SACD, DVD-Audio and DualDisc recommendations

[B.RAYBURN]

Originally Posted by dinoslino

Since Gus did DSD authoring for DSOTM SACD, could you ask him if there is any indication we ll see WYWH SACD soon?

Cheers

Has been working on it now for a while now.... hopefully it gets released and not shelfed.

[B.RAYBURN]

Originally Posted by Gremal

Is that Gus Skinas who does SACD authoring? He was very helpful in getting me info and photos for an article I did in Positive Feedback.

I believe Sony did put the effort into SACD. A tremendous amount of marketing and production efforts went into the format, and Sony also got the support of several other labels, including UMG, ABKCO and the Fantasy/Stax/OJC umbrella. There was significant consumer electronics support too, with Samsung, Pioneer and many other companies manufacturing SACD players. The audio/HT press was mostly very slow to pick up on the importance of the format with Positive Feedback being the only one that was fully applauding it from the start. Stereophile, Absolute Sound and the HT publications including Sound and Vision were very slow to catch on to the significance and initially really harmed adoption of the format. Sam Tellig was especially unhelpful. It's a real shame, but I believe Sony did everything within reason to make it work and consumers chose iPods instead of SACDs.

Yes, Gus Skinas is a dear friend of mine... and he is still hard at it working on some great titles for this year. : )

[Kuraudo]

Originally Posted by Gremal

No, it won't play DVD-A. Needs a special chip for that.

This is not true. I have played 2 different DVD-A's without any errors, sounds great. Receiver displays "96khz" using optical or analog.

[Gremal]

Originally Posted by B.RAYBURN

Yes, Gus Skinas is a dear friend of mine... and he is still hard at it working on some great titles for this year. : )

Great news!

Originally Posted by Kuraudo

This is not true. I have played 2 different DVD-A's without any errors, sounds great. Receiver displays "96khz" using optical or analog.

Yes, you're right. I'm thinking about the days before preamps/receivers were capable of processing high bitrate 24-bit. Now they will decode anything you throw at them.

[dobyblue]

I just picked up The Doors - Perception. [CD+DVD-A]

All six of The Doors' studio albums re-mastered and re-mixed into advanced resolution 5.1 and advanced resolution stereo.

I am well impressed listening to some of my favourite Doors tracks like Peace Frog and Riders on the Storm on DVD-Audio. I don't think any Doors fan would be dissappointed with this set, available new on Amazon marketplace for around $115.

Each of the six discs also contains a CD and the DVD-Video portion of the DVD contains dts and Dolby mixes also as well as special features relative to each album like live performances, rehearsals, etc.

Obviously the DVD-A 5.1 mixes are the reason to pick this set up.
Here's a short interview with Bruce Botnick, The Doors recording engineer, about the remastering process. One question in particular I like the response to:

http://www.hometheatermag.com/httalksto/0407botnick/

How did you approach the DVDs’ 5.1 mixes?

I have my own studio where I worked on the mixes for a little over a year. We went inside the original 8-track masters and tried to bring out sounds that weren’t heard before. I didn’t want to move things around just to put them in bizarre places. That doesn’t work for me. But, on some tunes, like “Horse Latitudes” and “The Unknown Soldier,” if you sit in the middle in a dark room, you could get nauseous, which would be the desired effect.

[Teazle]

Got the Doors set a few mo. back and have just been listening to the stereo mixes through headphones. Sound is startlingly realistic, esp. the Morrison spoken word / pseudopoetry rant bits. Once I literally jumped in my seat at the sudden sound of a long-dead voice I thought was speaking in the same room. I was sober at the time. Five stars.

[The Seventh Taylor]

Originally Posted by Kuraudo

This is not true. I have played 2 different DVD-A's without any errors, sounds great. Receiver displays "96khz" using optical or analog.

It plays only the DVD-Video-compatible parts. Those may include 24-bit 96-kHz audio but stereo only. 24-bit 96-kHz multichannel audio is not part of the DVD-Video spec, only of DVD-Audio.

[HDJK]

Originally Posted by B.RAYBURN

Has been working on it now for a while now.... hopefully it gets released and not shelfed.

Will it be a rework of the quad version or a new mix?

Originally Posted by B.RAYBURN

Yes, Gus Skinas is a dear friend of mine... and he is still hard at it working on some great titles for this year. : )

That is some good news indeed

[maseo503]

what?!! 5 pages and no mention of Herbie Hancock -Headhunters?!!!

i'm going to go listen to it again and dedicate it to this thread...

