Hi all I just got sucked in to buying War of the worlds ... can only play 5.1 if i have a sacd player .. what a have no one knows what sacd is have been shown so many svcd players am now sick of explaining myself. Is there a way to avoid all this carry on???? can i rip sacd to dvda???. My computer drives dont even see the sacd tracks. Help please Thanks Paul
Firstly, no you can't rip an SACD (Its should really be called SADVD but thats another story...). Sony created the SACD format and have a limited amount of manufacuters producing SACD players. Most can be found inside DVD players. These show everything about SACD: A well written SACD launch paper: http://www.superaudio-cd.com/technology_explained/detailed_information/whitepaper.pdf A technical paper about SACD: http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/95 Ced
Thanks.. have finally found a dvd player that is sacd compatible.. but the bloody thing wont output digital from sacd so have decided to input the 5.1 analogue into my sound card record then reauthor to a dvd audio. What an ordeal I recommend no one bother with sacd it's a joke
Why is it a joke? Only next-gen Sony SACD players can output via a digital connection. The first-gen and third party players have this limitation because they (Sony) was worried about people being able to pirate it at its maximum quality. DVD-A is worse because it is analog-water-marked. All you have to do is use a reciever with 5.1 (6 Channel) analog inputs. I do have a question for you though. What do you mean when you say "Convert to DVD-A?" How did you get the analog 6 outputs to connect to your PC? At what quality (Bit-Resolution and Frequency) are you encoding the SACD audio? Ced
yeah I'd like to know that too...considering there's currently no way of ripping SACDs directly in your computer. I could always rip SACD audio via analog and capture through pro tools, but unless you have a pro tools HD setup (upwards of $150,000) you're not going to get SACD quality...my 002 only goes up to 96k/24 bit. so as far as I see it there's really now way unless you capture analog and downconvert...which is pretty pointless
yeap that was what i was going to do capture 2 channels at a time into adobe audition at 96/24 then recode to ac3. So I gather its not worth the effort??? Is there a sound card out there with 6 analogue inputs?
you aren't going to find consumer sound cards with more than 2 inputs, you'd need a professional setup like pro tools. but even capturing at 96k is far less quality that SACD. SACD's sample rate is 1.44 million per second or something ridiculous like that
Thanks for all your help guys..... Just wondering if this could be a solution? http://www.xpcgear.com/audigy4pro.html
if you read the specs you will notice that the input sample rate only goes up to 96k, not 192. and its still only going to be two channels. just a thought...doesn't your SACD have a standard CD layer as well? All the SACDs I have have dual layers, so it can be played in a standard CD player, or as an SACD in the SACD player. perhaps you can just rip the standard CD layer at 2 channels at 44.1kHz, then upsample to 48 or 92k when you convert to a dvd-audio. although you will still probably have to capture the sound manually through analog, because the computer probably won't recognize the CD layer of the SACD.
Thanks computer does recognise the Cd layer but what I was after was the 5.1 mix not too worried about sampling freq 96k is fine Think amp can only handle 96 anyway. Thanks again for all your help.
Not all SACDs have CD layers! And some don't have 5.1 presentations. The sample rate of SACD is exactly 64 times that of CD (44.1 KHz) which is 2.8224 MHz (or 2,822.4 KHz). Ced
wow now i see why its more a dvd than a cd. that sample rate is high.. can any amp work at that frequency? Guess hifi is now dead long live ultrafi. Cheers
the amplifier doesn't process that samplerate. that high number refers to the samples, or snap shots per second the A to D converter makes of an analog signal. SACD audio frequency is somewhere around 10 - 30,000 Hz. But its all about the quality of the signal, not the improved frecuency response that makes it so impressive
The thing is its not really that high when you consider the resolution is only 1-bit. DVD-Audio uses PPCM at 16, 20, and 24-bit res with a frequency of either 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4 or 192 kHz. High quality equipment can only do a max of 24-bits at 192 KHz! Thats the same preformance one can expect form an SACD player. What makes everything confussing is that DSD (Direct Stream Digital) sounds good but mathmatically isn't more complicated than DVD-Audio. The big push behind DSD is that some masters are done in DSD. If you don't have to donvert from DSD to PCM allot of quality can be saved. The delima is although having the abiltity to deliver the DSD format straght to the consumer is great, allot of albums are still being masterd using PCM. There would be no gain for thoughs artists, producers, and sound engineers that master using PCM to convert there master to (consumer level) DSD. Thats where DVD-A comes in. Its easier and cheaper. Say what you want, SACD with DSD impresses me. I think it has a future. PCM is the standard but doesn't give the same results when given the same amount of power as bit resolution and frequency increases. Ced
Well, actually, it isn't quite that simple -- A lot of "anti-SACD" folks use the "1 bit weakness" as a way to decry SACD as inferior fidelity without fully understanding it. (And without listening to it.) DSD is not 1-bit PCM. DSD is a PDM (pulse density modulation) method. Basically, unlike PCM where every multibit (16 or 24 bit)sample is absolute, with DSD, each sample is relative to the last. I've done DSD recording, and have looked at it on a scope: the S/N ratio is absolutely above that of CD, and does have clear response to at least 40khz. (And actually higher depending on the noise shaping method in the DSD ADC.) Now, in tests I've done, 192/24 PCM -or- 2.8mhz/1 DSD, both yield about 108-110dB of real world S/N ratio, whereas 44.1/16 CDDA is hard-limited to 96dB. (And of course the 22050hz brickwall.) Whether 192/24 beats DSD, or DSD beats 192/24, I honestly can't say; but there's room for both out there. The nice thing about DSD is that you can mathematically divide to pretty much any sample rate of PCM (i.e. 1/64 with accumulator = 44.1khz at whatever accumulated bit depth you choose; 32, 24, 16) without having to resample. And it adds dither inherently. (Dither is good!) This was the genesis of Sony's early "SBM" (Super Bit Mapping) system. Anyways, just wanted to add this before someone chimed in with an AER-80 or an "It's like 1 bit PCM!" response. T'aint like 1-bit PCM. It's a different animal, and takes a different way of looking at digital audio to understand completely. I'm not saying Diabolos doesn't know; it certainly seems like he does! And with the new Sonoma 24 released, we may start to see more SACDs yet. Of course we'll have the folks who say that 32khz/14bit is plenty
Well written [bold]michilumi[/bold]! I am aware that DSD doesn't have the brick wall filters that PCM does and that it is capable of mimicking an analog signal much more acuratly than PCM. I'm loving this thread! Ced
WOW i'm out of my depth now.. But its really interesting and I agree with CED I'm loving this discussion. Learning heaps. Was talking with GF yesterday about the dire straits tour over here about 10 years ago when CDs had just been launched. "Hear music the way it was intended to be heard"..... things have moved on since then. Once again thanks guys for educating a newbie
Heh, Dire Straits "Brothers in Arms" came out on SACD last month. So that's an interesting addition there, too.
