Super Audio CDs Rolling Your Way

donutello writes "Slate is running an article about the Rolling Stones Remastered series discs having two layers: CD and SACD. The article contains some interesting information about how Sony is sneakily distributing SACD players without the buyers noticing it. This FAQ provides some information about SACDs. Don't expect to be able to play or reproduce these on your computer anytime soon. The SACD format contains a physical watermark on the disc. SACD players will only play discs with valid watermarks. Music watermarks had two opponents: The audiophiles who didn't like their music distorted and people who didn't like the watermarks preventing copying of the music. With the physical watermarks, they have found a way to appease the former while still stopping the latter thus causing a break in the ranks of the opposition."

Comments

Independent recording?

[Space Coyote]

Is the watermark system going to affect how people produce music? Say for example, the SACD format becomes adopted as the standard audio format. If I own a small record label, how am I supposed to distribute my bands' music? Will I have to pay some arbitrary royalty fee to someone like Sony just so people can listen to music? Will such fees and required equipment make the barrier to entry for the recording business significantly higher? This kind of thing affects many more people than just your average slashdotter with an mp3 habbit.

Re:Independent recording?

[tato (and tato only)]

If this law is passed, it will be a felony even to try to produce works in this format without a license, and there will be no obligation for a license to be made available to your small label at any price. Small labels and independent artists lose.

Keep your unimpaired CD players, people.

SONY, LAWMAKERS: THINK!!!

[edrugtrader]

this point has been brought up 20,000 times so i'll try not to rant too much... if you can play it, and listen to it, you can record it.

sure you can't go digital to digital, but a couple good 24/96 digital to analog converters will make your copy sound nearly exact (if not completely exact)... if *1* person has the technology to copy the sound professionally (with no loss) into a digital medium, then everyone might as well have it, because the second that 1 person distributes the file, it is out there for everyone. (this includes they guy that works at the cd press shop and has access to the masters)

YOU CAN'T COPY-PROTECT MUSIC.

YOU CAN'T COPY-PROTECT VIDEO.

YOU CAN'T COPY-PROTECT CowboyNeal

SACD, mp3, and more

[cheinonen]

First, if you're mad because you can't rip your SACD to an mp3 to listen to, then you're totally missing the point. Go buy a CD for that, it'll rip just fine, you can listen to it on your iPod, and everyone is happy. The point of buying something on SACD is to have far better sound quality, not to compress it down. SACD's secondary layer uses a DVD to hold the information, so that's 4.7 gigs of audio for the same amount of tracks.

The idea of buying something to listen to on your iPod, or in your car, or on your computer that is SACD makes no sense. You're going to have hardware that is holding you back far more than the qualify of the medium. Unless you're listening on a computer with a really nice DAC and some Grado RS1 headphones, you can probably stick to CD audio or mp3's and notice not much difference. However, if you are listening on a real stereo with decent speakers, then listening to a well made SACD compared to a CD will blow you away.

If I want to make a backup copy of my music, I can buy a copy on CD since I'm not going to be able to make a copy of a SACD myself anytime soon. To me, the compromise of incredibly high quality sound, that does beat the high end vinyl I've listened to, and having copy protection that doesn't interfere with that sound quality is a tradeoff I'm alright with. If you're mad over not being able to rip them for mp3's, then you should just buy the CD.

Re:SACD, mp3, and more

[Amoeba]

You said:

If I want to make a backup copy of my music, I can buy a copy on CD since I'm not going to be able to make a copy of a SACD myself anytime soon.

Ya know, I though that same thing too.... initially. See, the problem is what happens when the day arrives that the only format available in drives and media is SACD? Can't make archival exact copies of your own media. Can't get a replacement for the disc if gets scratched. So much for Fair Use.

And that's my problem with it. Call me kooky but I'm wary of companies that try the "Oooh.. look over there, SHINY!" distraction tactic while they take away my money/rights/stuff. Sony has lots of practice in that particular area.

Amoeba

Re:SACD, mp3, and more

[EllisDees]

>However, if you are listening on a real stereo with decent speakers, then listening to a well made SACD compared to a CD will blow you away.

Are you sure about that? Until I see a few double blind ABX tests comparing a SACD with a CD mastered from the same source, I'm going to have to consider it all marketing. "Ooh! This format can store *four times* more sound than the human ear can discern, where a CD can just produce a little more than anyone can possibly hear!"

