SACD vs CD dem

I've been meaning to get around to trying an SACD player vs a CD for absolutely months. Today I finally got down to a local Sevenoaks for a test.

The baseline for this test was an Arcam 93, Cyrus 8 and MA GR20s. I can't say that when mixed in with the not so great room acoustics that it was my favourite stereo based system, but all the same, the objective of the test was not to find whether I liked their base system, but to see how an SACD player compared.

So, we're looking on the one hand at the Arcam 93, costing approx £900 I guess.
The SACD player was a Marantz DV6400 universal player, costing roughly £350 (don't know exact price, but in effect we're looking at a player that is somewhere between 1/3rd and 1/2th the cost of the Arcam unit).
I'm not going to comment about the video, DVD-A or CD performance of the 6400 as frankly I don't care, it was purely down to the Marantz SACD vs Arcam CD.
The two disks I had to hand were DSOTM and a classical hybrid with some rather good piano/violin works.


And the results. Well they were certainly consistent. In short, I didn't really feel that detail, extension or similar were any different. However, the SACD somehow managed to turn a nearly two dimensional synthesised version of a piano into a real grand. I simply can't think of many other ways to describe it. Here's a new meaningless word for use in a hi-fi description, "believability".
I simply found the presentation of the instuments by the Marantz SACD to be FAR more believable.
In addition, some of the gritiness, particularly within the treble was cleaned up (not simply smoothed over, just cleaned up, like the difference between a cheapy power amp and a good one).

So for the cash, and IF you have no problems with a limited range of disks, and are happy buying new stuff on SACD, seems like quite a bargain.

As a sidenote, once the Arcam/Marantz dem was completed, I also asked to listen to a cheapy Pioneer 565 universal, which is half the cost of the Marantz (if you buy it at RS).
Todate I've hardly seen anything in the press or online about differences between SACD players and wanted to know if even a cheapy unit was good.
The unfortunate news is that the line of "you gets for what you pays" seems to be just as true for SACD as it is for CD.
Frankly the Pioneer sounded completely rubbish in comparison to the Marantz.
Many might say about "diminishing returns", but the Marantz really was twice as good as the Pioneer, which sounded muddy, undetailed and generally pants (using the same tracks).

I intend to take the test a little further in the near future by having a home dem. When that happens, I'll update this thread.

 

Interesting!

 

Very interesting

 

IMHO the model above - the Marantz DV8400 - is great too.

 

Once wolf has been wounded by the snare of those nasty cables it will approach everything with great caution.

 

Well I now have the Marantz 6400 on home dem, thought it would be worth giving everyone a quick update.

Lets get the not so interesting stuff out of the way first.

The start of the test was to see how much better the Marantz was over my existing Pioneer 535 DVD player, whilst playing DVDs. Frankly I didn't think there was much in it, although my missus felt there was some small visual improvement.
In addition, the Marantz does have component out (though no progressive scan). Not that this would make much difference to me as my Sony TV doesn't support either.
So not a significant improvement for DVD.

So, onto the audio side of things.

The system it was used in was:
Naim CD5i (just about run in now, but probably still a little more to come)
Naim 112 pre amp powered by a Hicap power supply
Naim Nait 5 integrated being used as the power amp section (the pre-amp section being by-passed). This is clearly not a long term solution and will be replaced when I find a Nap 150 at sensible prices. Don't laugh too much though, as I didn't find a Nap 200 to be that much better than the Nait power amp section.
Linn Kabers, upgraded with Neodymium tweeters and mounted on concrete slabs.
All the electronics is on a mana stand, NACA5 speaker cabling

Comparing the Marantz to the CD5i on CD was pretty short lived and the result is hardly going to surprise anyone. The CD5i didn't just outperform the marantz, it completely butchered it. So don't expect to be able to replace a good existing CD player with one.


Now, the SACD test, i.e. the interesting bit. This was the Marantz playing an SACD, with the CD5i playing the CD equivalent track.
Well my money goes with the Marantz/SACD solution.
The difference was certainly not as vast as the Arcam to Marantz, infering that at least in my system/opinion, that I'd find the CD5i more than capable of seeing off an Arcam 93.
The differences were pretty much of the same type as those I found during the Arcam/Marantz comparison, ie.
- Less treble hash with SACD
- Better placement of instruments with SACD
- The instruments in question are more "fleshed out" with SACD, changing them from a two dimensional pastiche to a 3D hologram making them far more "believable".


