Thoughts on SACD

THOUGHTS ON SACD.

ORIGINAL 2008F Chinese imported CD player cost £350 plus £70 for modification to UK mains

SONY DVP-NS930V cheap CD/SACD/DVD player costing around £140 when new

Over the Christmas period of 2011 I had a three week slot to be able to play with the Hi-Fi so I took it upon myself to listen using my dreaded, cheap and nasty Sony SACD player; or so I thought.

To sum up the Original CD player I would say that it is characterised by a thin, lean sound with a rolled off treble when the filter is set to smooth. What treble is there can be quite coarse and powdery sounding and has the ability to aggravate somewhat. The bass is good and powerful but certainly not full and warm. I guess this CD player is typical of what people expect of digital sound reproduction.

Having used the Original CD player for years I decided to give the Sony a go playing the SACD of Genesis' ‘We Can't Dance' album. The first track ‘No Son Of Mine' has a part during the playing where Phil Collins plays the cup part in the centre of a cymbal and I was gobsmacked by the clarity of the sound. The sparkle and air of this SACD is simply astonishing compared to the Original. OK I am using Dali Ikon 1 speakers with a ribbon supertweeter but this clarity was just so striking.

Moving on to Ezio, ‘Black Boots on Latin Feet' and the title track, using the Sony the bass had much more depth of sound and was much fuller in its presentation. I can honestly say that the Sony sounds much more like vinyl than does the Original which sounds strikingly digital. One final thing also, the output level of the Sony is only a fraction of the Original which is just so bloody loud all of the time.

To sum up, I shall not shove the Sony to one side ever again just because it was very cheap. It has a clarity that the Original simply does not have both in the treble and also in the bass and sounds much more immediately acceptable. A lesson learned once again I think.

 

I remember trying an SACD player a few years ago. The one in question (Marantz IIRC) was roughly on par with a CD player that I owned costing twice the price (with the SACD player playing SACD, the CD player playing CD).

That suggested to me that either you go for a top end SACD player, which would probably be the dogs danglies, but have little software, or that I should spend the dosh I'd considered spending on SACD (player and disks) on the best CDP I could afford, so as to maxmise the CD collection I already had. I chose the latter.

 

there is a lack of software for sacd its not a trend I see changing anytime soon with people seeming to want less information (mp3) than more

 

I've not yet found a CDP that I consider worthy of investing a large amount of money in as I have only ever found them to be 'average' in their reproduction. Kind of like DAC's, all of them sound so similar to me with none of them breaking new ground. Now vinyl, that is something to behold.