Bleah.

Re:SACD, mp3, and more

[HowIsMyDriving?]

I have an SACD player and I can play all the burned CD copies that I want. The only thing that you can't do rip the 4.7g data stream. You CAN RIP A SACD HYBRID DISK TO MP3. It will play in any regular cd player. This includes cd drives.

There is a diagram of

[eclectro]

how it works here

"Often compared to vinyl"

[dpbsmith]

The FAQ says that "the sound of SACD [tick] is often compared to that [tick] of vinyl."

But just wait until next year, when they unleash UACD (Ultra Audio CD). The rich [tick] emotional [tick] impact of [tick] THIS format [tick] is often [tick] compared to [tick] a 78-RPM [tick] shellac pressing [tick] shellac pressing [tick] shellac pressing [tick] shellac pressing [tick] shellac pressing.

However, even the 78 is subject to electronic processes which distort the sound.

The best process of all would be one in which the actual soundwaves create the recording through direct action, without the intermediary of any transducers of electronics whatsoever.

So I wouldn't buy UACD.

No sir, I'm wait for the MACD (Mega Audio CD) that's waiting in the wings, with sound that's often compared to an acoustically recorded Edison Amberol cylinder.

Re:What kind of CD

[Jeremy Erwin]

1. SACDs don't store data using 96KHz/24bit PCM. They use 2.82/1 bit Direct Stream Digital. (PCM records a 24 bit volume sample, 96000 times a second. A Direct Stream Digital recording simply indicates whether the sound should be louder or softer than before. DSD is also (generically) known as pulse width modulation.

Think of sending directions to a plotting device. One method (PCM) should say (0,0),(pi/2, 1), (pi, 0), (3pi/2, -1), (2pi, 0). The DSD way says up,down,down,up ...

There are a number of supposed benefits to recording using Direct Stream Digital, but it's difficult to edit without converting first to PCM.
Many DVD-Audio players limit the resolution of the S/PDIF output to 48 KHz.

The Sharp DX -SX1 SACD player has digital output (admttedly its proprietary, but so what? Most DACS can't decode PWM)...

Audiophile BS

[MillionthMonkey]

Audiophiles are always fun. They can sound a lot like proponents of alternative medicine. A few quotes from the Audiophile BS page:

• "These cables deliver big time! The sound is surprsingly smooth and spacious, with particularly sweet upper octaves."
  
• "Special wooden resonator disks made in Asia from a special tree, only found in one area. Placing these under EACH of your components, at strategic locations will remove 'unwanted resonances', and DRAMATIC improval tonal quality. The difference is astounding. These disks of wood sell for around $100 to $400 EACH (depending on size)."
  
• "Harmonic textures ebbed and flowed with startling dynamic nuances and the sort of liquidity and purity one only comes to associate with world-class audio products."
  
• "By using the $450 gold plated RCA stereo jumper cables for all line-level connections, and the newly available $1200 gold plated XYZ speaker wires, we were able to achieve a distinct improvement in highs and the deepest rich bass lows I have ever heard. A massive improvement over ordinary old copper."
  
• Recently I got a pair of Acoustic Research 226PS bookshelf speakers and tried hooking them up with the lamp cord. The sound was dull and flat, better than the old speakers but it let the flaws in the wire [!] be heard.
  
• "Rendition of harmonic colors was suave and smooth, with a believable sugar coating."
  
• "Spatial detail was painted with a fine brush that readily resolved massed voices and the air around individual instruments."
  
• "I just got through spray painting my dual BlackLight discs with flat colors. I did one side in classic forest green & the other in black. My impressions were very much like my brothers but with contradictory results. I liked black since it lowered the noise floor & increased channel separation even more which only further enhanced dynamics & detail simultaneously. He liked green because it's effect is very soothingly smooth. imagry transitions from channel to channel seemlessly, without huge sacrifices (eg: noise-floor raises about +10dB to around -110dB). It simply paints better between speakers."
  
• "The Equilibre ($8,475) - nominally a 60-watt stereo amp."
  
• "I found myself happily out of week-end work around the house lately and decided to replace the bubble wrap around my speaker cable; the air had leaked out of most of the pockets and it seemed like a good idea at the time... when it was done the effort proved worthwhile; bass was noticeably tighter and better delineated, more air around instruments in a clearer soundstage, voices somehow more expressive."
  

