SACD's, DVD Audio Discs, and HDCD's

[Mojo_Joe]

Well no one seemed to be posting in here and certainly very little about music (other than lyric games/quotes, which are cool, but...)

Do any of you tech heads (is that the better term as opposed to geeks or nerds) know anything about SACD's, DVD Audio Discs, or HDCD's? I have a ton of CD's (about 1000 or so) mostly purchased before the whole MP3 thing took off and I have seen a little bit posted about some of these other formats.

All of the SACD players I have seen seem to be kind of pricey and very few seem to be able to play SACD's and DVD Audio so I guess it is more or less an either/or thing. Even less information is available about HDCD's, which as I understand it, sound a little better than normal CD's, but require a special player to hear any real difference.

Anyone have any real world experience with any of these formats?

:confused: :confused: :confused:

[Dave420]

great timing on this post -I just got the Pioneer DV-563A DVD/SACD/DVD Audio player and I love it.You can get it at Best Buy for ~$170 and it is worth every penny.there are not a "lot" of SACD or DVD audio disks out yet-but they are adding them pretty quickly.once you have heard the Dark side of the moon or The Doors L.A. Woman in 5.1 -everything changes.this player will play almost anything you can throw at it -DVD -CD -CD-r -CD-rw -DVD+r - DVD+RW -DVD-r -DVD-RW -SACD -HDCD - DVD Audio -SVCD -VCD -MP3 -the only thing it does not claim to do (and I have not tested it yet)is WMA files.in order to get the SACD or DVD audio in 5.1 you must have a SACD/DVDaudio ready amp or Tuner(it must have the analog 5.1 or 6.1 or 7.1 inputs on the back).It was a bit of a pain to hook up ,and there are thousands of wires behind the stereo now (or at least 20 ...lol)but in the end it was all worth it IMHO.

[Dave420]

Originally posted by Mojo_Joe

Even less information is available about HDCD's, which as I understand it, sound a little better than normal CD's, but require a special player to hear any real difference.

Anyone have any real world experience with any of these formats?

:confused: :confused: :confused:

HDCD is a expanded cd format the IS backward compatible(all Grateful Dead cd's on ARISTA).most Apex DVD players do HDCD but even if your player does not support HDCD -it will still play it as a normal cd.
it is a intresting note that you must have a SACD player to listen to a SACD -but now they have hybred SACD's that will play as a normal cd in any player(Dark side of the moon is a hybred).A DVD audio disk will play in any DVD player but in order to get the 24 bit/192kHz dac you must have a dvd audio player with the analog 5.1 connection .

[Mojo_Joe]

Thanks for the info Dave.

I have a crapload of CD's but only one Hybrid SACD/CD Disc, the new Sam Cooke Anthology. Also have some pretty nice audio equipment, but have not bought a SACD player or a 5.1/7.1 receiver yet.

[Dave420]

7.1 is not a real format yet for home theater-my unit is 7.1 ready for future use -but the 6.1 is becoming very popular with dvd's (DTS-ES and Dolby Digital -ES)and I highly recomend it.