Is SACD dead?

RE: Is SACD dead?, posted on July 6, 2024 at 02:57:39
Axiom05 Audiophile Posts: 243 Location: Sarasota, FL Joined: May 6, 2013	Sadly, I'm not sure it was ever truly alive. At the very least it never got the traction it needed to survive.

All physical media are on life support. (NT), posted on July 6, 2024 at 05:42:11
Kal Rubinson Reviewer Posts: 12539 Location: New York Joined: June 5, 2002

No way, posted on July 6, 2024 at 11:44:12
hawkmoon Audiophile Posts: 912 Location: cleveland Joined: July 11, 2003	Acoustic Sounds seems to be selling lots of SACDS. Check out the latest Steely Dan discs!

Many players are dead..., posted on July 6, 2024 at 12:20:41

AbeCollins
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...and as Kal said "All physical media are on life support". If that's a problem I guess I am partly to blame. We stream music via Qobuz, movies and shows via Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and AppleTV+.

My VHS are gone. My Laser Discs are gone. My CD's are gone. The few SACD's I had are gone. My DVD's are gone. My Blu-rays.... we'll I still have a few concert Blu-rays but the Sony player is boxed up in storage. Similarly I kept just a fraction of my LP collection along with a TT and phono preamp also in storage. I don't even play physical media or 'thumb drives' in the car preferring instead to stream via the Qobuz App or Roon ARC in the car infotainment system.

My iPad running the 'Roon Remote' App:

The music does not reside on the iPad. It is simply a remote control for streaming from my own library located on the Mac Mini
or NAS as well as navigating playback via Qobuz or Tidal streaming services.

Roon ARC streaming in the car:

RE: Is SACD dead? SACD is doing quite well., posted on July 6, 2024 at 13:08:34

Soundboy
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Almost 300 new SACD releases worldwide in the first 6 months of 2024, with over 17,000 releases worldwide since the format debuted 25 years ago.

The Norah Jones catalog was just released on SHM-SACD in Japan.

Acoustic Sounds/Music Direct/Elusive Disc is just a tip of the SACD iceberg (nt), posted on July 6, 2024 at 13:10:40
Soundboy Audiophile Posts: 962 Location: Northern CA Joined: May 5, 2000	.

D'accord!, posted on July 6, 2024 at 13:12:34

Kal Rubinson
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I'll share the blame.

All my physical media are gone with the exception of a small library of BluRay operas and ballets and a handful of audio discs that I have not yet gotten around to ripping. I maintain a relatively large library of music on NAS drives because I am a devotee of multichannel and there is not a streaming source for it.

(Atmos is another story but it presents issues that I have not yet resolved.)

RE: Is SACD dead?, posted on July 6, 2024 at 13:43:38

pbarach
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I have very few SACDs, but I plan to rip them (using my Oppo 103). I'm keeping my CDs because the collection isn't huge, and it would take too much time out of my life to rip them all.

I gave all of my LPs away years ago to someone on NextDoor who was just getting started with classical music and vinyl. He was excited to have them, and I was happy to regain use of the closet where they had been stored.

RE: Is SACD dead? SACD is doing quite well., posted on July 6, 2024 at 14:32:31
AbeCollins Audiophile Posts: 47562 Location: Maidenhead Grid Square DM79 Joined: June 22, 2001 Contributor Since: February 2, 2002	Huge rise in streaming (Blue) and big drop-off in physical media (Red). SACD must be a tiny sliver of the already tiny physical media market but I guess it's still a viable specialty niche within the audiophile niche.

RE: Is SACD dead? SACD is doing quite well., posted on July 6, 2024 at 20:45:27
Soundboy Audiophile Posts: 962 Location: Northern CA Joined: May 5, 2000	SACD has survived challenges from hi-res disc formats such as DVD-Audio and Blu-ray Audio. While it is not a mainstream success, SACD has created a niche for itself that may even surprised its creators, Sony and Philips.