So, overall the Marantz still shines, although it's not great shakes as a CD player and really only slightly better than say a Tosh 220 on DVD (I've tried both against my ageing Pioneer).
The key fact is that on SACD, it genuinely IS better than a MUCH more expensive CD player.
My guess is that this is more down to the format than the player though, although experience with the cheapy Pioneer 565 still shows that some skill is required.

Long term, well whilst I found the SACD player better, it wasn't MASSIVELY better. Strikes me that it would be interesting to purchase some more SACDs, on the grounds that it's only a matter of time before someone like Naim releases a vaguely reasonably priced unit (unlike the multi-thousand price units from Krell, Linn and Meridian that are now out).
So, here's hoping that the SACD catalogue will improve in the nearish future.

 

Great post Mike!

What I have found is that SACD improves on the tangibility of CD, putting flesh on the bone so to speak. It seems you are finding the same.

Sadly, I think the format is doomed long term, but if you are getting it for nothing (as an add on to a movie player) then it seems well worth having.

I've just ordered an SACD spinner (two channel) along with a very good CD player as replacements for the Eclipse. I will trial both at home, and the winner will stay, regardless of format.

Am I right that the amp that you use limits the bandwidth available from SACD? How do you find the comparison between the CD layer and DSD layer both played back on the Marantz?

 

Michael,

I've no idea how to chose between the two layers on the player, but I can't imagine the comparison being very positive for the CD player capabilities of the player.

Just a year ago, I think that I would have agreed that SACD was not looking good.
Now, I'd actually say that things have changed.
Krell have launched something well regarded, as have Linn, Meridian, MF etc. Even Naim "may" have one on the drawing boards. This position simply didn't exist a year ago.
To me that suggests that whilst SACD may never become a normal consumer product, that it seems to have just about joined new LPs in their niche market.
With the advent of the new players, I really do see more companies releasing music on the format, leading the competition and a lowering of prices.

So I now see SACD as having quite a rosy future.

As for the technology. Well I believe that the improvements I heard were a result of the format, and not of the player. So just how good will a £1k unit from say Naim sound like in a year or so (I'm just using Naim as an example, so please lets not get into turning this into a pro/against Naim arguement).

 

You should be able to select the layer in the options screen, it is here that I think the interesting comparison can be had. If the SACD layer has that wow factor compared to the typical UK household's version of CD replay, then with the increasing number of universal players, maybe it has a chance of becoming a buzz word.

I use the Denon 2900 at the moment and it's not bad at all, although the need for bass management in the player, and the resulting conversion to PCM rather knobbles SACD.

To be honest, the future of hi rez may well have nothing to do with discs at all. I have long believed that downloadable hirez files available on encripted sites will be the way forward. It seems, with the launch of the new Windows Media setup, that this state of affairs has been brought considerably closer.

 

There should be a button on the remote for this.

 

Here's my final thoughts on the SACD dem, please excuse the length of this post and the fact that it's not quite so focused as the others.

I still have the Marantz SACD unit and couldn't resist trying it out with another variety of tracks this afternoon.
Yes it still has that "believability" that I mentioned previously, but during this more extended listening session, I couldn't help but notice that I couldn't manage to listen to most of the songs for more than 2-3mins at a time before getting bored.
Must have taken me nearly 30 mins before it clicked.
Yes, this player does some things very well, but for all that, it's totally p1ss boring. Whilst conducting a side by side dem against the CD5i, I was concentrating on identifying differences, and missed on the the essential elements, i.e. whether I actually enjoyed listening to it.

Swapping back to CD on the Naim player, and it was all smiles again, plenty of foot tapping and some brilliant music. Nope, didn't do the imaging quite as well, but didn't half make my CDs sound great.


Following this, I had a good think about things and came to the conclusion that to own both an SACD and CD player would actually be bad news. The simple point being that when switching between them, it would simply highlight that they both have their own strengths and weaknesses, which long term is likely to simply annoy me to death.
So, the SACD player goes and I'll return to just focusing on a single format. Of course the good news is that the cash I save will be used later on and even better stereo based system.

Extrapolating my thoughts on the SACD front, and I've also decided to ditch the AV sound kit, but that's another thread I think.

 

Mike, you hit the nail on the head with sacd mate, however good the mids get, the rest doesn't fit the picture, besides, cd can be made rather good, even in the beliveibilty stakes. T.

