Heavyweight Championship Of The World !!

Round Two - DING

Finally, new music made with DVD-Audio in mind



3.50 - Overall Quality: 3 Features 3 Production: 3 Audio: 5 - 5/30/2003
The sound quality of this disc is wonderful. Does a great job of using the 5.1 channels of DVD-Audio. I bought the CD version and then the DVD-Audio version and what I always come back to is the DVD-Audio version. Much more involving with noticeable sound quality improvement over CD. As for the music, there are some really good songs on this disc. Fleetwood Mac, even without Christie McVie, has some legs left due to Buckingham and Nicks who are clearly the driving forces behind the music here. Some classic Steve Nicks songs and some of the quirky, but catchy tunes that Lindsey puts together are good, too. They did a great job of spreading the multiple guitar parts around the available channels which is what makes the DVD-Audio version so superior to the CD version.

Talking about the Fleetwood Mac DVD-Audio release "Say You Will". Admittedly some confusion with DTS, as this is not high res, but the link is here
http://www.dvdempire.com/Exec/v4_item.asp?userid=00000245771525&item_id=475321&tab=3#39007

And then there is

If you have a DVD-A player buy it
4.75 - Overall Quality: 5 Features 4 Production: 5 Audio: 5 - 10/13/2003
I have never heard a concert dvd, cd or dvd-a reproduce a concert so precise. I have seen Page play twice, and when you turn up the album it sounds so good that it is like they are playing for you. You can feel the drums, guitar, and bass. Becaues it is in surround, the crowd on the rear speakers really makes feel like you are there. Buy this if you like music.

Another happy customer reviewing Led Zeppelin's "How The West Was Won". I'm gonna buy this tomorrow for myself, so will post an (honest - yes, Impartial - possibly!) review myself. The Link is at
http://www.dvdempire.com/Exec/v4_item.asp?userid=00000245771525&item_id=549721&tab=3#38484

Now for a different type of review.....

'I'm a DVD-Audio guy' - top producer and audio engineer Elliot Scheiner says both SACD and DVD-A are very good formats, there's no huge difference in quality, but DVD-A is 'infinitely more versatile than SACD,' and with 60 to 80 million DVD video players in consumer homes it is much easier to market (Rocky Mountain News, 19-Sep-2003)

From a man such as Elliot, this is praise indeed!

As for the Bob Dylan SACD releases, I bring you this quote from Audiophile Audition, who are a LOT more impartial than me. They are at www.audaud.com, and had this to say about "Highway 61 Revisited" on SACD

This was the only one of the major Dylan SACD releases by Columbia that I ever listen to anymore and thus wanted to audition as a sample of the rest of the release. Also, my advance information had said it was one of the few to be issued in multichannel, but that proved wrong unfortunately. This session came after Dylan was firmly into his new electric phase that was shocking to many of his fans. In addition to a couple of turns on the piano in addition to this harmonica and guitar, he had eight sidemen on this session, including three other keyboardists: Al Kooper, Paul Griffin and Frank Owens. Plus Michael Bloomfield and Charley McCoy on guitars. The notes for this reissue are by Dylan and typically Dylanesque - don’t look for information about the recording.

His raspy voice is now high resolution raspy and his ‘harp playing sounds even worse now than it ever did before. The Dylan LPs were unusual in having very little stereo effect - often just one little percussion sound off to one side and everything else dead center mono. But they did have body and impact in the low end, especially the tracks with organ and/or bass. That seems to be strangely lacking in this SACD although there is much more stereo soundstaging now than previously. It sounded quite thin compared to the vinyl. It takes a lot to list these nine tracks and some of you must know them like your phone number, while others know them approximately, but anyway here goes: Like a Rolling stone, Tombstone Blues, It Takes a Lot to Laugh It Takes a Train to Cry, From a Buick 6, Ballad of a Thin Man, Queen Jane Approximately, Highway 61 Revisited, Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues, Desolation Row. Purchase Here

- John Henry

Hardly makes me want to rush out & buy!
Also, Neil Young's catalogue will be on DVD-Audio. He always said that he hated the sound of CD, but is apparently "blown away" by DVDA. I'll try and find the interview in question.

