Why is SACD so restricted?

[Allan F]

On 1/4/2015 at 11:34 AM, Jud said:

They're starting to license DSD downloads to some vendors (Acoustic Sounds?), so apparently someone sees a need to try to make more income from these recordings.

 

As I am sure you are now aware, Acoustic Sounds has shut down its Super HiRez digital download service, so that source no longer exists. A Farewell To Super HiRez

[sandyk]

29 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

My experience has been the exact opposite of yours. 

 

Are you listening to actual DSD files or DSD files converted to PCM?

 My Oppo 103 plays both directly, and for this reason , and the previous Oppo player experience with SACD I only have a few SACDs, but I have also played some SACDs such as Love Over Gold from .ISO images after using special firmware to make the image files  playable in my Oppo 103. 

 I also have some on SSD/HDD that have been converted to 24/88.2 LPCM where they also sound a little grainy compared with what I have on CD.

Don't forget that many members convert their SACDs  to 24/88.2 .flac also.

[sandyk]

18 minutes ago, botrytis said:

You sound like the beginning of the CD era, when masters were from vinyl and converted to digital and sounded like crap.

 There would be very few masters made from Vinyl, although I suspect that one from Suzanne Vega may have been .

The vast majority were sourced from Analogue Tape.

[kumakuma]

13 minutes ago, sandyk said:

Don't forget that many members convert their SACDs  to 24/88.2 .flac also.

 

I don't.

 

I use iso2dsd to concert the ISO images to individual DSF tracks which can be tagged and played back in the same way as FLAC tracks using JRiver. 

 

They usually sound better than any CDs of the same albums that I have which is probably due to better mastering rather than any inherent superiority of the format.

[sandyk]

6 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

I use iso2dsd to concert the ISO images to individual DSF tracks which can be tagged and played back in the same way as FLAC tracks using JRiver. 

 Where did the ISO images come from ??? 😜

Are you comparing them with CDs ripped to HDD/SSD and played from System memory, or from a normal CD player ? Quite a few members complain that their rips don't sound as good as direct from their CD player, although well implemented ripping can be of a higher quality than most affordable CD players.. 

[kumakuma]

25 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 Where did the ISO images come from ??? 😜

Are you comparing them with CDs ripped to HDD/SSD and played from System memory, or from a normal CD player ? Quite a few members complain that their rips don't sound as good as direct from their CD player, although well implemented ripping can be of a higher quality than most affordable CD players.. 

 

Everything I play is from from my hard drives. I haven't owned a CD player in years.

[sandyk]

25 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Everything I play is from from my hard drives. I haven't owned a CD player in years.

 Where did the ISO images come from ??? 😜 NOT where they are saved .😁

[R1200CL]

@sandyk

Would you like to have Sony release the format ?

Or do you think it’s not worth it ?

(Cause sounding bad, or equal to CD). 

[sandyk]

9 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

@sandyk

Would you like to have Sony release the format ?

Or do you think it’s not worth it ?

(Cause sounding bad, or equal to CD). 

It seems pointless unless they are going to release recent popular music material at better than RBCD 16/44.1 quality.

 Given that bloody MQA is being foisted on us, whether we like it or not, that seems highly un likely, as the Majors  don't want the consumer to have Master Quality genuine high res material.

 

 OTOH,SACD isn't dead in Jazz or Classical.

[kumakuma]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

 Where did the ISO images come from ??? 😜 NOT where they are saved .😁

 

From ripping SACDs.

 

I also buy albums NativeDSD.com.

 

[Beacon]

There is a very detailed explanation about ripping SACDs on this very forum!!!!

 

Please visit:

 

[R1200CL]

There wouldn’t be need for any ripping, if the format was allowed to be transferred digitally. You could even stream it from a service, which I think isn’t allowed today. Or purchase SACD’s for download. 

[firedog]

20 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

There wouldn’t be need for any ripping, if the format was allowed to be transferred digitally. You could even stream it from a service, which I think isn’t allowed today. Or purchase SACD’s for download. 

