[Gary Eickmeier]

I was going to post this in the "SACD Recommendation" thread, but it has
been so long since I could post anything, I thought I might as well start a
new thread. Here is what it was:

All -

I just bought two very interesting discs from Amazon:

Corigliano, Circus Maximus - called "High-Definition Audio Disc." 24 bit
88.2 kHz Stereo and Surround recordings. PCM stereo 2.0, DTS HD Master Audio
5.1. When you put it in the Sony BDP-SX1000 portable Blu Ray player, the
Display readout says it is 96k, either 5.1 or 2 channel and the 2 channel is
24 bit. So my portable player can play these higher bitrate tracks, and I
imagine I could hear it via the HDMI jack, if my receiver had HDMI input,
which it does not. So the question is, does this thing also have a normal DD
5.1 track because of the Blu Ray standard.

Trondheim, Divertimenti. This package has two discs in it, a SACD which has
DSD stereo, DSD 5.1 surround, and also has standard CD on it, and the Blu
Ray disc which has:

LPCM 2.0 and 5.1 24 bit/192
DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 24bit/192
Dolby True HD 5.1 24bit/192
DD - Dolby Digital 5.1 48k normal track (!) so Bingo, I can definitely play
this one at home.

What a field day for experimentation!

I know that my humble Pioneer BD60 can't play all of those, but when I tried
the discs at home they played! In surround! This has to be because of a
compatible DD 5.1 track on every disc.

The music is terrific - what I heard of it so far. Haven't been able to
crank it up yet for domestic peace reasons. But do you folks believe that
you can hear a difference with the fancy higher bitrate tracks?

Gary Eickmeier

[Audio Empire]

On Mon, 23 Jan 2012 06:13:06 -0800, Gary Eickmeier wrote
(in article ):

I was going to post this in the "SACD Recommendation" thread, but it has
been so long since I could post anything, I thought I might as well start a
new thread. Here is what it was:

All -

I just bought two very interesting discs from Amazon:

Corigliano, Circus Maximus - called "High-Definition Audio Disc." 24 bit
88.2 kHz Stereo and Surround recordings. PCM stereo 2.0, DTS HD Master Audio
5.1. When you put it in the Sony BDP-SX1000 portable Blu Ray player, the
Display readout says it is 96k, either 5.1 or 2 channel and the 2 channel is
24 bit. So my portable player can play these higher bitrate tracks, and I
imagine I could hear it via the HDMI jack, if my receiver had HDMI input,
which it does not. So the question is, does this thing also have a normal DD
5.1 track because of the Blu Ray standard.

Trondheim, Divertimenti. This package has two discs in it, a SACD which has
DSD stereo, DSD 5.1 surround, and also has standard CD on it, and the Blu
Ray disc which has:

LPCM 2.0 and 5.1 24 bit/192
DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 24bit/192
Dolby True HD 5.1 24bit/192
DD - Dolby Digital 5.1 48k normal track (!) so Bingo, I can definitely play
this one at home.

What a field day for experimentation!

I know that my humble Pioneer BD60 can't play all of those, but when I tried
the discs at home they played! In surround! This has to be because of a
compatible DD 5.1 track on every disc.

The music is terrific - what I heard of it so far. Haven't been able to
crank it up yet for domestic peace reasons. But do you folks believe that
you can hear a difference with the fancy higher bitrate tracks?

Gary Eickmeier




24-Bit CAN, theoretically, have sonic advantages over 16-bit simply due to
dynamic range - especially on low-level end of the recording. There are
simply more bits to toggle for ambience and other quiet sounds. Higher than
Red Book sampling rates move the Nyquist frequency further out of the normal
passband for human hearing. Some say that this reduces phase-shift in-band.
With today's digital filters, though, I'm not sure that this is the problem
it (might have been) back in the days of brick-wall analog filters at 22.05
KHz. If the latter IS still a problem, 88.2 KHz sample rate would be more
than sufficient to move the filter frequency far enough out of the passband
to no longer be a problem.

But all of this is hypothetical and wildly speculative. The fact is that the
problems associated with modern recording practices aren't addressed by
either high-data rate PCM or by DSD. Most modern recordings are so
over-produced with the emphasis on things other than sound quality (like
loudness) that using "high-resolution" formats for most modern recordings is
akin to gilding a turd.

I really have no opinion about surround. I feel that most recording producers
can't even get two-channel right any more and isn't there an old saying about
having to learn to walk before you can run?