Is SACD a rip-off? Further thoughts on Kind of Blue.

I recently posted this thread.

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=46424&page=1&pp=20

I wanted to expand a little, independently of the original thread.

I was originally looking for a copy of Mile's Davis' Kind of Blue with lower hiss levels. As forum members have pointed out to me, the hiss is on the original master tape, so it is unavoidable. In fact with the experiment below, I have realised that the more hiss, the better the rest sounds!

Ok a little background. I live in Spain = no audiophile music shops, very few hi-fi enthusiasts and certainly none that I know of within hours of where I live. I have to learn/find the best recordings of things by trial and error or by just buying several versions of the same lp and finding out for myself (often expensive and frustrating). This was the reason for my recent post, which didn't get very much response about choosing between AF gold, DCC gold or SACD on certain titles.

Anyway, I made an off-the-cuff statement to Tom Port at Better Records the other day about the few SACD's I have sounding better than the equivalent cd's. He came back to me
asking which ones and I mentioned 2, one of which was KOB.

He asked me if I had the 20 bit cd as that sounded spot on to him. I thought I'd better go back and double check everything before I got back to him and embarrassed myself!
So last night I sat down and got my SACD out (the 5.1 version) and listened to the stereo mix. I borrowed back the CD that I had given away to a neighbour when I got the SACD. I had only perfunctorarily listened to the SACD and as it had lower hiss, I at the time assumed that it sounded better and gave the cd away.

Anyway, to start with, as someone in the other thread pointed out, for some reason, the SACD is mastered at a lower volume level than the cd's. What struck me though was that even playing the SACD at the same volume as the CD, the CD was much, much better. I spent over an hour comparing them, and believe me, I tried to make a case for the SACD, assuming that it was my ears that were wrong and that SACD just had to be better! The reality is that it was not, by a real long shot.

This prompted me to unseal the Japanese Mini LP CD that I was planning to sell as I had assumed that the SACD was better. Well, the Mini LP was again a marked improvement over the CD! In fact if I had to equate the improvements, I would say that the CD is about 20% better than the SACD and the Mini Lp is 10% better again. There is more space around the instruments, better bass, and the cymbals sound just about right. On the SACD the sound is flat, lifeless and dull in comparison with poor bass.

As reference the serial numbers are :

Mini LP Cd: SRCS9701
SACD: CS 64935
CD:CK 64935

I rang Tom and told him my conclusions. He sagely nodded his head and told me that an expert had told him so, and that it wasn't my ears deceiving me, which was a relief. He also mentioned that SACD technology was compromised.

I would be inetrested in other peoples comments. I do have SACD's that sound better than the CD but I only have 3 or 4 as I am still testing the water. I have heard good things mentioned on the forum about the Classical Living Stereo SACD's, but am now having doubts as to how good SACD really is.

 

Is SACD a rip off? No. Do some sound better than others? Yes. Same with CD, LP, DVD-A

 

But surely, an SACD remastered by the same company (in this case columbia) should sound better than the CD equivalent?

 

Well, this is what Steve had to say....from another thread

 

Mastering choices are subjective. You might prefer the CD because the mastering appeals to you. But that has nothing to do with the advantages of higher resolution.

 

I just love the sound of the 3 track on my home multi-channel system. It has that sound. Far superior to the first generation stereo LP I still have in my collection.

Richard.

 

Remember, sound quality is one person's opinion. If you prefer one disc over another, for whatever reason, don't let anyone sway you as to which is better. Trust your ears. As for me, I got the single-layer SACD of Miles since it was cheap (used, $8.99 US), and just rolled with it. I have the CD somewhere, too, if I need to play the album elsewhere. Just don't fret over every detail--I listen to KOB because of the music, and if I was too nitpicky on the quality, I'd lose my enjoyment of the music.

One comment: it could be that the SACD isn't mastered lower, but that possibly your player doesn't reproduce SACD at the same volume level as CD. Just a thought.

 

I love all the Sony Miles Davis SACDs (I am only missing one). KOB probably gets played more than any of the others except maybe "In A Silent Way" and I think it sounds fantastic. I do not have the remastered CD to compare, but the SACD replaced my copy of the Columbia Jazz Masterpieces CD and it was clearly a huge improvement.

 

Don't be swayed by the mastering of a particular disc into drawing conclusions about an entire format. I think the relevant question to be considered, after listening to a large number of discs of each format, is whether one format is capable of achieving levels of which the other format is incapable. IMO and on my system, I have been able to reach levels of dynamics, imaging, resolution (and particularly low level resolution) and transparency on the best SACDs that I have never reached on any CDs. While I have certain listened to individual CDs that sound better than some SACDs, I have not identified an area in which a CD has reached a level that no SACD can reach. Consequently, I believe that SACD is the superior format.

Is the SACD format flawed? Of course, and so is CD, DVD-A and vinyl. No current format can replicate perfectly all of the aspects of live music. But some of them can get pretty damn close, and that's why we listen to them.

 

Hi Rudy,

I am not nit-picking over minor differences here, the difference is really quite incredible, even more so considering I was assuming that the SACD would be superior. I made every excuse I could for the SACD and could not find a single thing that made it better than the CD versions.

The SACD is definitely mastered lower. In the other Miles Davis thread, somebody does mention this, and I checked with my Bill Evans Waltz for Debby SACD / CD.

I was hoping that there would be some input on the compromises Tom Port mentioned within the SACD format as a whole. I had never heard of this before.

Don't get me wrong, I am not knocking SACD, after all, I have invested in the format software and hardware wise, all I am pointing out here is that most people - including me - assume that SACD versions will be superior. This is definitely not the case in this recording. It is not my ears either - I just had an audiophile friend who only listens to digital rather than mostly vynil like I do, round to listen with me. I didn't name formats and he thought the Mini Lp was the SACD and that the SACD was the CD!!
I just wonder how many other recordings I might buy on SACD in the future assuming that they are "better", only to find that I have been shortchanged by the record company!