RE: Is SACD dead?, posted on July 7, 2024 at 01:40:52
Dave Billinge Audiophile Posts: 1015 Location: Hampshire Joined: June 7, 2005	Not for me it isn't. As an exclusively classical collector, and one who listens in surround, the SACD is still a very active medium - 2660 classical works and counting, according to my catalogue. Streaming just doesn't cut it for classical, and downloads are more complex to play than SACDs. I add SACDs to my collection regularly, nothing else is as good. Long may it continue. Dave

... and downloads are more complex to play than SACDs?, posted on July 7, 2024 at 05:49:58

Kal Rubinson
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Not for me. I can access anything in my collection from my listening seat faster than I can get up, walk over and locate my selection from a record shelf, remove the disc and insert it in the player and, finally, return to my seat and hit "Play" on the remote control........and that assumes I know exactly where on my record shelves that particular disc has been filed.

Now, if you want to argue that it requires some added effort, cost and time to set up file playback than to file a disc on a shelf, I will not disagree. IMHO, it is well spent.

SACD and download, posted on July 7, 2024 at 05:55:33

diw
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Posts: 318
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I've definitely purchased more high res multichannel album files for download than SACDs over the last year. I wish there was a simple way to play them back though.Am missing the convenience of popping a disc into the player.

Last week, I just found out about another company, audite, that is making available high res multichannel downloads available on their website. Most were originally SACD releases, but there are clearly a few that are not. Wish there was an easy way on their website to search for those.

I plan on trying out a few of the Berlin Philharmonic downloads next. They too have albums with a variety of different resolutions, some stereo and some multichannel, but lately 96/24 MC fortunately.

These will supplement nativedsd, pentatone, chandos, and eclassical.com bis, which I have used for some time. Seattle symphony and San Francisco Symphony used to market multichannel downloads, but they seem to be exclusively streaming now, sadly. Wish there were more orchestras or companies that sold downloads.

Despite Chris' advocacy of Apple Atmos, I am going to continue to want to retain the data on my hard drive. Old School:) I am also curious about how engineers set up their microphones to derive Atmos recordings of an orchestra, but that is whole different conversation.

RE: ... and downloads are more complex to play than SACDs?, posted on July 7, 2024 at 06:18:33
Dave Billinge Audiophile Posts: 1015 Location: Hampshire Joined: June 7, 2005	Agreed. Finding stuff on the shelves is easy, downloads less so. Dave

RE: Is SACD dead?, posted on July 7, 2024 at 06:58:58

John Elison
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It's dead as far as I'm concerned. I now listen to DSD256 almost exclusively. I've never owned an SACD player, but I have more than 1000 DSD64 albums and I prefer DSD256 over DSD64. I'm using a FiiO R9 digital player. My music is contained on a 4-TB USB hard drive, which plugs directly into my FiiO R9 digital player.

Happy listening!

FiiO R9 from Amazon

??, posted on July 7, 2024 at 07:35:08
Kal Rubinson Reviewer Posts: 12539 Location: New York Joined: June 5, 2002	"Finding stuff on the shelves is easy, downloads less so." Finding stuff on shelves is easy but time-consuming. Playing downloads is easy and quick.

RE: SACD and download, posted on July 7, 2024 at 07:37:38
Kal Rubinson Reviewer Posts: 12539 Location: New York Joined: June 5, 2002	You say "I've definitely purchased more high res multichannel album files for download than SACDs over the last year. I wish there was a simple way to play them back though.Am missing the convenience of popping a disc into the player." Can I ask how you play them back? Why is it not "simple" for you?

RE: Is SACD dead?, posted on July 7, 2024 at 11:06:02

Axiom05
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Posts: 243
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"Streaming just doesn't cut it for classical, and downloads are more complex to play than SACDs."

I'm still laughing at this one, hilarious! Digital file playback/downloads are the greatest thing to happen to classical music. Why would you pay for ridiculously overpriced physical media (assuming you can even find what you want) when you can download a high resolution format for less money? Trying to find specific CD's these days has become extremely difficult but most every classical recording that appeared on CD is available for download at Presto Classical. To each his own, I would never tell you what to do but you're definitely missing out and ill informed.

