Well, what can I say, it's AV-phile speaking - one of the best if not the most prominent researcher-writer in this forum. But I would like to stress another point why SACDs, if played in stereo mode in our low end SACD Players (like the Sony DVP-NS915V and other Pioneer SACD-compatible players at the same price range), would always pale in comparison to CDs played in mid level CD Players (like the NAD C542, Rotel RCD-1072 and the likes) for the simple reason that these mid-level CD Players possess more quality components and parts inboard. I'd like to share my travails and quest for answers after finding out how pitiful my SACD Player sounded like after my A-B test. I had doubts on what I heard so I let my eyes compliment my logic. I opened up the hood of both players and visually compared what's inside and carefully located and identified the critical components like the power transformers, DACs, op-amps, and capacitors since these are the parts that play vital roles in the amplification process or in sound reproduction in general, and here's what I found out:
Thanks
Audioslave, though I am not so sure if i am flattered or what.
Firstly, let me just say that I'm just like everyone else in this forum, sharing what little I know and the experiences i've had in this highly personal hobby. I probably just have a few more years in the hobby than most. But that doesn't mean I have the monopoly of what is right. There may be such a thing as a proper and improper set-up from a purely technical view, but that's all. I don't see the relevance of stressing an absolute right or a wrong set-up in a hobby that will matter only to the person who is in that hobby. Like you said, to each his own. What satisfies one's ears is a matter of personal value judgement and may not be valid to another.
But having said that, we can have the entire field of audio beliefs and facts, snake oils and what not, to healthily debate on at an academic level. Even among audio engineers, deeply schooled in textbook no-nonsense, many still disagree on this or that aspect of audio reproduction, citing this or that researches that can conflict with one another. Personally, I have closed my eyes on such debates as a sheer waste of the little time I have left to enjoy this hobby.
It is interesting to note that many brands like Theta and Mark Levinson have been known to dress-up consumer grade electronics (designed by your price-friendly Sonys, Pioneers and Panasonics) with presumably better quality parts and rebadge them at higher SRPs. Do they sound better than their originals. Maybe. Though many DBTs have consistently failed to statistically confirm any sonic difference between a $300 Sony receiver and a $10,000 Theta Dreadnaught amp or similar gears.
Talking about DBTs (Double Blind Tests), that is the only "proper" and scientific way to do any kind of comparison, whether between detergents and medicines or electronic gears. DBTs take away the human cognition often coloured by brand and price familiarity that influence our choices. They call it "bias-controlled" DBT. But I doubt, if such things are done at home or in this forum. Or if at all relevant in this hobby. We often buy things for reasons other than their utilitarian value, don't we?
The CD Player is equipped with toroidal transformer thrice the size of that of the DVD Player which is so disgustingly tiny and small. Although the DVD Player may boast of having the Sony CDX2753 DSD chip to decode SACDs, the audio circuitry was designed in such a way that the front left and front right channel share only one op-amp, the rear left and the rear right channel also share only one op-amp as well as the center and the LFE out, totaling only three (3) op-amps for the 5.1 channel outputs. On the analog outs, there is another op-amp being shared by the right and left channel in stereo mode. These op-amps are fed to Elna capacitors of so miniscule in size and in value. Compared to the CD Player, it is gifted with Burr Brown PCM 1732 DAC with integrated HDCD Decoder and separate op-amps for the left and right channel with audiophile-grade Nichicon capacitors with values ranging from 1000uF to 6800uF. Looking at the connectors, the CD Player boast of having gold-plated RCA connectors compared to the tin-plated connectors of the DVD Player.
So, how in the world can these low end DVD Players (like yours and mine) beat the hell out of the CD Players capability and potential to make better music even if you play SACDs on these DVD Players? I would have to agree that SACDs may sound a lot better if these are played in high end SACD Players which are prohibitively priced beyond our reach.
That could be more of a "maybe." I can only assume it will sound better in a more expensive player. Most of us do assume that if its more expensive, it has to sound better. The assumption has some empirical justification at some price ranges. But it has its limits. The law of diminishing returns is unassailable, applying to economics as well as to most everything made by man. Many commercial goods have a price point beyond which you either get nothing in return or just a small miniscule benefit that is no longer commensurate to the input price paid. I wouldn't point to those DBTs that say respondents can't statistically distinguish between a Sony and a Theta, though the thought is most disturbing in its implication.
Now the issue of equating quality parts with quality sound has spawned some nasty debates in many of the forums I've visited. I have no intention of creating one here. Let me just say that quality parts make a difference in terms of reliability and longevity. But as to whether they make sonic difference, I have my doubts. Doubts lang naman.
Especially among modern fine appliances to begin with. And i don't think the Sony NS915 is one you can call shabby, is it? Maybe the comparison with a NAD dedicated to CD playback is a bit strained. While they should both aim towards the same sonic purity, I am inclined to think they each have different design and performance objectives for their intended markets.
There are technical reasons why a player would use a single DAC chip or single op-amp while another uses discrete DACs and op-amps. And there are design philosophies backing up one or the other. In addition, the designers make some compromises or balances between the technical and the ecnomic to achieve market success. I agree there are sonic merits using one type of DAC or one type of op-aAmp over another. Things like better channel isolation, better THD handling, jitter management and lower noise floors come to mind. The improvements are, however, so minute that their audible merits are often debatable in most forums I've visited. This, notwithstanding, I won't argue with your value that such things do make sonic difference. They probably do to a certain extent. I myself would want my gears to be made only of the finest materials out there, who wouldn't? But we have to pay more. And that's where the economic reasons for using this or that part enter. Every consumer grade appliance have compromises to achieve a certain market accessibility. Such compromises often trade off durability. Sound quality is another. But after a certain price point, it becomes debatable. I am not so sure if the price points of a SONY NS915 and that of a NAD C542 are already beyond those points. Maybe not. Perhaps a more expensive SACD player can still have room to deliver better sonics. Maybe only a DBT will tell objectively. (But why be objective in this hobby?