Back to the Audiophile Audition pages, we see release after release on SACD just not being up to par, and the DVD-A discs being praised.

Finally in this action-packed round, I read with interest of the possible "sabotage" of a DVD-A release, apparently mastered in DSD and then "converted" to DVD-Audio!
Read this one for yourself at http://www.digitalaudioguide.com/reviews/1812Tchaikovsky.htm
I'd love to hear theories on that one. Personally, it sounds like a stupid idea, but hey - what do I know.
Apologies for no fancy graphics in this round, but I'm a sound engineer & don't know how on earth you did those in round 1. Top job. They look well cool.

SCORE

SACD - 1
DVD-Audio - 1

All even at the end of round 2.
DING

 

I guess I'm just being nice to people for a change, but there is a lot more bad press on SACD than I have written, plus more good stuff on DVDA.
I sort of figure that SACD is going to go away as even Sony don't believe it is the better format. The forthcoming Hybrid CD/DVDA will finally see it off for good, I reckon.

 

It's also helping the cause now that Honda are fitting DVDA players as standard in their Top of the range Accura cars, with many more to follow!
It's still a major pain getting the disca in the shops in the UK though!

On another front, there will be a DVD on the way to you very soon. It will be a "Hybrid" with high res stereo tracks plus a DVDV section for compatibility, then followed by a full blown DVDA version only, with 18 tracks on it.
Should be with you before new years.

 

I too recently bought the 563A. I liked it very much but, call me spoiled I couldn't stand the silver. I built my own custom audio rack out of aluminum with glass shelves and all of my components are black. I wound up hunting down a Pioneer Elite DV-45A. I prefer DVD-A to SACD but SACD has some titles I wanted and I wanted to be sure that if either format hangs around I can play it. I'm also a Minidisc owner and the fact that it all but turned into the 8 track of the 90's bugs the he** out of me. I still think it's the best choice in the car. At least Sony had the foresight to keep it alive in this country by tying it to the web. Mike if you want the article on the 563A, PM me and I'll copy it and mail it to you or scan it and e-mail it. Sound and Vision very much likes this player, I would think in part due to the fact it can be had so inexpensively. Kudos to Pioneer. My only complaint with the 2 players is I let my son use the DVD but not the stereo and if I have it set to 5.1 for audio you don't get 2 channel audio from the tv speakers. My Sony DVD in the other room automatically downconverts if that's the right terminology.
Take Care guys

 

Some more news in the red corner at
http://www.audiorevolution.com/news/1203/12.wea.html
Looks like a serious blow to the chin of the pretender, as the crown prince lands a hefty blow late in the third and taking the round.
Will we see a knockout in the fight? Given the losses of $1 Billion in the last quarter from Sony - the management of SACD - and some drastic redundancies, only time will tell. It looks like the pretender doesn't have the stamina for a long fight though, and just might have peaked too early.
mfurj - why not connect both analogue and digital up? That way, you can have the best of both worlds. Set the Surround from the DVD-A with the analogue connections, and run the digital through an AV amp connecting the TV to the DVD via a scart lead. Then you can have stereo to the telly speakers, plus the digits sent to the amp.
Works for me.....

 

wilkes, Thanks for your help. You guys know an awful lot about the tech side than I do. I just like the sound and am an equipment junkie. I have the 2ch analog rca outs to the tv, the 5.1 direct to the receiver and the optical out to the receiver. This way I can or should be able to use just the tv speakers, or the decoder in the player, or the receivers decoder. Problem is in tne players menu you have to set 2ch or 5.1ch output. With 5.1 selected you don't get spoken word in the tv speakers, it seems to drop out the center channel. You get everything but spoken word. With 2ch selected you get everything in the tv speakers but only left and right front with DVD-A and SACD even with multi-channel direct selected on the receiver. I like the player but this seems bizarre. Thanks

 

Don't you have an option for analogue output for the DVD-Audio & SACD section?
It seems to me that you would probably need to use the players DAC for surround in 24/96, as you cannot stuff that data stream down a lightpipe.
I don't know the player, so may well be totally wrong on this, but as you have said, it does seem somewhat bizarre.