Just so you know, I have two Dolby Atmos downloads. . . , posted on July 7, 2024 at 12:03:55

Chris from Lafayette
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. . . but I can't play either one (yet!). I can play Dolby Atmos using Dolby Atmos blu-rays in my blu-ray player and streaming via my Apple TV 4K device. But for Dolby Atmos downloads, there doesn't seem to be any straightforward, simple, cheap (!) way to play them right now. I have a big discussion going on right now on the Computer Style site, and I couldn't believe all the "gotchas" involved in playing back what I thought was a straightforward 24/48 album in Dolby Atmos I'd downloaded from the Audite site. For one thing, I would need to add an Nvidia Shield (a little hardware box, similar to the Apple TV 4K device) to my system (no problem - an extra $200). And for another thing, the format of the Atmos files downloaded from the Audite site is different from that of the Atmos files downloaded from the 2L or other sites.

And here's where things get even more complicated: the download from Audite unzipped to a bunch of WAV files (for the different tracks) - but it seems that they're special WAV files which won't play back like other WAV files (because they have all this Atmos meta information in them) and need to be passed through "Dolby Renderer" software ($300) and possibly another piece of software (? - I think it's software) from Dolby Labs, the Dolby Encoder ($400/year). And it seems that I don't want .wav files. I'm told what I REALLY need is .mkv files. I think the process will need to be WAY simplified if Dolby Atmos downloads are going to take off, even at a niche audiophile level.

Kal - if you're still on this thread, what do you think?

Hey, I like a lot of SACD's too, but I wouldn't call their sales numbers an iceberg [nt] ;-), posted on July 7, 2024 at 12:06:40
Chris from Lafayette Audiophile Posts: 27471 Location: SF Bay Area Joined: February 17, 2004 Contributor Since: February 6, 2012

RE: Is SACD dead?, posted on July 7, 2024 at 14:24:43
zacster Audiophile Posts: 2201 Location: NYC Joined: November 22, 2003	Funny. I was shocked to see another post on this forum and I kept thinking the same thing. AA in general has slowed down.

I can play the Audite files. , posted on July 7, 2024 at 14:52:09
Kal Rubinson Reviewer Posts: 12539 Location: New York Joined: June 5, 2002	They are 13channel, 24/48 WAV files and Jriver plays them just fine.

13-channel?, posted on July 8, 2024 at 00:45:37

Chris from Lafayette
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When I check the file info for each of the unzipped WAV files, the (Apple) system indicates 12 channels (which I assume is the equivalent of 7.1.4), and I'm wondering what the 13th channel would be used for?

EDIT: BTW, I appreciate your info about being able to play Dolby Atmos downloads from the Audite site with Jriver. So no additional processing or conversion of the files was necessary - you just played the unzipped .wav files directly with Jriver? BTW, I checked the Jriver site a couple of hours ago, and there's a great discussion about Dolby Atmos there on one of the forums. Can you also play Auro 3D files (like those on the 2L site) directly in Jriver? TIA.

RE: Is SACD dead?, posted on July 8, 2024 at 04:50:15

zacster
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Posts: 2201
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Let's not forget that the music services have so much out there that you can just sample at will. With any luck at all you'll find it in hi-res on Qobuz too. It may not be the particular performance that you want but the particular piece will be there with countless others. You get to sample different music too without any commitment. And you aren't limited to classical of course.

Once you have it set up you will never go back to your physical discs. I never do.

RE: 13-channel?, posted on July 8, 2024 at 05:50:01
Kal Rubinson Reviewer Posts: 12539 Location: New York Joined: June 5, 2002	Well, the one I chanced to open was 13 but others were 12 channels. No idea why. (FWIW, I have a 40 channel one from SFSO Also, the files we are discussing are WAVs (zipped or not) and, though they may be derived from or the basis of Atmos or Auro3d, are not encoded and do not require anything special to play them. For real Auro3d, there is a VST plugin decoder that runs in Jriver.