SACD isn't a playback format, it's a distribution/marketing format - hence restricted. DSD is actually a playback format and available for streaming if someone wants to. Needs licensing for streaming, just like PCM.

[Archimago]

On 1/6/2021 at 6:32 PM, sandyk said:

 There are plenty of SACDs that appear to have come from the original RBCD master as can be seen from the Frequency Spectrum in an Audio editing program such as Sound Forge.

There are also plenty of others where there is no musical information to even 22kHz, yet have been released on SACD where a normal RBCD would have sounded at least as good, unless you like the sound of added HF noise which may sometimes give the appearance of increased HF detail...

 

 

Yes, indeed there are unfortunately plenty of SACDs which look like just 44.1/48kHz resamples. Here's a list accumulated over the years from my collection and from friends:

LIST: Suspected 44 or 48kHz PCM upsampled SACDs.

This was part of the reason why I stopped buying SACDs a number of years back. Other than known reputable sources like Channel Classics, much of the stuff was really of questionable provenance and side-by-side listening of SACD/DSD64 vs. 24/96 did not yield any benefits for me. I believe DSD128 is about equivalent to 24/96 PCM.

 

Some of the SACD multichannel layers were pretty good which I've converted to 5.1 FLAC files now. Otherwise, rarely listen to DSD any more even through my AKM DACs' "DSD Direct" setting.

 

[sandyk]

18 minutes ago, Archimago said:

 

Yes, indeed there are unfortunately plenty of SACDs which look like just 44.1/48kHz resamples. Here's a list accumulated over the years from my collection and from friends:

LIST: Suspected 44 or 48kHz PCM upsampled SACDs.

This was part of the reason why I stopped buying SACDs a number of years back. Other than known reputable sources like Channel Classics, much of the stuff was really of questionable provenance and side-by-side listening of SACD/DSD64 vs. 24/96 did not yield any benefits for me. I believe DSD128 is about equivalent to 24/96 PCM.

 

Some of the SACD multichannel layers were pretty good which I've converted to 5.1 FLAC files now. Otherwise, rarely listen to DSD any more even through my AKM DACs' "DSD Direct" setting.

 

Thanks for the suspect SACD list, however given their age now, many members won't be too happy to see some of their favourite SACDs on the list.

[R1200CL]

2 hours ago, firedog said:

SACD isn't a playback format, it's a distribution/marketing format - hence restricted. DSD is actually a playback format and available for streaming if someone wants to. Needs licensing for streaming, just like PCM.

So can you download SACD’s, without restrictions? I understand you can with DSD.

What I’m asking is if an release exist as a SACD, you could actually purchase it as an DSD download?

I didn’t think so, but I could be wrong. If so, problem may be solved. And no ripping needed. 
 

[firedog]

59 minutes ago, Archimago said:

 

Yes, indeed there are unfortunately plenty of SACDs which look like just 44.1/48kHz resamples. Here's a list accumulated over the years from my collection and from friends:

LIST: Suspected 44 or 48kHz PCM upsampled SACDs.

This was part of the reason why I stopped buying SACDs a number of years back. Other than known reputable sources like Channel Classics, much of the stuff was really of questionable provenance and side-by-side listening of SACD/DSD64 vs. 24/96 did not yield any benefits for me. I believe DSD128 is about equivalent to 24/96 PCM.

 

Some of the SACD multichannel layers were pretty good which I've converted to 5.1 FLAC files now. Otherwise, rarely listen to DSD any more even through my AKM DACs' "DSD Direct" setting.

 

Comments: can you be sure they aren't converted from tape, and not directly from Redbook?

I think in any case 5.1 justifies the sale of an SACD, even if it was from Redbook. But the provenance should be on the case insert.

Some of those titles are available in other SACD versions which may be conversions directly from tape. That would be more acceptable to many. And of course, as you wrote, the SACD remaster, no matter the source, could be better sounding than other versions.

 

[firedog]

14 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

So can you download SACD’s, without restrictions? I understand you can with DSD.

What I’m asking is if an release exist as a SACD, you could actually purchase it as an DSD download?

I didn’t think so, but I could be wrong. If so, problem may be solved. And no ripping needed. 
 

