Tommy:SACD or DVD-A

HI,

I just ordered one of these Universal players (Samsung DVD-HD841). I am an old Who fan. I even saw the first American performance of Tommy at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit in 1969. However, I'm not interested in getting two new copies of this right off the bat.

I did a search, but found that the threads that dealt with this are over a year old. I wanted to see how people currently felt about this.

So which do you recommend?

 

I have the SACD and like it very much.

What I didn't like is the Universal player you have ordered. I had it for about 90 minutes and returned it to Best Buy for another one. I had a problem with the track numbering. If I remember correctly, it counts the menu as track 1, the first song as track 2 and so on. Also, it doesn't do fast forward or fast rewind very well on certain discs. Maybe you will have better luck. I hope so. I returned the second one and went out and found a Pioneer 578A and have had great results from it.

 

To make matters worse, the one I ordered is a refurb. Broke the bank. Almost $80 with the shipping.

 

I have the Tommy SACD. Never listened to the 5.1 track. Got it for the original mix in hi-rez and I'll tell you it sounds GREAT.

 

Totally depends on the player you have and where it's strenghts lie. I have both ho-rez versions. Since my Universal player is better at DVD-A, I prefer the DVD-A. YMMV.

 

The DVD-A has a great interview and some other stuff, but the SACD is great as well.

I have never listened to the stereo track on either disc.

 

By all accounts, both sound great, but it looks like the biggest difference is the interview stuff on the DVD-A.

 

This is true, on this particular title, for only the 5.1 mix, since it was digital. For the 2-track original stereo mix, they did the right thing, and transferred it twice. Once in PCM for the DVD-A, again in DSD for the SACD.

 

The SACD stereo tracks just rock. Very natural and vibrant sound.

Most older rock albums are analog to DSD transfers. I believe Tommy was based on the tapes as well.

 

Yes it was. My best friend was the guy that made the SADiE system Tommy was mastered on. When he delivered it he called me just to say he was holding reel one of Tommy in his hands. The master tapes were played into the DSD converters and tweaked from there.

 

Thanks Jamie...that's a cool connection. It sounds to my ears better than a PCM source but then again Gaucho sounded alright and it was PCM.

 

I love the SACD for Tommy and often listen to the 5.1 mix (I'll have to finally get around to listening to the stereo version this weekend). The only thing I didn't like was the vocal mix for "Cousin Kevin" which diminishes John's (I think) whiny vocals, which was my favorite part of the song. Other than that the 5.1 kicks ***.

 

My sentiments exactly. Until I purchased a Sony SACD player to compliment my universal
player, I was DVD-A all the way. I don't know about Samsung, but I'd go with the format
you think sounds better (unless the interview is swaying you, and anytime Pete has
something to say, I often listen).

Mark

 

See Jamie's post above. This SACD is straight analogue to DSD for both mixes.

 

I prefer the DVD-A - not only b/c of the multimedia content, but because it appears the sacd's hi-freq's have been shelved at 75khz to fit the album on one disk. Interview with Jon Astley:

I had a problem because it’s 75 minutes, and at the time the program for writing SACD cutting masters in the SADiE would only run to 70 minutes. So I sent one to Sony, and they said it couldn’t be done. I also sent one to Petra Schmidt at Philips, who said she could do it but it would mean rolling off some high end. I was just on the point of phoning the label to tell them we had to split the album when I thought I’d ask for the AIT back, just to check it. Listening to it, I thought I could hear a midrange thing that was slightly different, but I couldn’t hear any top end gone at all. I phoned her and she said ‘I’m sorry I had to roll the top end off.’ I asked where from, she said: ‘at 75kHz’!

If memory serves, the DVD-A is 24/96.

Here's a link to that interview with Astley (on pdf)...

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=48444&highlight=tommy+sacd

Cheers,

 

I have not heard the DVD-A. IMO the SACD 5.1 mix sounds great, with a very natural sound and superb drums. Two points:

1. The multichannel mix (I assume this is true for DVD-A as well as SACD) sounds a lot different than the Tommy mix with which you are familiar. It is much more intimate and straightforward, not "symphonic" like the original. I like it, but it has been the subject of some understandable criticism.

2. The SACD seems largely devoid of very high frequency sounds, almost as if someone walked off with some of Keith's cymbals. The effect is still quite musical, but at times you may be conscious that something is missing. One of the posts above suggest that there was some shelving at 75khz. I can't comment on this because I don't even know what it means, but I noticed the missing highs almost immediately. Still, IMO it has about as natural sounding midrange as you will hear from any rock SACD.

 

Felix, if you can hear that more power to you but obviously I and Jon Astley cannot. I played it again this morning and there seems to be no impact on the SACD high frequency range. It just sounds great. I would argue this is not a reason to dismiss the SACD since it is so far up in the inaudible range.

Hal, I did not experience any trouble with Keith's cymbals...I wonder if you have a player that is filtering the HF content...

If the DVDA is 24/96 then the DSD version on the 2 channel wins due to the extra detail...on the multichannel it may be closer if they used a PCM source.

 

My player has excellent HF performance on other SACDs and DVD-As (it has other deficiencies, however, that are not relevant here). I believe I have been hearing some loss of high frequencies on this SACD, and I certainly don't claim to hear 75khz. When I have a chance, I will listen to Tommy in another format to see if the high frequencies I think I am missing were never there to begin with.

 

My only complaint with the 5.1 mix is that "Pinball Wizard" sounds different. Ddin't like how that first power chord sounds after the jangly guitar opening (compared to the famous stereo version).

Other than that it sounds pretty good in MC on either SACD or DVDA (I have both!)

 

It means all those ultra high frequencies we can't hear where there's nothing but random noise have been taken away. There's no reason any rational person would worry about it at all. That would be like not wanting to buy a car because they washed the windows with Windex instead of another brand of window cleaner. Silliness. Besides, we can't detect sounds much past 15kHz anyway (yes, yes, I know, but I said "much past").

 

Hi Lee,

In the interview, Astley *does* notice something different in the mids, not the highs (which at 75khz I agree is waaay beyond one's ability to hear - I guess the filtering is affecting harmonics in the mids, who knows...?). The irony is that they do a spiffy hi-res DSD transfer from the analog master and then they filter at 75khz (when the DVD-A is at 96khz).

I'm not dismissing the SACD at all - I just prefer the DVD-A in this case. Just my $.02,

 

Re the SACD release: my understanding is that the only true, native DSD transfer from first gen analog tape is the stereo mix. The multi-channel mix was done in ProTools, so it is either a transcoding from PCM to DSD, or they bounced the surround mix to tape, then transferred back to DSD. Although this is further removed from the source, some artists and engineers like the sound of bouncing back to tape.

 

I agree. It's also unclear - unless I skimmed over it in the Astley interview - whether the stereo mix, m/c, or both are filtered at 75khz.

 

Don't many SACD players have a filter at about 50 or 55kHz to protect the tweeters from burnout (or something)?

 

EVERYTHING sounds different on the m/c version, IMO the most "changed from the original" m/c mix I've heard, almost a different album entirely. I like this approach very much, and I think the m/c mix is a valid artistic achievement in it's own right... but it ain't "Tommy" as we've always known it, not even close!