 

Hi wilkes
It does seem to be a peculiarity with the player. I've hooked it up 6 ways to Sunday. Maybe Klingon will have some input, his player is the same.

 

I feel, and it's just my opinion, that dvd-a will win over sacd simply due to the fact that dvd equipment has been so widely adopted by the public, dvd home entertainment systems are the new pc boom as far as technology sales go.

Bailey

 

I don't know what you guys have been reading but in both Stereophile and TAS, SACD seems to get the nod. I currently dislike DVDA not because of the sound but because it has video included and no CD compatibility. Yes, I have heard that DVDA is trying to get a CD compatible layer. But I have also heard that there are technical difficulties with the scheme. On top of that, they will have to get manufacturing plants up and running to include the CD layer. How long will that take?

Frankly, they both SACD and DVDA sound very good to me. It comes down to features and video isn't high on my list whilst CD layer is.

One other thing, I vaguely remember reading that Sony and Phillips technical representatives met with the Profs at Waterloo to show them the proprietary method for noise shifting. I thought that after this meeting the Profs no longer had reservations regarding SACD.

cheers
irfoton

 

Video is not part of the DVD-Audio spec! The only part that has video as a must is DVD-Video. DVDA simply does not require video at all, and stills are optional as well.

 

It's a shame that there is no software around for DSD ripping or encoding. It would be interesting to convert DVD-A --> SACD, and SACD --> DVD-A. The superior format should sound the same.

 

The upcoming version 2 of discWelder chrome will allow a DSD-DVDA rip. Check this out
Video Auto-Mirror – This exclusive, innovative feature allows the user to automatically create the Video Zone from the contents of the Audio Zone, which allows playback on both DVD-A and DVD-V players (by creating a universal DVD-A/V disc). The audio Tracks are encoded with an integrated SurCode™ Dolby Digital (AC-3) encoder, and the VIDEO_TS (video title set) is auto-formatted. The Auto-Mirror option creates the video main menu and a static MPEG2 slide per track (if there is a slide programmed for the Track).
· DSD Import/Conversion – Also an exclusive feature, this allows the import of DSD-format DFF audio files into the CHROME playlist. The DSD-to-PCM conversion bit-depth is set at 24-bit, and the sample rates are set at 48kHz for surround and 96kHz for stereo. This product innovation will encourage the authors of SACD discs to create DVD-Audio reference and approval discs of their SACD projects, something not possible in the DSD native format.
· Video Track Link – This feature allows a Track in the Audio Zone to be linked to play a Video Title in the VIDEO_TS. This makes possible the playback of Videos within the Audio menu.
· Custom Menu - This major feature upgrade allows the user to customize the DVD-A look and feel by creating the menu Background Image and Overlay bitmaps in an image editing program (like Adobe® Photoshop® LE), then importing these into CHROME to create the “hit” or “button” boxes with their associated actions (such as play Track, go to menu, etc).
· Motion Menu – Allows the user to select an MPEG video file to use as a menu background. The MPEG may contain audio as well as video, and the user may select a “video loop” option.
· Motion Logo – Allows the user to select an MPEG video file to be displayed once upon disc insertion. The file may contain audio as well as video. If the “Auto Play” option is checked, Group 1 Track 1 will start to play after the Motion Logo plays. Otherwise, the first page of the menu will be displayed after the Motion Logo.
· Active Menu – This feature allows the playlist menu to be active during Track playback. This option will override the display of slides on a track.
· CPPM – This allows the option of enabling the copy-protection flag for the album. (Note that the key file and encryption must be applied at the manufacturing facility).
· PGC Blocks – This allows two audio formats (surround and stereo, or different languages, for example) to be contained in each DVD-A Track – the DVD player will automatically play the format selected by the user. This allows one album menu structure to be used for both surround and stereo content, eliminating the need for surround downmixes.

Best of all it's only a $500 upgrade from version 1.
There is much, much more too.
Now show me a DSD/SACD app that is as comprehensive as this.