 

Very interesting thread.

But perhaps you are being unfair to SACD. You are comparing a very good CDP with a middling SACD (correct me if I'm wrong - I may well be). If this is so, SCAD, by itself, won't be automatically better. Like a Diesel car compared to a gasoline one: if you ciompare a turbo diesel with a Fiat Punto, the Punto is bound to frustrate you.

But even if I'm wrong, and the Marantz is comparatively good, SACD hasn't yet come of age, and Cd has. Just remember the first generation CDPs up to the first Meridian ones.

Anyway, your posts confirmed my decision: I'll wait until I am sure what new format wins, then wait for the prices to come down and the technology to develop and then get whatever I like best.

What I listened from SACD was difficult to appraise, because, to begin with, it was jazz, with which I am not familiar, and the rest of the system was very dull (for my taste - it was a top of the top notch Audiocompamiet thing, plus some very expensive speakers, but it did sound dull and curiously flat to me). But comparing it to plain CDP (a Wadia, no less), it seemed actually better.

But I agree with Big Tone (Wadia Monster ): CD can be extremely good. So it is wise, I think, to postpone any purchase of sources if you have a good CDP.

 

Very much looks that way. Not necessarily a bad thing either, if it's done right.
Anyone for an audiophile iPod?

 

Your test may not have been valid. From what I know, the hybrid disks have remixes on the CD layer. Therefore, the hybrid disk will have a different mix than the non-hybrid CD of the same music if it was previously released. As I understand it, the new remixes of the CD layer are not necessarily the greatest. I don't know if that's an attempt by the record companies to ensure that the SACD sounds better than the CD no matter what or if it's simply that less care goes into mixing the CD layer. A more valid test would be to pick a non-hybrid CD and compare that to the hybrid CD layer, than take the best version and compare that to the SACD.

 

The CD layer of The Dark Side Of The Moon SACD sounds better than either of the previous CD releases IMHO

 

That's fair enough. As long as we're comparing the best sounding CD mix against the best sounding SACD. Otherwise, the test results will be inconclusive.

 

DV8400 vs 6400

Did anyone copmare the DV6400 to the higher level DV8400?

I think the DV6400 is a modest multi-player, at least in "Marantz terms". It is even cheeper than the former DV6200, that had no SADC support. I think that Marantz made a wrong step with this multiplayer, that is only around $600, while the next one, the DV8400 is $2300. They could have work some more on this 6400, even if they would have carge it the double. Now they have a cheap 6400, good but not enough and a far too expensive 8400.

So, did anyone listen to the audio of these 2 units? Is the 4x price worth the difference?
Thanks
Emil

 

See my recent post 'reaching for the credit cards..' - I just demmed a Krell SACD player, which I'm likely to end up buying. It comprehensively trounced my MArantz Cd17KiS + TAG DAC20 cpmbo on CD, and trounced its own CD perfoemance again when on SACD (I have Dark Side of The Moon on both formats). According to the dealer, who is familiar with the Wadia, Levinson, Ayre, Acoustic Research et al high end players, this holds its own against any price competitor on pure CD performance. I therefore see its SACD capability as a huge bonus. I will continue to buy SACDs, but my collection will probably always outnumber them 100 : 1 with CDs, so I think CD performance is the most critical. I agree with your earlier comment about getting what you pay for - see my post for comment on Pioneer 656A

 

Mr Sukebe,
Thank you for a very interesting and informative post. It touches on something I have been trying to figure out for sometime .... wether or not to add a dedicated CDP to my Sony 900ES SACD multiplayer which I have felt is a little too "polite" on CD and SACD.
I've had a small collection of SACD's for about a year now and quite frankly have come to the opinion that I couldn't care less about surround sound for music .... I want the excitement of a more "assertive" CDP. My dilemma has been "how much to spend" to get the excitement. Of course I lust after the big Naim, but the price is horrendous so I was most interested in your comments re the CD5i. If it provides the necesary excitement, it is an affordable option but I undertand is not upgradeable - am I right?

In my case I am using a Sony 9000ES multi channel power amp but I will also look to add a standard stereo amp (I don't know which brand) for the front R and L channels which I can do easily as I also have the Sony multi channel analogue pre amp.

I use Dynaudio 1.3SE speakers which I don't thionk the Sony amp grips hard enough.

Best regards