[buckshot]

i listened to my 3 CCR SACDs again today and love them. as i also like my Best of the Offspring dualdisc i just got.

[jgcamil]

If you like Depeche Mode, try the UK remasters (not the US editions); these are SACD that sound truly amazing! The remaster process was outstanding. I managed to get the US 5.1 DTS mixes and they sound crappy compared to the UK versions.

[jdc115]

My recommendation, all of the Patricia Barber MoFi SACD recordings:

http://www.mofi.com/productcart/pc/s...bmit=Go+%3E%3E

Great Jazz piano player/singer/composer

And her recordings are often used as reference material by audiophiles when comparing equipment

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by jgcamil

If you like Depeche Mode, try the UK remasters (not the US editions); these are SACD that sound truly amazing! The remaster process was outstanding. I managed to get the US 5.1 DTS mixes and they sound crappy compared to the UK versions.

The UK versions also have the dts mixes (24/96) so you don't need to get both versions to compare.



The SACD layers on the Genesis re-masters too are far superior to the dts 24/96 mixes on the DVD-V.

I've got a few discs coming in this week-end which I look forward to testing.

Seal Best Of DVD-A
Trey Anastasio DVD-A
Snow Patrol SACD
Pixies - Doolittle SACD
Jean-Micel Jarre - Oxygene 5.1 dts
Kitaro - Daylight, Moonlight SACD

[jcs913]

Originally Posted by jgcamil

If you like Depeche Mode, try the UK remasters (not the US editions); these are SACD that sound truly amazing! The remaster process was outstanding. I managed to get the US 5.1 DTS mixes and they sound crappy compared to the UK versions.

On your US version, I assume it is like this one at Best Buy http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....p=1&id=1529070

does it play on a regular BD player (panny 30 or PS3) in full 96/24 DTS?

[kingofgrills]

Originally Posted by maseo503

what?!! 5 pages and no mention of Herbie Hancock -Headhunters?!!!

i'm going to go listen to it again and dedicate it to this thread...

I LOVE HEADHUNTERS!!! That's an awesome album. I bought the remastered CD a couple of years ago before I realized there was an SACD release. I'll have to track it down on SACD.

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by jcs913

On your US version, I assume it is like this one at Best Buy http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....p=1&id=1529070

does it play on a regular BD player (panny 30 or PS3) in full 96/24 DTS?

As long as your receiver supports dts 24/96.
If not you'll get dts 24/48.

[jcs913]

Is the disc considered a DVD-A or not? I don't think my panny 30 will support dvd-a. LMK

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by jcs913

Is the disc considered a DVD-A or not? I don't think my panny 30 will support dvd-a. LMK

DVD-A refers to a codec, MLP, contained in the AUDIO_TS folder.
All DVD-A discs include a DVD-V portion that has additional content and/or dolby stereo/multi-channel and/or dts mixes, etc.

There are no DVD-A releases of the Depeche Mode sets. The US ones are exactly the same as the European ones except the CD portion is CD only, not SACD hybrid, and the DVD contains NTSC 480i content.

dts 24/96 is not DVD-A.

Any DVD-A discs you do buy will play just fine on your DMP-BD30, but they'll only offer you the DVD-V content of the disc, which means dts, Dolby, videos, etc. The only content you won't be able to access is the DVD-A content specifically, which is advanced resolution stereo and/or advanced resolution surround.

[HDJK]

Originally Posted by kingofgrills

I LOVE HEADHUNTERS!!! That's an awesome album. I bought the remastered CD a couple of years ago before I realized there was an SACD release. I'll have to track it down on SACD.

If you do, just make sure you get the right one. There is 2 versions: the MCH and the stereo. I'll leave it up to you which one you prefer

[hoogoosedmoose41]

Im curious to see if SACD sales are up this year due to the PS3 and the HDMI it seems there is renewed interest in the format. I have to admit myself i gave up on the format a year or so ago.. now that i have an Oppo Player ive purchased a few more sacds and am doing quite a bit more music listening than in the past. I went from having 10 cables hooking up my pioneer elite (6 rca analog, coax digital and 3 component video) to 1 HDMI sure makes it simple. makes me wonder if SACD would have done better had there been HDMI when it was released.