the Aerosmith - Rocks Blu-Spec disc but after reading this I'm a bit gun-shy now.

I'll probably just stick to my Sterling cut vinyl.

 

Probably a smart choice.

 

I'd love to hear samples of a Blu-Spec vs. non-Blu-Spec CD. I'm highly suspicious of marketing gimmicks like this.

 

Mike, thanks very much for sharing your observations. Very interesting.

I might buy some of these Blu-Spec discs if they were cheaper. Sony is putting out Blu-Spec CDs instead of hybrid SACDs and is charging more for the former. I guess they need to offset the R&D, marketing, etc. costs associated with the launch of Blu-Ray. Still, I don't like the focus on an inferior product.

Sony started a nice hybrid SACD campaign last year (e.g., Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock). It's sad to see that die off in favor of Blu-Spec CDs.

 

So how do you go about posting audio samples to this board?

 

Would be interesting to use the Blu-spec process to make SACDs.

 

They do show the year of the master on the label. For example, Boston Don't Look Back is 2006.

 

I concur.

 

From what I have read here, it seems that Sony is simply using the latest standard CD mastering for the Blu-Spec CDs. That is not surprising considering how fast they have been putting these titles out.

I lied about not buying Blu-Spec discs. Well, I'm getting one disc. A member is sending me a copy of Kind of Blue. I want to hear it since it has the well-regarded mastering that appears on the 2007 mini-LP CD and CD layer on the 2008 hybrid SACD. The SACD layer should beat the Blu-Spec CD, but I'd like to do the comparison.

 

Here's a question. Has anyone bothered to take a standard CD and a Blu-Spec CD that have the same mastering and make CD-Rs of them? Do the CD-Rs sound the same? If you make the CD-Rs at 1x, does the more accurate reading of data that is presumably the hallmark of Blu-Spec (reduced jitter) translate to a better CD-R?

 

You don't, at least not directly. Make some FLAC files, put them up on one of the web's multitudinous hosting sites (my advice: use Sharebee.com), and then post the link here.

 

Here are some links to flac files I created of the full song:

Piece of My Heart - version 1:

http://sharebee.com/41407ec3

Piece of My Heart - version 2:

http://sharebee.com/a1cae97e

I will let you know which is the regular CD and which is the Blu-Spec sometime later.

 

Thanks for the review Mike. Very interesting indeed.

 

Here are is a sample of the Clash's London Calling from regular CD and Blu-Spec. These are wav files:

London Calling version 1:

http://sharebee.com/f066d170


London Calling version 2:


http://sharebee.com/10b451a1

Again I will let you know which is the regular Cd and which is the Blu-Spec Cd at a later time.

 

These two are definitely taken from the same digital master; they stay perfectly synchronized and the waveforms look incredibly close. However, they don't quite cancel out, even when volume is normalized...there's a (very, very slight) difference in content, implying that some slight alteration took place at some stage of development. The difference hovers around an absurdly low dB volume, but is definitely more than dither noise.

(this was for the Piece of Heart sample; I'll do the other next)

 

This is where I demonstrate how unrefined I am.

I hear no discernible difference whatsoever.

*EDIT* In the Joplin cut. Still working on d/ling the Clash one.