Let's A / B...Which One Do You Prefer?

[himey]

I tried to compare the Brothers in Arms release on DVDA and SACD, another early DDD recording. It's not an easy thing to do as I only have one disc player. But I tackled it this way...

Rip the DVDA to flac, play it from my media player. Play the SACD natively with my Oppo. Set volume levels as closely as possible by ear. Put each setup into a preset on the AVP so I could instantly switch. Time the start so one version plays about 5 seconds ahead of the other. Then A/B.

Not the perfect setup to be sure... digital conversion being done in two different devices. No absolute level match. But its the best I could do with my system.

The result? I couldn't tell them apart. And even if there were some minute difference, it's not worth the time and trouble trying to find it. Start listening to the music people. Stop listening to the hardware.

Is there a term for squinting your ears? If I have to even remotely do this, to tell a difference, I say screw it, and continue looking for better mastering's and mixes of the music I care about. That makes all the difference. Vary rarely it is the format.

 

[mandrix]

Yes that's like listening to the original "Ship Ahoy" SACD back in the day and finding so many think there are inverted channels. Dave explained with a very detailed explanation about that. Always sounds good until someone tears your world down. lol!

 

[Uncle Obscure]

I LOVE that SACD!

 

[J. PUPSTER]

Oh boy, I love these geeky subjects.
My little response is in general.
I have always preferred the true DVD-Audios, the sound, the pictures, the lyrics choice.
They all sound good to me and I might be influenced by the little above choices I mention above.
Sadly they do not make those anymore, the special DVD-A case etc.
This hobby is absolutely maddening.
Been listening to music my whole life and can be pretty good at music, artists, etc, my wife always say's I should be on one of those music game shows. People on QQ know more than me.
But how that music gets delivered to our ears, WOW, now that is a subject that will last to infinity.
From the electricity out in the street, to inside the house, to your audio gear, to the format that it comes to you, makes me want to
But I love it.

Yeppers!
One of my all time fav albums this one. Reminds me, I’ve been threatening a couple of folks for a long while now, about starting a new thread of why I like the CD stereo mastering better because (at least on I.G.Y.) of one little guitar chord that’s buried in the DVD-A’s mix; disturbs the whole essence of the song for me. But I’ve been hesitant to start it up as it may drive folks crazy here; and eventually end up being a thread about LP’s sounding better with Tube amps and weighted speaker cables

Not sure I own the SACD, but I love the DVD-A’s not so static song pics, like smoke wafting off a Cig!

 

[par4ken]

I think that the point of this thread is rather moot. Who still releases DVD-A? That being said, here goes.

In the beginning I prefered DVD-A. My universal player converted SACD, DSD to PCM. I thought that both sounded good but gave the edge to DVD-A. I both liked the additional video on the DVD-A and disliked it, you can navigate the SACD without a video monitor hooked up. So both formats had good and bad features.

I found that SACD's are usually mastered more pure, less often brick walled. Some DVD-A's were just as bad as the CD release in that mastering respect.

Soundwise SACD's sound best played back as DSD. When converted they lose something in the translation, becoming a bit softer sounding.
I'm not saying that they can't be converted better but the difference using the Oppo to convert is very audible.

Now we have Blu-ray with similar features as DVD-A. Again my complaint with those is in the sometimes/often bad mastering, and the need to navigate menus.

 

[Uncle Obscure]

Good points! My first universal player was a Denon DVD-3910 connected to a Denon AVR-3805 using their proprietary D-Link (Denon Link) cable. IMO, the D-Link connection definitely enhanced pure DSD SACD playback, but it was less of a factor (compared to an all analog connection) when it came to DVD-A. It wasn't until my D-Link experience that I began to favor some SACDs over their DVD-A counterparts. Today, decades later, that all seems so quaint and my go-to player is an OPPO UDP203 bitstreamed to an OKYO TX-RZ50. Check out this product description of the Denon technology. My how times have changed.

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

Now we have Blu-ray with similar features as DVD-A. Again my complaint with those is in the sometimes/often bad mastering, and the need to navigate menus.

I was never a huge fan of DVD-Audio primarily because it wasn't an 'audio only' playback format. By contrast, SACD is simple. No display is necessary!

The 'HFPA' Blu-ray disc format was supposed to be the same as SACD, ie: simple. But sadly it's lost its way now...

 

[mandrix]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_DualDisc_releases

Not a complete list I see. They missed "1011 Woodward" by The Fixx. DVDA/CD DualDisc. (2004?) recorded 1999.

 

[JediJoker]

Not a complete list I see. They missed "1011 Woodward" by The Fixx. DVDA/CD DualDisc. (2004?) recorded 1999.

And on Silverline, no less! One of the few good ones.

Also, for the Nightfly DualDisc, did it use the DVD-A or MVI DVD-V for the DVD side?

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

Out of interest...

Were any of these DualDisc releases encoded with lossless multi-channel mlp/lpcm audio? All the multi-channel discs I have are encoded with lossy Dolby Digital audio!

 

[himey]

Were any of these DualDisc releases encoded with lossless multi-channel mlp/lpcm audio?

Yes!

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

Yes!

Can you recommend any? I'd like at least one for my collection...

Cheers

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

Can you recommend any? I'd like at least one for my collection...

Cheers

The Talking Heads ones

 

[mandrix]

Can you recommend any? I'd like at least one for my collection...

Cheers

see post #48

 

[fredblue]

Can you recommend any? I'd like at least one for my collection...

Cheers

Eric Clapton "Back Home",
Lalo Schifrin "Letters From Argentina",
Kem "Album II",
Pete Townshend & Ronnie Lane "Rough Mix"

 

[mandrix]

I think I have a Dire Straits - BIA dualdisc as well SMD. MLP/CD

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

see post #48

I did... But even after visiting Discogs it's very clear which DualDisc's actually contain multi-channel DVD-Audio (lossless .mlp) encoded content, instead of lossy Dolby Digital...

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

Thanks everyone...

 

[fredblue]

I did... But even after visiting Discogs it's very clear which DualDisc's actually contain multi-channel DVD-Audio (lossless .mlp) encoded content, instead of lossy Dolby Digital...

fwiw, the majority of DualDiscs were on Sony and the majority of those that included 5.1 presented it in lossy Dolby Digital form, so there aren't that many DualDiscs with Lossless DVD-Audio tracks.

there were a few more DualDiscs on Universal that included MLP DVD-Audio 5.1, some but not all of which also saw release on Surround SACD, such as

Bon Jovi "Slippery When Wet",
Keane "Hopes And Fears",
Lee Ann Womack "Greatest Hits",
Sheryl Crow "The Globe Sessions",
Toby Keith "Shock 'n Y'All"

WEA and Capitol also had a brief go at DVD-A DualDisc, including,

Dire Straits "Brothers In Arms",
The Donnas "Gold Medal",
Fischerspooner "#1",
R.E.M. "Document",
Rob Thomas "Something To Be"..

i'll keep me thinking cap on

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

i'll keep me thinking cap on

Thank you...