Thanks, Kal! My immediate future is becoming clearer and clearer! [nt] ;-), posted on July 8, 2024 at 11:17:10
Chris from Lafayette Audiophile Posts: 27471 Location: SF Bay Area Joined: February 17, 2004 Contributor Since: February 6, 2012

FiiO R9? Nice!, posted on July 8, 2024 at 22:27:17

AbeCollins
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When did you get the R9 and does in replace your other 'portable' FiiO player?

I can (almost) live with the R9 since it has a remote control but the upright vertical style chassis gives me pause only because it would be a difficult fit in my AV rack.

RE: FiiO R9? Nice!, posted on July 9, 2024 at 09:16:54

John Elison
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Yeah, the R9 replaced my other FiiO players. It sounds better and it's considerably more versatile. It even cost $300 less than my previous M17, and it doesn't require a cooling fan like the M17. Furthermore, it has an abundance of inputs and outputs. You can also plug in a high capacity USB hard drive. I'm using a 4-TB USB hard drive in conjunction with a 1-TB micro SD card. It plays all digital formats up through DSD512 directly from its plugin drives.

FiiO's Flagship all-in-one Digital Media Streamer

And accessible , posted on July 9, 2024 at 12:52:40
E-Stat Audiophile Posts: 39092 Joined: May 12, 2000 Contributor Since: April 5, 2002	from multiple directions: artist, album title, genre, track title, year of release etc.

Android phone on audio steroids. -nt, posted on July 9, 2024 at 12:59:21
E-Stat Audiophile Posts: 39092 Joined: May 12, 2000 Contributor Since: April 5, 2002

RE: Is SACD dead?, posted on July 11, 2024 at 13:27:19
fantja Audiophile Posts: 15742 Location: Alabama Joined: September 11, 2010	No- far from dead.

Sting, Maroon 5, and Roxy Music SACDs to be released next week (nt), posted on July 11, 2024 at 14:23:29
Soundboy Audiophile Posts: 962 Location: Northern CA Joined: May 5, 2000	.

RE: Sting, Maroon 5, and Roxy Music SACDs to be released next week (nt), posted on July 12, 2024 at 13:47:35
fantja Audiophile Posts: 15742 Location: Alabama Joined: September 11, 2010	Precisely.

Wouldn't seem to be, just got this today..., posted on July 12, 2024 at 15:53:52
musetap Audiophile Posts: 32363 Location: San Francisco Joined: July 8, 2003 Contributor Since: January 28, 2004	, "Once this was all Black Plasma and Imagination"-Michael McClure

Amen.. I too love Classical and film music, and the vast..., posted on July 14, 2024 at 12:21:01

jeffreybehr
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...majority of my disc purchases are SACDs.. In fact, I simply avoid CDs.. I don't stream, but I've downloaded a couple-dozen files from NativeDSD (max. rez. of DSD128, limited then by my Oppo '205).. Have assembled a multichannel SACD system using an old PS Audio Memory Player, three PSA DACs, and a BelCanto multichannel preamp, but have yet to get it running.

I suppose some day, if I live long enough (I'm 80YO), I'll start storing and playing multichannel DSD files, but I'm not there yet.

I AM 'there' now with my system which contains gorgeous-sounding Sound Lab Majestic 745 ESLs and excellent poweramps and sounds EXCELLENT.

I'm answering, but not for 'diw'.. I save the files (from NativeDSD)..., posted on July 15, 2024 at 13:40:09

jeffreybehr
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...on my main computer's data-SSD and transfer them to USB sticks.. I tie a label/tag to the stick, but that's where the convenience ends, as I now have a pile of tagged USB sticks to look thru.. Turns out this is way-less convenient than retrieving SACDs.. Playing the stick is easy using my OPPO '205 DP.

Am considering some kind of fileserver and software but haven't gotten further than my fantasies.. (I do not and WILL NOT stream files.) I'm currently assembing a multichannel PS Audio-based system using a Memory Player*, a PerfectWave DirectStream DAC, and two Stellar GainCell DACs, all feeding a BelCanto 6-channel, all-analog preamp which will drive the poweramps.. I considered an Octo chip-based DAC but decided I wanted the sonic benefits of PS Audio's software DAC.. But every time (of about 3 attempts), something (such as a BelCanto remotecontrol with a broken battery lead) interrupts the process.. The player has a USB input, so this should work with served files, too.. Maybe by the end of this summer...

