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Someone needs to do spectral analysis of all the mofi sacds to check for the presence of music content above 22kHz to confirm if they had really used real dsd captures of the studio mastertapes or they were merely upsampled pcm files provided by the original music label(s).
Of all the 26 mofi sacd titles that I've listened to, they don't sound as good compared against the same recordings on sacd issued by the original label or against those from Analogue Production. All the mofi sacds tend to sound soft, dulled and closed-in.
A while ago, you found that a lot of Sony sacd titles were derived from 44.1kHz/48kHz pcm sources.
And then the question would be - what if some of those less than perfect "dsd" files had also been used to make the mofi 1-step vinyl records...
Follow Ups:
In this spectrogram, a representation of amplitude versus frequency of the tested track, the horizontal axis represents frequency, and the vertical axis represents amplitude.The yellow arrow point towards the frequency response limit of the SACD (Blue) which is around 22 kHz, the same as like the original pcm source (white).
Beyond 20 kHz there is a hump which indicate the noise derived from the SACD production process.
This mastering of the SACD MOFI version is different from the other pcm digital versions, in that there is an attenuation above 10 kHz of up to 5 dB. No wonder we found that this SACD sound "dulled", "soft" and "closed-in".
The bass is also different by a few dB below 400 Hz (green zone). The original digital master is cut at 22 kHz (yellow arrow). This mastering will have an impact on the sound balance, especially on the guitar and voice.
The hi-rez capability of the SACD is not exploited here because of the use of a digital master that max out at 44.1 kHz sampling rate.
Edits: 08/24/22 08/24/22
I have a number of CDs that were ripped to 16/44.1 PCM well over a decade ago and see that the streaming services - Qobuz & Tidal - often have a newer remaster with potentially better sound quality.... but not always. When that is the case I'll add it to my library for an A/B comparison against my CD rip.
Summary analysis examples: newer Norah Jones Come Away with Me via Qobuz hi-res is better than my old CD rip. Dire Straits Money for Nothing is better on the old CD. They compressed even more on the hi-res. This was never a great sounding album but apparently the old CD is better. Time to do an actual A/B comparison.
I remember when the Norah Jones SACD first came out many audiophiles claimed that it was so much better than the CD. Those same audiophiles back peddled when they learned it was a DSD conversion from 16/44.1 PCM [CD]. All of a sudden these same audiophiles could magically hear no difference between the CD and SACD ;-)I always thought SACD and DSD were artificially smooth taking all edge off the music even if the artist intended for it to be there. Like a shard of glass smoothed over by ocean currents, it's still glass but no longer the same. Just my take.
Edits: 08/16/22 08/17/22
Years ago when I purchased SACDs, some sounded very good, but others simply didn't wow me at all. I tend to believe that some of them were re-released in SACD format but were actually converted from 16/44.1 format.
After I ripped my CD collection into FLAC format, I concluded that the audio quality from playing a CD versus streaming it was indiscernible. It didn't seem worth keeping my SACD player for a few quality SACDs. Add a subscription to Qobuz and I'm good.
Every time I listened to a hybrid SACD, I preferred the sound of the CD layer over the SACD layer.............
Similar path here. I had an excellent Accuphase DP-65v that became my 'reference' CD player. The Cary 306/200 was also outstanding but the older Accuphase won by a slight margin for transparency.I also had a high-end Denon universal player that handled SACD. Out of curiosity I started collecting SACDs but never dove in 100%. I came to realize that SACD was 'different' but not necessarily better than quality CDs for my needs.
I ripped my CD collection quite a while ago and set up a music server + DAC. I additionally bought some 'hi-res' downloads. I started streaming Tidal and Qobuz a couple years ago making the CD collection and even the ripped CD files redundant.
Sold the Accuphase CDP, got rid of my CDs, gave away 95% of my LPs. I now stream most of my music. I have no desire to "own" my music as I can't take it with me to the grave.
Edits: 08/19/22
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It was more than 10 years ago, but my recollection was that Sony sent in a letter to the editor doubling down, stating that the purpose of the SACD was MCH playback, and they basically said (without saying it out loud) that they did not care about the listening experience of people who only wanted to listen to 2-channel stereo, and also that everybody knows that John Marks is a wife-beating Nazi drunkard.
Well, may be not the last part.
My recollection is that Acoustic Sounds later did a proper hi-res stereo SACD transfer.
If Sony did a proper hi-res stereo SACD, I missed it.
jm
I remember there was a big kerfuffle back then and eventually a real hi rez version came out. I admit that I don't remember the detail, if I ever knew them.
Jack
nt
. . . with one of the Vanska/Minnesota Orchestra recordings of the Beethoven symphonies on the BIS label. The master was 16/44.1 PCM which had to be converted to DSD for SACD release. All the golden ears were raving about the SACD (with its glorious DSD sound!) until they found out the truth about its origins. Suddenly, they didn't like it so much anymore! ;-)
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