[Audio Empire]

On Fri, 24 Jun 2011 09:02:14 -0700, Gary Eickmeier wrote
(in article ):

[ Entire quotation snipped as not being relevant to
the new article. -- dsr ]



On a more practical level....

Have you played with the commercial SACD releases from Telarc, and would you
consider them worth the expense over the CD format or Dolby Digital? Are
they 3 front channels, or just two? Are they surround or just front sound?
Do they release these in the newer Dolby True HD on Blu Ray disc, or are
there no audio only Blu Ray discs?

I realize how iggerant I am, but I'm trying...

Gary Eickmeier



I have a large collection of SACD releases, including many Telarcs. All
Telarc SACDs have a surround layer. I have never listened to the surround
layers in my own system as it's only two-channel. Some of the Philips
produced Mercury recordings released in the SACD format are indeed three
channel (the way they were originally recorded - right, center, left), but
again, you need three identical speakers and three channels of amplification
to correctly present those recordings, and I don't have that either. I have
heard them in a stereo store, but never in my own system. I must say that
soundstage is impressive. Especially for a three-spaced-omni mike
arrangement, which I deem to be wrong-headed.

My impression of SACD releases, in general, is pretty much the same as Meyer
& Moran's conclusion in their oft-cited paper on SACD vs CD. SACD releases
generally sound better than regular CD releases because they seem to use less
compression and limiting in their production. I suspect that if regular CDs
were mastered in the same way as the SACDs, that there would actually be
little to choose between them sonically.

There are a few True-HD audio-only Blu-Ray discs (I have a couple from a
company in Norway called "2L") Other than a very few independent releases
from specialty labels, I haven't seen much activity on that front.