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Lastly. let me just say that there are resons to use torroids over EI transformers - none of which has anything to do with sound quality. Torroids are more efficient, conserving most of their flux energies that ordinary EI transformers would waste. They achieve greater performance-to-weight ratios. Anyone who is into Tube gears would know that Torroids in the power and output stages won't achieve any incremental sonic superiority. They would just lessen the weight for the same output power. But they definitely cost a lot more to make. Tube gears using torroids throughout are among the most expensive. Not necessarily sounding any better than those using EI transformers of the same design. Here is one area I hope I'm wrong as I have torroids in my gears as well.
But so far, none of the materials I've read on the matter point otherwise.
I am not an avid fan of multi-channel music for the simple reason that I can hardly appreciate music coming out from 6 different sources. What's so thrilling about listening to the two-channel medium is that it affords the listener the chance to localize the instruments being played through your system's capability to project imaging and visualize ambience through its soundstaging facility. I just can't equate multi-channel music from a real concert performance where the sound emanates only from the fronts unlike with multi-channel systems where sounds may come from different directions.
To each his own maybe?
This is not to question your assertions on multichannel, but just to share my thoughts in reaction to what you said.
If you were to research on the history of Hi-Fi, you would see that the early thinkers in the field of audio recording and playback never considered stereo to be adequate for their purpose of delivering high fidelity musical reproduction. Three(3) channels were considered the MINIMUM. The more the better, so as to convey the spatial information as convincingly as only a multichannel layout can achieve. BUT, because of economic and practical manufacturing constraints, both from the makers of software (LPs) and hardware, stereo became the MINIMUM. Well, with todays technologies, who says we have to be limited to such a mimima? Already there are gears that put out additional channels for one aspect of high-fidelity that have long been overlooked and sacrificed for practical reasons - the perception of height. So there's a pair of height channels to speak of now.
Though quadraphonic sound started in the mid-70s, it died in the market, never to see the light of day again. Until now. Many SACDs and DVD-As are only 4-channels that used excellent quadraphonic analog originals from the 70s preserved as they were recorded. It can be said that Multichannel music is in its infancy. Many recording engineers today probably were just toddlers when quadraphonics started. And as such, I can forgive them for being a bit too playful and unnecessarily creative in their multichannel mixes. Like putting congas at the back and having marimbas pan around 5 channels back and forth as if the musician was running around the hall and back while playing his instrument.
There's defintely nothing realistic about such mixes. But that's no different from some stereo mixes out there that are just as playful, where I can hear panning of one instrument between left and right, which also happened during the early days of stereo. It's a novelty to hear such playful abandon. I could never call them realistic. There's hardly anything realistic about amplified music. If I want sonic realism, I go attend a CCP concert where I can hear real instruments without the aid of electronic amplification.
Many multichannel mixes explicitly aims to have the listener in the MIDDLE of a STUDIO performance. Not mimic a LIVE concert performance. I have nothing against that. What's so bad about being seated in the middle of a classical, jazz or pop ensemble? It's not everyday that you get invited to a studio or stage and be seated in the middle of an ensemble.
But it is a most welcome listening experience for me One that can be truly revealing of details and presence. It's an enveloping listening experience that achieves more aural intimacy than anything stereo can offer. I think that's the word that best descirbes a well-made multi-channel mix - intimacy, immersive intimacy. The instrumental detailing is more pronounced and their presence more engaging. Whatever subtlety and nuance hinted at by distant instruments in stereo become more apparent and direct. Localization is often no longer implied, but stated explicitly.
If you have a live stage recital or performance DVD-A where the multichannel mix was made realistically, you can almost achieve a "you are there" feeling more than stereo. For one thing, the audience applause is at the back channels. Not mixed with the front channels as in most stereo live recordings. Such a recorded mix gives you the feeling you are at the front row seat or at the edge of the stage.
Most if not all the classical and jazz music remixed in multi-channel have no discrete instruments at the back, but purely ambiance and secondary reverb information. Some multichannel mixes even have no center channels as the L and R fronts can easily phantom the center information like any stereo set-up. In fact, I kinda miss those playfully mixed jazz fussion materials with discrete instruments per channel. I often wonder when I will get a multichannel Beethoven Symphony # 9 where the orchestra is at the back and the chorus up front, or vice-versa. That would be very intimate indeed.
Personally, i've arranged my rear speakers to be more to the sides than the back. So I can have a wider sort-of 180 degree soundstage without feeling I am in the center of the stage. Many audiophiles in the net have likewise done similar arrangements, swiching to dipoles and bipoles located at the back when watching movies and switching to side direct floorstanders when listening to multichannel music. I prefer this arrangement, though I sometimes miss the immersive feeling hearing instruments all around.
But as you said, to each his own. No one can quarrel with personal preferrences. If you are happy with stereo, as I do with most of my sources anyway, by all means. (But listening to 5.1 stereo is another listening experience as well.
) My own preferrence if given a choice on the SAME title is quite clear in my previous post. People have spent so much time, energy, dedication and resources to bring their stereo set-up to the highest heights that give justice to the best audiophile LPs and CDs out there. I only wish people would spend the same time, energy, dedication and resources to create a multi-channel set-up that gives justice to multchannel high resolution sources out there. I really don't see much point preferring one format over the other. As both on a proper set-up can provide a truly engaging listening experience at home.
As usual just my thoughts.
