Current State of CD vs SACD vs DVD-A

Hi All,

I thought I'd check out the current status on the CD vs DVD-A vs SACD battle. However, it seemed even harder to find information now, than it did when the formats were first released.

To add to my confusion, I now hear audio CD's have been issued with DTS mixes - these must be played in CDP's with digital outputs - and hence the decoder does the magic. But ... why the need for these? Surely those who want surround mixes would move to DVD-A or SACD?

Anyway - back to my original question:- Which format is 'winning'? Do modern DVD video players also play DVD-A disks? Are there DVD-A players - which only play audio (not video)?

A number of artists have released DVD video's now - but these appear to be nothing more than standard DVD video disks, and of the few I've seen theyr'e only using PCM encoding at 48 Khz (can't remember if 16 or 24 bit) - but that's still way under the full capabilities of the format...

I'm completely confused when it comes to this new technology ... could someone bring me up to date?

Thanks


Steve
Bristol, UK

 

Brief summary as I see it:
- SACD is "winning" (it has the vastly greater market penetration and reliable hybrid CD/SACD discs)
- Only more expensive DVD players also play DVD-A
- All players capable of DVD-A also play DVD-V
- The vast majority of music DVDs are just DVD-V with a PCM soundtrack if you're lucky

...and finally....

- both SACD and DVD-A are doomed to fail. To the vast majority of people who buy music they don't add anything they don't already get from CD.

Michael.

 

Just wait to you get Blu-ray'd

 

LPs appear to be the next big thing. They outsold SACD and DVD-A combined last year.

Of course, they'll never catch on.

-- Ian

 

Actually Ian, I suspect more forum members have invested in vinyl as a high resolution source over the past year than either of the new pretenders.

It's bloody easy to hear why

 

This is not always true. I have a £200 Cambridge Audio DVD player which does DVD-A and sounds bloody fantastic too

 

Thanks for the responses - it's good to see some of the old regulars still visit ZeroGain

Interesting to hear LP's have outsold both SACD and DVD-A ... has the demand for LP's actually increased, or are SACD/DVD-A formats really selling that badly?

If Vinyl is making (an abeit small) comeback - I'd be a very happy man.

Steve

 

an £80 Panasonic DVDS35 also plays DVD-A












probably not very well though

 

SACD i think but about hardwares i think brands try to producing DAC vs CDplayer or producing cdplayers how have digital input.

 

Hi,

My personal experience with hi-res audio:

18 months ago I bought a Pioneer 656 universal player. I bought a bunch of discs (4 IIRC) in order to hear DVD-A and SACD. At the time I could only find a couple that I would actually have bought because I actually liked the music (Missy and The Police). Since then I've bought none, zilch, zippo. I have very catholic musical taste (Classical, Gabba, Jazz, Country, Techno, Punk, R&B) and a relatively large CD collection (circa 800 discs).

If I can't find any new music which I want to buy on hi-res then what hope do the formats have?

Long story short: I've given up on multi-channel and have gone back to stereo. CD in fact. I still have an AV system but that's all it is - AV.

Oh, and I'm looking at buying a turntable.

Regards,

Jules.

 

my SACD expirience:
- bouthght sony dvp-9000es dvd/sacd player 15 month ago
- on SACD it sounds fantastic - better than meridian 588 and G-08
- have 80 SACDs today - most of them jazz, some classical
- my SACD wish list is very long

there is no war between formats.

 

I have 3 SACDs and no SACD player.

Two of these were SACD-only albums, the other I'm not quite sure why I bought the SACD version, but there you go.

Vinyl is slowly increasing in sales. DVD-A and SACD are faring appallingly badly. What really doesn't help is that next-generation formats are already appearing (Blu-ray, HD-DVD, SACD2) and compatibility appears to be shaky. And there are 3 competitors this time around...

When new formats are introduced, it seems that often if there are two or more competitors, none succeed. CD had no similar competition at the time, but DCC and MD both failed to make much impact (MD moreso, but still not exactly a ubiquitous format), DVD didn't have any real competition (DVHS suffered the same fate as domestic DAT and DCC, being tape based formats). Now the high-res formats are fighting it out and I think we'll see another DCC/MD thing.

 

Interesting that there is no clear concensus on the state of the hi-res formats even on this forum. Considering that these formats are aimed exactly at users like us, i.e. people who care about the way things sound, it is obvious to me that they are in trouble. Most people are just staying put with CD's which makes me realise what a stroke of genius the CD introduction was (over 20 years ago!).

It is interesting to compare this to the VHS vs DVD battle. No contest there as you could be half deaf/blind and still hear/see how much better the new format was.

With SACD & DVD-A, I'd say one out of ten homes would have a hifi system good enough to justify the purchase of hi-res disc over normal CD's.

As for the surround sound element of these formats, most users can't even set-up speakers for stereo properly so how will they manage with a 5.1 set-up.

 

Thoroughly agreed. The CD format is intrinsically very good indeed, and throwing much higher bitrates at producing a "high-resolution" digital format hasn't actually produced much (if anything) by way of improvements over it, if the debates you get here and elsewhere are anything to go by.

 

Interesting comments - I didn't realise the high definition formats were having so much trouble!

I notice HDCD is also dead, with Microsoft now owning the copyright/patent (?) and practically no HDCD's being released

I think I'll stick with good old CD (or vinyl) for the time. I can hear the difference between 16/44.1 and 24/96 (or higher) but as these formats already seem to be dead ... there's little point in investing. I notice there's a reasonable amount of Jazz available - and whilst i do like Jazz, I don't like it enough to justify investing solely for that one genre...

Steve

 

DSD is winner to PCM and DVD is winner to CD.