No. SACD is not downloadable. That's why it's a distribution/marketing format. It's a disc format. You need to separate the two. Just like you can't literally "download a CD". You have to change the format for it to be usable when not on the disc. That's why you have to "rip" a CD, and not just copy it, for it to be playable when off the optical disc.

 

Wikipedia:

Super Audio CD (SACD) is a read-only optical disc format for audio storage, introduced in 1999. It was developed jointly by Sony and Philips Electronics, and intended to be the successor to the Compact Disc (CD) format.

[sandyk]

1 hour ago, firedog said:

Comments: can you be sure they aren't converted from tape, and not directly from Redbook?

 In that case they wouldn't have that tell tale flat line around 21kHz as s shown in my several Frequency Spectrum examples,

There would be occasional little spikes going past that.

[Kal Rubinson]

7 hours ago, R1200CL said:

Or purchase SACD’s for download. 

You can do that now.

[Kal Rubinson]

5 hours ago, R1200CL said:

So can you download SACD’s, without restrictions? I understand you can with DSD.

What I’m asking is if an release exist as a SACD, you could actually purchase it as an DSD download?

I didn’t think so, but I could be wrong. If so, problem may be solved. And no ripping needed. 
 

I have downloaded many ISOs from Pentatone.  An ISO is as close as one can get to a "physical" SACD for download.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

5 hours ago, firedog said:

No. SACD is not downloadable. That's why it's a distribution/marketing format. It's a disc format. You need to separate the two. Just like you can't literally "download a CD". You have to change the format for it to be usable when not on the disc. That's why you have to "rip" a CD, and not just copy it, for it to be playable when off the optical disc.

This may just be semantics but, of course, you cannot download the physical disc.  OTOH, you can download the ISO which is a true copy of what is on it and not changed or converted (unless you decide to do so with it).

[firedog]

30 minutes ago, Kal Rubinson said:

This may just be semantics but, of course, you cannot download the physical disc.  OTOH, you can download the ISO which is a true copy of what is on it and not changed or converted (unless you decide to do so with it).

Yes you are correct. But many (most) players - like Roon - don't support direct .iso playback. I realize in VLC you can "mount" the iso etc, and play it back. But that isn't generally what people are looking for. That's why there's software that converts an iso file to individual DSD tracks.

Per the question posed, the material on all those SACDs isn't available because the labels aren't interested in licensing it.  Both making archived DSD files or turning an SACD into an iso are trivial exercises for them. It's not a technical issue.

 

Some of those SACD masters have been converted directly into 88 or 176k PCM and been made available for download. HDT used to outsource to a guy who converted SACDs to hi-res downloads for them after they'd licensed them from the labels. They'd send him the SACD and he turned them into 24/88 or 24/176 download files for them. AFAIR, albums like MJ-"Thriller" and the older ABKCO Stones SACDs were turned into hi-res downloads this way. Plus a bunch of others.

 

You'd need a vendor to go to the labels and make them an offer that they'd feel was worthwhile for download rights for DSD or SACD. Most material available on SACD is also available as PCM and even hi-res PCM, so there's little chance of the above happening.

[R1200CL]

27 minutes ago, Kal Rubinson said:

I have downloaded many ISOs from Pentatone.  An ISO is as close as one can get to a "physical" SACD for download.

 

Unfortunately not Pink Floyd dark side moon and similar......

 

I wanted to find previous released SACD’s offered as downloads. And DVD Audio as well.

But if this is up to the record companies, then the restrictions is purely related to players. And not the content. Not sure that’s correct. Cause then one could allow digital out without DRM when playing SACD. 

[Kal Rubinson]

17 minutes ago, firedog said:

Yes you are correct. But many (most) players - like Roon - don't support direct .iso playback. I realize in VLC you can "mount" the iso etc, and play it back. But that isn't generally what people are looking for. That's why there's software that converts an iso file to individual DSD tracks.

ISOs can be played with other players, too, and conversion is trivial.

 

What are "people" looking for?  You can download the ISOs from some sources and you can download the DSFs/DXDs from some sources.  They are equivalents for me.