[ SACD: First contact ]

On Saturday, January 29th, 2000 I had my first contact with Sony and Philips' new audio compact disc, the Super Audio Compact Disc, aka SACD.

The SACD is the option from Sony and Philips to a high quality CD. It is based on a new technology called Direct Stream Digital (DSD). In brief, this technology uses less filters (than normal PCM coding used in standard CDs) to process the audio signal. With this technology the sound is more "pure", closer to analogic sound. If you are interested in knowing more about all this technology, please visit Sony's web site.

The SACD is not the only high definition CD. There's also the long waited DVD-Audio. This format is now in a bad moment due to encryption problems of the data stored on the CD. As you know a group of european programmers, broke some months ago the encryption code of the DVD. So now is possible to copy DVD with the rigth free software and hardware. The only company that will launch DVD-Audio players in a short period of time will be Pioneer. But now we only have SACD. A test with both formats will be interesting in a future. But I'm also concerned about a new "format war". We'll see.

In the audition I took at Werner (an audio dealer from Barcelona, Spain) the equipment was:

  • Components - Sony SCD-1 SACD player - Cello Encore Line Preamplifier
    - Cello Encore Line Power supply (alimentando el previo con DC)
    - Cello Power Duet 350 power amplifier
    - Cello Stradivari Premier loudspeakers
    - Cello String 1 interconnects (from CD to preamplifier using XLR outputs)
    - Cello cables for all the components
    Let's describe briefly these components:

    -Sony SCD-1 SACD player





    -Cello Encore Line Preamplifier and Cello Encore Line Power supply





    -Cello Power Duet 350 power amplifier





    -Cello Stradivari Premier loudspeakers



    The first thing I must say is the high quality of all the equipment. The SCD 1 is a truly high-end machine, even facing Cello build quality. The second thing about SCD 1 is the loading time of CDs. It takes more than 20 seconds to load a CD. You should know that the SCD 1 could read SACD and CD so the process is long. This process is as follows: first the CD is loaded, then verified (to check if the format is SACD or CD) and finally the TOC (Table of content) is readed. After this the audition starts.

    For this audition I take with me a copy of Weather Report's Heavy Weather. This is one of the disc that Sony has released on SACD format. My copy is a collector's edition gold CD recorded using Sony's propietary Super Bit Mapping (SBM) technology.The SBM process improve the sound quality of a standard CD. The comparison betwen the SACD and my CD SBM showed some improvements of the new format. Not dramatic improvement, but some. I must confess that it was early in the saturday morning and perhaps I was thinking in my bed. Seriously, there was a difference but with this two disc not as great as suposed. I think that this is due to the quality of my SBM CD not to a fault of the SACD itself. Yes, the SACD sounded more realistic, with instruments more focused, but the difference was less than expected. The question I has was ¿There's something wrong with my ears? I continue the listening session with one of the samplers edited by Sony for the new format. It didn't know the CD but the songs recordered there were familiar to me. It was a recording of an acoustic guitar and a woman's voice, quite similar to a record I own from an Analogue Productions recording of Ella Fitzgerald and Joe Pass titled Ella and Joe...Again. With this disc the improvements were absolutely clear. The SACD it's a really improvement over the standard CD. The sound is more natural, more analogue-like. The instruments and voices well focused and the sound more open, much more present. Absolutely.

    If you have heard a good quality turntable in optimal playing conditions (arm and cartridge properly aligned, etc) you know what I mean. The sound of the SACD is very close to the vinyl sound. Sony and Philips have a new convenient fomat with a very good sound and that doesn't sound like CD's.This is the improvement of the new format.

    But... even these first good impressions about SACD, I'm not a SACD believer. First of all there's the coming format-war between the SACD and DVD-Audio. We don't want a new war, but I t seems that there will be again another one. And the most important to me, the difference between a good standard CD played with a god CD player and SACD is not as big as supossed (some audio magazines have the same opinion). And, don't forget it.. we still have vinyl!

    So, best sound? Yes, but be patience and wait what the future will bring. Keep your CD player feeded with goods CD or your TT with some vinyl and enjoy.

    Finally, thank you very much to the people at Werner for their kindly welcome.




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