I came up with one for Sony's SACD:
"It felt like I had crawled into a warm and inviting sonic womb, where my fair use rights were gone."

Vinyl "Fidelity"

[sunspot42]

>Everyone with any knowledge of audio will agree that CDs are
>a poor format. Crappy error-correction, only 16-bit precision
>(20 is optimal), and a relatively low sampling rate are all
>problems. Guess why audiophiles mostly listen to vinyl.

Amazing how much you can get wrong in three little sentences. CDs are a fantastic audio delivery format when compared to their predecessors. CD error protection is fairly bulletproof - witness the ability of most quality (and many cheap) players to track even severely scratched discs, while inaudibly correcting for any read errors the optics can't get past. Try doing that with a scratched analog LP or jammed tape. CD's 44.1 kHz sampling rate meanwhile is adequate to reproduce the full 20 Hz - 20 kHz range of human hearing, and then some (this article explains how the oddball 44.1 kHz became the standard).

As for "audiophiles", I don't know how you'd possibly go about defining an audiophile these days, now that many low end consumer multichannel receivers and surround speaker systems boast specs that demolish those possessed by high-end, $1000+ pieces of equipment just a decade ago. I do know there are plenty of self-identified audiophiles out there who won't touch vinyl with a 10 foot pole. Given the format's numerous limitations, I can't say I blame them:

* Loud tics and pops caused by stray dust and wear, resulting in a *negative* signal to noise ratio - i.e. the noise can become louder than the music! (with N'Stynk, I suppose this would be a blessing in disguise . . . or simply redundant.)
* Rumbling caused by the turntable's motor and the friction of the stylus as it passes through the groove
* Wow and flutter, caused by speed irregularities in the turntable's drive system and by any imperfections in the geometry of the disc
* Phase irregularities caused by the RIAA equalization and the subsequent need for the preamp to de-equalize the signal
* Frequency response irregularities caused by the RIAA equalization / de-equalization process
* The inability to reproduce loud bass accurately (the cutter making the wax master would pop out of its groove if it tried to reproduce the kind of bass CDs can handle effortlessly)
* The tendency for the turntable, platter and even the disc to function as microphones, picking up room reverberations and - particularly - the sound being produced by the speakers, smearing and distorting the audio in numerous ways
* Cartridge / tonearm misalignments, causing inaccurate stylus pickup, accelerated record wear, or both.
30dB of stereo separation, vs. CD's 70+dB of separation
* A theoretical maximum of 60dB of dynamic range for virgin vinyl of the highest quality (and only at certain frequencies - obviously, not in the low bass) vs. around 90dB of dynamic range from even the cheapest CD players, across the entire spectrum
* In practice, roughly 40dB of usable dynamic range across the majority of the spectrum
* A relatively flat frequency response from only around 60 Hz to 15 kHz, with severe rolloffs beyond those limits
* The need for mastering engineers to severely compress and re-equalize the signal in order to steer clear of the format's limitations relative to CD, which requires no such distortion-educing compensation
* Pitch and frequency errors caused by the speed difference between the cutter used to produce the wax master and your turntable
* The tendency of the media itself to wear out as its played, and to be damaged during routine handling with audible results

CDs are based on 25 year old technology now. Newer formats - such as DVD Audio - offer even more impressive specifications (and multichannel audio capabilities), but the difference between them and the Compact Disc is nothing like the quantum leap in fidelity the CD represents vs. the vinyl LP. Vinyl was obsolete for at least a decade before the CD rolled along, and it was probably only confusion in the marketplace regarding the various tape formats (the 8-track, Philips' compact cassette, open reel) that allowed it to survive as long as it did.

Re:Vinyl "Fidelity"

[sunspot42]

>Thank you for the very informative post. I'd give it a +5 if I could.
>EVERY "vinyl is better" fanatic should read this.

Thanks! Glad you found it to be of some use.

