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(---MIKE---) wrote in
:

I recently bought an inexpensive Pioneer DVD player that also plays
SACDs. I notice that the volume level of the SACDs is much lower that
that of DVDs or CDs.

Actually, there is a so called "loudness race" on the cd mastering market.
It seems that is a bit less easy with sacd:

Nika Aldrich said:
"
[...]
The CD is a very versatile format that actually allows illegal content -
waveforms that exceed its own boundaries. This can cause distortion upon
playback through D/A converters. The SACD has, built into its
specification, a system that prevents this from occurring - a sort of
mathematical algorithm that data passes through to analyze whether the
signal exceeds the boundaries of the converter. If it does, the signal
can't pass. The algorithm is actually fairly simple - 28 consecutive
samples. If a signal has 28 consecutive samples it is illegal and the SACD
scarlet book rejects it - the risk being "modulator overload."

The problems we are discussing - exceeding the legal bounds of the system -
are caused primarily by trying to push the system's overall amplitude very
high, aided and abetted by use of compression, normalizing and limiting.
Since SACD prevents this, what it is essentially preventing is the overuse
of compression, normalizing and limiting. If a mastering engineer attempts
to do this they are given a red flag in their mastering software and told,
essentially, "can't do that!"

The result is that the mastering engineer has to essentially make a choice:
hyper-compress the disk but turn it down to prevent modulator overload, or
let the disk breathe more, give it more dynamic range, and don't compress
it as much.

[...]
"

Hope this help.