 

I agree in principle, facts and data all point to the superiority of SACD, but don't you feel shortchanged when you spend $20.00 to upgrade to SACD only to find that the original CD you already owned was better?

 

I'm assuming Mark Wilder mixed and mastered the SACD. He's great. I'm always a fan of his work.

He also mastered the last couple Time Out CD's and SACD's. I noticed the gold Mastersound CD sounded different than the remastered, clear tray CD and the SACD (stereo mix). There's good reason for this, they are different mixes. Mark mixed the gold disc and then remixed the album (presumably with tube gear this time) for the newest CD and SACD.

 

There has been endless online debate about this title in all of its incarnations, and everyone seems to have different opinions. In my opinion, the SACD is MILES better than the CD, on my equipment, (that is the qualifier). I have spent untold hours with this title in various formats, and the SACD just seems to have more openness and sparkle, and the SACD wins hands-down in the bass department.

 

IMHO SACD does sound generally flatter than PCM, that is why it's mid-range is usually described as more 'natural' and, oftentimes, DVD-Audio has been described as having 'a boomier bass' (as has been said of "Sea Change" in DVD-A). I believe these are due to the different 'imprints' of the formats and that that the 'flatness' of SACD has something to do with it being 1-bit, whereas PCM is multi-bit (be it 16, 24 or 32).

On the other hand, there is something that has not been mentioned in this thread as a possible element in these appreciations: the fact that different players handle each format differently (for better or worst).

 

Could it be that you've gotten a bum copy of the SACD?

I've always felt that the CD was mastered a bit too loud. My particular CD sounded distorted in several places (nasty digital clipping). As a result, my particular CD actually sounds about 35% worse than the SACD. Moreover, KOB wasn't recorded all that well (quality-wise) to begin with.

 

I've just ripped tracks from that KOB CD, and analyzed them through Creative's MediaSource WaveStudio app. I've discovered that even when the files were viewed in WaveStudio, I found limiter at several places on the CD - an indication that the CD was mastered a bit too hot.

By the way, mambo, it could be that your particular CD was pressed in Europe. My CD was pressed in the US.

 

When SACD was brand new and the first Sony players were released, Martin Colloms of Hi-Fi News found something interesting. He found that some of the differences between the latest CD and the SACD versions of Kind of Blue appeared to be tonal.

So he made some measurements and discovered that the SACD had more upper midrange energy than the CD, as if it had been (deliberately?) equalised. The tonal difference was enought to make the SACD sound more "detailed".

 

I have the remastered CD and the SACD, and the SACD has greater definition and depth than the remastered CD. That's what I hear when I compare them on my gear.


mambo, so you prefer the Japanese mini-LP CD over the jewel-case remastered CD and the SACD? I love the SACD, but maybe I should look for the Japanese disc. I have several versions of Kind of Blue, so what's another one?

 

To answer the question you addressed to me: yes, I do feel shortchanged when I purchase a poorly mastered SACD. I also feel shortchanged when I purchase a poorly mastered CD or LP. IMO, however, the problem in each case is with the particular recording, not the entire format.

I think the consensus of the foregoing discussion is that you may have a legitimate gripe about the mastering of the SACD you purchased (I can't speak knowledgeably about the KOB SACD), but it is an overstatement to say that the entire SACD format is a rip-off because there may be some instances in which an SACD is inferior to the corresponding CD due to mastering or other differences. Indeed, there are plenty of well-mastered SACDs that I think qualify as real bargains.

I hope you find many more well-mastered SACDs and enjoy them.

 

I prefer the gold mastersound version of Willie Nelson Stardust over the two channel SACD version. The SACD sounded brittle to me and the guitar sound on the CD sounds more to me like a real guitar. But I do have other SACDs that I prefer over the CD versions. I guess the guy doing the SACD mastering can tinker with it just like the guy making the CD can.

 

Does your tagline mean God is dead?

 

I would like to quote our esteemed Gort - Dave. "It's all in the Mastering".
Well mastered CDs can sound amazing.

 

WOW! Now I know I'm not the only one who thinks that this SACD is garbage! I was also shocked about how poor the SACD sounded compared to remaster CD (and I have a Sony XA9000ES, which I doubt anyone will ever call a poor SACD player). And by the way, ansolutely the same observations as Mambo! Low volume, no bass, no air - nothing! If you guys like this one I guess I can trade it.

 

The thread title is unreasonable.

If I found one LP I thought sounded worse than the same music on CD, should I say "Is vinyl a rip-off"?

If I found one CD that sounded worse than a cassette of the same music*, should I say: "Is CD a rip-off?"

* For example, the old MFSL cassettes do sound better than some CD reissues.

As far as the title under discussion goes, the only version I own is the original stereo SACD. I'll give it another spin tonight, but I can't recall feeling how antonk feels: "Low volume, no bass, no air - nothing!"

 

I'm wondering what Tom Port means by "SACD technology was compromised." Did he elaborate? I can tolerate varying opinions, but when statements of fact are made, I'd sure like to have some evidence--and a more specific description. What technology isn't "compromised"? Did Humorem mean that SACD was compromised to the point that it is indeed a rip-off, and that SACD is inherently incapable of delivering the best sound? I'd also love to know what expert "told him so" about Kind of Blue. Anonymous experts are not admissible in my court.

Sorry to be so cranky, but given the question and the "sage" response, I admit to extreme skepticism here. I'd also like to know if Steve believes SACD to be so "compromised" that it is not a truly hi-res format.