Actually, I can think of several reasons for preferring the "sound" of vinyl, but none of them have to do with its superior *fidelity*:

* The dynamic range is compressed, sometimes pretty severely at certain frequencies. This can make it easier to hear certain soft details that might be obscure on a CD, particularly if your hearing isn't perfect (and most Americans have pretty poor hearing, due to all the loud noises we're exposed to during our lifetimes, particularly amplified music). For example, I've heard vinyl lovers say they've been able to hear the air conditioning in a concert hall from a quality, virgin vinyl pressing on a high-end turntable. While such feats are possible with CDs (if you crank the volume during a quiet passage - CD's 90dB dynamic range makes it possible to hear all sorts of otherwise inaudible background noise if you crank the volume high enough), it's simply impossible with vinyl's 60dB of dynamic range (max) unless the material was compressed before being mastered. (Well, I suppose if the concert hall had an amazingly noisy air conditioning system . . . .)
* The music is typically heavily equalized by the mastering engineer. Not only do these guys compensate for the limits of the vinyl format (for example, eliminating any loud low bass that could pop the mastering cutter right out of its groove - not to mention your poor stylus), they frequently "sweeten" the sound to suit their own tastes.
* The high end hiss, high-frequency clicks and pops and high-frequency harmonics generated by the stylus and pickup as they vibrate enhance the perceived high-midrange and treble response. While the hiss and clicks can be annoying when the music is soft, when it's loud the music pretty well drowns them out as distinct entities, and your ear perceives them as part of the high-end of the music. Harmonics also increase as the music grows louder, further enhancing the apparent high-end. I suspect this accounts for why many vinyl enthusiasts say CDs sound "flat" to them. They do!

You can demonstrate this effect for yourself - generate or record some white noise extending out to at least 20kHz, then filter everything below about 5000 Hz by around 20dB. Finally, mix this in with some audio recorded off of CD (make it a CD that you own, in order to avoid the wrath of the RIAA!). Experiment with the levels until you find you can no longer hear the hiss as a distinct component of the overall sound during the louder passages of the song. Finally, compare the original to the "hissy" version. You'll find that the original sounds dull in comparison, with a flat high end. This is one of the reasons why audio cassettes sounded so flat when you used Dolby noise reduction. People thought the Dolby killed the high frequency response of the tapes. While Dolby did dull the high end a little bit, that wasn't responsible for most of the perceived reduction. All that hiss on cassettes made it sound like there was more high frequency signal recorded on the tape than was actually present, and when that noise was squashed, the sound was very dull compared to a cassette without noise reduction. Of course, the loud hiss was so annoying in the softer passages, most people were willing to put up with the perceived high frequency reduction in trade for effective hiss mitigation.

Unfortunately for certain overly-enthusiastic vinyl lovers, CDs sound more like the original master tapes than vinyl, and that's the true meaning of fidelity. Folks may prefer the sound of a low-fidelity medium for any number of reasons, and that's their business. But trying to pass off a medium with inherently poor fidelity as somehow superior to a higher-fidelity medium is just wrong.

Re:Vinyl "Fidelity"

[sunspot42]

>The timbre of the musical instruments in vinyl is subjectively superior (to my ears and many other peoples) to that of CDs.

Yes, I have no doubt it is - for reasons I cited in my posts. This has nothing to do with the fidelity offered by the vinyl LP format however, which is absolute rubbish compared to the Compact Disc's. The LP is 1940's technology, so this is hardly surprising.

>This is due to digital nature of CDs. The waveform produced from a CD
>is interpolated from data per unit of time. This is not as precise as the
>waveform produced from a vinyl record which doesn't require D/A interpolation.

What you've just said makes absolutely no sense. CDs record samples of sound over 44 thousand times *per-second*. The human ear has no way to discern the difference between audio sampled at such a high rate and a "continuous" analog waveform. Numerous A/B tests have been conducted, and participants have been consistently shown to be unable to tell the difference between an analog master tape and a well-made digital copy. Many of the earliest A/D and D/A converters were plagued with conversion issues and other performance limitations twenty years ago, but those have all been resolved now for well over a decade.

Arguing that the resulting analog waveform produced by a CD player's D/A converters is not as "precise" as the analog waveform produced from a vinyl record is laughable. The signal being recorded on the vinyl has already been subjected to processing not required for transcription onto CD, including at least two equalization passes (one to compensate for vinyl's physical limitations regarding low bass and other frequency response issues, and another to make it conform to the standardized RIAA equalization curve) and dynamic range compression (in order to compensate for vinyl's limited dynamic range relative to the studio master tapes and CD, not to mention all the noise discs typically accumulate as they're used, plus the noise generated by the turntable and stylus). The equalization and compression alone cause all sorts of phase issues, plus harmonic distortion, and they compromise the flatness of the overall frequency response. On top of that, throw in the physical imperfection of the disc itself, wow and flutter and speed irregularities both for the cutter and for your turntable, plus turntable, platter and disc resonance effects and any electrical hum being picked up by your cartridge and phono preamp . . . well, it's plain to see the waveform coming off even the best turntable is going to be a heck of a lot less precise than the waveform coming off a well-made CD. You may prefer the sound of the LP for whatever reason, but there's no way on earth you can back up the assertion that it's more "precise".

