Days of Future Passed: Which sounds best?

[zicmubleu]

Originally Posted by dobyblue

What is recoverable is still limited by the source.

I'm not saying there aren't some fantastic sounding CD's out there...but in the rock genre there have only been a small handful in the last 15 years and nothing will make up for over-use of drc and massive amounts of digital clipping. Of course that's the fault of the mastering and not the medium itself, but CD is still limited by its specs. No doubt a CD on a reference Marantz will sound better than an SACD on an entry-level player, but that's like racing a Diablo on ice against a Yugo on asphalt...a totally ridiculous comparison. You have to spend far more money on CD to get sound that SACD provides at 1/10th of the cost and given that there isn't much on CD that isn't available on vinyl it's hard to want to spend any amount of money on this format anymore.

I am not understanding this, did you mean it the other way around? Surely there are many more CD albums available than vinyl at this time. Are you referencing just the SACD format in comparison to vinyl?

Back to the OP question, in case it wasn't clear on my original post, I was a bit disappointed by the SACD but still pleased and glad that I bought it. I don't have the discriminating ear to hear the full range of difference between the formats and will agree 100% with Dobyblue that the key is in the production quality of the recording to the media more than any other aspect.