Meanwhile, I have much surplus audio equipment to sell!
.

* The only PSA SACD player that outputs multichannel, raw-DSD signals

RE: I'm answering, but not for 'diw'.. I save the files (from NativeDSD)..., posted on July 16, 2024 at 06:08:36
diw Audiophile Posts: 318 Joined: May 30, 2002	I sold my Oppo 203 a number of years back, which I regret doing. I can play my USB drive of sad and pcm files through the USB port of my Panasonic blu-ray player, which currently is my best option. I also got a Dune media player, but I'm having a number of issues with playback of files through it, the Dune has slots for an internal hard drive, so I might to try that out.

A lot of responses, posted on July 20, 2024 at 08:09:43
Ozzie Audiophile Posts: 3894 Joined: August 1, 2002	There hasn't been much action here in quite some time, so I thought I'd stir the pot.

Roxy Music SACDs?, posted on July 28, 2024 at 16:48:08
Mossback Audiophile Posts: 1873 Location: Washington, the State Joined: November 17, 2001	Where do I find the new Roxy Music SACD's?

RE: Roxy Music SACDs?, posted on July 29, 2024 at 17:15:48
Soundboy Audiophile Posts: 962 Location: Northern CA Joined: May 5, 2000	Here you go.... https://www.importcds.com/best-of-roxy-music-hybrid-sacd/600753995822

RE: ... and downloads are more complex to play than SACDs?, posted on August 5, 2024 at 06:09:22

John Elison
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> Now, if you want to argue that it requires some added effort, cost and time to set up file
> playback than to file a disc on a shelf, I will not disagree.

I will. I own a FiiO R9. All I need to do is plug in my 4-TB external USB hard drive and play the music files on the drive. In fact, you can plug multiple drives into either the R9 or the less expensive R7. These players are phenomenal. The R9 is the best digital player and costs $1500. The R7 is less expensive and costs only $700.

You should check these out, Kal. You might like them. I sure do!

Happy listening!
John Elison

Thanks but......................, posted on August 9, 2024 at 08:09:55
Kal Rubinson Reviewer Posts: 12539 Location: New York Joined: June 5, 2002	1. I was not talking about playback but about setting up a library. How did the files and associated metadata get on to your hard drive? 2. The FiiO R9 looks cute but I have no need for it nor for headphones.

RE: Thanks but......................, posted on August 10, 2024 at 11:28:56

John Elison
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1. I downloaded the albums from internet sellers directly to my hard drive. They all come up in alphabetical order on the R9 display.

2. The R9 is great for driving amplifiers as well as headphones. Currently, mine is connected to my Hypex Nilai 500 Mono Block Amplifiers via XLR balanced cables. These monoblocks drive my Mini Maggie Speakers. The R9 is a DAP/DAC/Preamp/Streamer/etc. It's similar to the EverSolo DMP-A8, only $480 less expensive.

FiiO R9 Flagship Digital Audio Player

Let's not extend this unnecessarily., posted on August 10, 2024 at 13:55:37
Kal Rubinson Reviewer Posts: 12539 Location: New York Joined: June 5, 2002	I was asking about metadata, not whether the tracks were recognized and playable. That's not trivial for classical recordings. Also, you cannot interest me in the FiiO or any other device that is limited to 2 channels.

RE: Is SACD dead?, posted on September 19, 2024 at 13:09:13
John PA Audiophile Posts: 4022 Location: The lower 48. Joined: August 27, 2000	I hope not. iBasso DX300MAX Ti. Focal Utopia and Stellia. iBasso SR2. Mr. Speakers, Ether II, Voce stats. Manley, Absolute headphone amp. LTA MZ3, Z10e electrostatic amp. Many other headphones, amps, cables etc.

Hi-Rez Highway

Is SACD dead?

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