>Also, while the ear hears pitch from roughly 20Hz to 20kHz, the ear perceives
>sound of much higher frequencies, not as pitch, but as directional encoding.

Again, this simply isn't true. Young children can hear out to 20kHz, and occasionally even beyond (I think the observed limit is around 22-24kHz - CDs top out at a theoretical maximum of 22kHz, but due to the nature of PCM encoding at 44.1kHz, filters have to be put into place to limit high-frequency sound much beyond 20kHz), but it's vital to note that even then, the sensitivity of our ears to sound at 20kHz is extraordinarily low. In other words, a sound at 20kHz would have to be phenomenally loud for us to hear it compared to a sound at, say, 5,000Hz, where our hearing is much, much more sensitive. Few musical instruments produce loud sounds at or above 20kHz as a result - at least, not intentionally. There could be harmonics at frequencies in excess of 20kHz (for example, perhaps cymbals produce such harmonics), but by their very nature, those harmonics are going to be soft in relation to the rest of the signal - and again, most adults don't stand a snowball's chance of hearing them anyhow, even if they were deafeningly loud, which they're not.

Worse, vinyl doesn't stand a snowball's chance of reproducing such ultrasonic information with any kind of accuracy. The format was never designed to record high frequency signals - engineers have enough trouble squeezing 60Hz - 15,000Hz out of them reliably, let alone with any kind of fidelity when compared to CDs. I have no doubt that LPs produce a fair amount of ultrasonic signal, but again, most of that is going to be unintentional - clicks and pops, surface noise, electrical noise, and harmonic distortion generated by the stylus and cartridge as they vibrate. Any "real" ultrasonic information on the record would be swamped by all the fake ultrasonic garbage. You also seem to be assuming that the master tapes contain such ultrasonic information. They don't. The usable frequency response of even the best analog tape decks used historically for studio recording typically topped out at around 25kHz. Beyond that the levels fall off so rapidly as to be useless, and even there, the levels are going to be pretty low (assuming the deck doesn't employ filtering beyond around 22kHz to eliminate unwanted ultrasonic noise that can impinge on the bias signal).

Of course, this assumes the microphones could even pick up such ultrasonics to begin with, which of course they can't. 99.9% of the microphones used over the past 60 years to record audio in the studio or concert hall are lucky to have a usable frequency response out to as far as 20kHz - most begin a pretty severe rolloff at 15kHz, and by 20kHz only a handful manage to maintain a flat response, with performance dropping off rapidly thereafter. Anything they're picking up beyond 20kHz is going to be so faint as to be inaudible once it passes through the gauntlet of noise and distortion inherent in the vinyl format. Here's a sales listing for the legendary Neumann U87, a mic that's been the studio standard for vocal recording since the '60s - the Beatles used this mic, and singers & engineers continue to choose this mic over all others even to this day. Its frequency response tops out at 20kHz. So much for recording ultrasonics. And the instrument probably most likely to produce ultrasonics - the cymbal - is typically recorded using a mic like the Shure SM57, which has been a standard for recording percussion since its introduction over thirty years ago. Its frequency response tops out at a measly 15kHz. What ultrasonics?

Of course, it's all utterly inconsequential compared to the trashing of the original waveform caused by all of vinyl's other numerous limitations, including the damage done in the crucial 50Hz-5,000Hz range where human hearing and perception is so much more sensitive, and accuracy therefore so much more important.

>In summation, the superior S/N ratio, channel separation, and decreased
>vulnerablity to reproduction errors of CD's are not as important as the
>superior timbre and staging provided by vinyl.

In summation, you're clearly uninformed from a technical standpoint. If you prefer the "sound" of vinyl, that's your business. But don't try to cloak your preference in technobabble you clearly don't begin to understand.