"chung" wrote in message
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Harry Lavo wrote:
"chung" wrote in message
...
John Atkinson wrote:
chung wrote in message
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Harry Lavo wrote:
Yes, exact same *mix*. Mastering post-mix has to be done for the
individual medium. One is DSD-recorded, Chesky's Swing Live jazz
recording. The other is recorded using conventional PCM,
Universal's
Away from the Sun (3 Doors Down). Both simply fed through
converters
and then mastered/authored for the competing format without
additional
processing.
Of course, this flies in the face of all reports of 96/24 being
sonically transparent. So what you like about SACD may well be
either
due to the artifacts of SACD, or the particular implementation of
SACD
vs DVD-A at audio. And not being there at the recording session,
how
would you know which sounds more real to the recording feed?
I recently produced a recording that was recorded in DSD for SACD,
in
24/192 and 16/44.1 LPCM, and on analog tape for LP release. The "Red
Book"
recording was least like the mike feed, the DSD most like it. The
analog
sounded less mike the mike feed but was actually preferable, to my
surprise.
That should tell us that what someone prefers may not be the most
accurate.
I'm saying that the noise level on most of the commercial dvd-a
players
out there is not much better in the bass and midrange for dvd-a
than it
is for cd, based on the published curves to date. The extremely
high
priced gear appears to be an exception.
How many DVD-A players has Stereophile looked at? I went to the
site
and
could not find any reviews. Care to provide links?
Linn Unidisk:
http://www.stereophile.com/digitalso...views/1203linn
Esoteric DV-50: http://www.stereophile.com/digitalsourcereviews/906
Pioneer DV-AX10: http://www.stereophile.com/digitalsourcereviews/515
Toshiba SD9200: http://www.stereophile.com/digitalsourcereviews/407
Technics DV-A10: http://www.stereophile.com/digitalsourcereviews/300
Meridian 800:
http://www.stereophile.com/digitalso...1/index16.html
Hope this helps.
Thanks for the links. I read those online reviews, and I do not see any
data supporting Mr. Lavo's claims that DVD-A players playing DVD-A's
have about the same S/N as CD's in the lower frequencies.
In the Linn review, the S/N of either SACD or 24bit DVD-A is clearly
superior to CD. See here, in the measurements section:
http://www.Stereophile.com/digitalso...nn/index4.html
According to fig. 3, either high-rez format is about 15 dB better than
CD. At high frequencies, DVD-A is clearly superior to SACD, by about 18
dB at 20KHz.
In the Pioneer DV-XA10 review, the 24 bit noise floor is clearly
superior to the SACD at all frequencies. In fact, here is what the
reviewer said:
"Fig.6 compares the same CD spectrum with that for 24-bit DVD playback.
The drop in the noise floor with the hi-rez medium is even greater than
with SACD, at almost 20dB over much of the band-more than 19 bits' D/A
resolution, one of the best I have ever measured!"
http://www.Stereophile.com/digitalso...15/index5.html
Figures 5 and 6 compare the noise floors of CD vs SACD and CD vs 24bit
DVD-A.
So am I missing something here? How could DVD-A have "about the same
noise floor in the lower frequencies" as CD?
No, you are not missing something. Clearly my memory was faulty. So I
apologize. Perhaps I
was remembering DVD-A vs. SACD, I just don't know.
For what it is worth, I did a summary of all five units that John
provided
links for, comparing noise levels relative to ordinary 16/44.1 CD at
40hz,
3khz, 10khz, and 20khz. Results as follows:
5 DVD-A players: -8db, -12db, -12db, -9db
3 SACD players -10db, -11db, +-0db, +11db
The averaging of results for 40Hz makes very little sense. In a lot of
players, the low frequency noise floor is dominated by line-related
spurs, which have nothing to do with the architecture, and could be
measurement related. In other words, the same spurs may be present at
the same level whether that player is playing 14/44.1 or 24/96 or DSD.
Only one of these had that problem, and it happened on DVD-A, not CD. So I
averaged the high and low points of multiple spurs in and around 40 hz to
get the effective noise floor.
While the +11db at 20khz looks horrendous, it was still at an average
level -93db below 0db
reference so it should not be an audible problem. The lack of
complicated
or brickwall filtering seems more to make up for a good sounding treble
than
any inaudible contribution of noise detracts.
Are you aware that in LPCM/DVD-audio players, these filters can be made
phase linear and perfectly flat in the audio band? And that the
"brick-wall" can be pushed out way into the supersonic region, via
oversampling?
Yes I'm aware and it has helped a lot! But CD still requires a lot of
manipulation to get around high end problems that SACD simply ignores.
The same brickwall filters apply to DSD. The sampling theory applies to
DSD as well as LPCM!
Sorry, the SACD has a gradual filter as part of it's spec, from what I
understand (and see).
In other words, your claim that "The lack of complicated or brickwall
filtering seems more to make up for a good sounding treble than any
inaudible contribution of noise detracts" has no technical leg to stand
on. I guess you started with a faulty premise that SACD's have a better
sounding treble than DVD-A, and you were just trying hard to support
that premise. Didn't you say that it was the bass and midrange that
SACD's really are superior?
I said that there were other facts than extended frequency response that
seemed to work in SACD's favor, and I postulated that the greater lower and
mid-frequency quieting might be contributing, versus CD.
I also said that DVD-A had cleaner highs and sounded smoother than CD in the
treble, which it does.
I also said that the "noisy" treble of SACD didn't strike me as a practical
problem, which it doesn't.
It is precisely this level of technical knowledge exhibited in the Audio
Asylum that makes it a very noisy place to hang out.
Well, if you have such low tolerance for us "mere audiophiles" perhaps you
should spend more of your time on rec.audio.tech. Last time I looked, this
was a hobby-based forum, not strictly a technical forum.