Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater dts vs SACD Music

I was shopping for some SACDs to try in my DVD player and saw that music cds come in SACD format and dts. Whats the diff and is one better than the other? Is this like the VHS Beta era all over again?

i dont understand your question all the way but i think you wonder why some SACD's are dts and others arent. right?

well thats because some of them have a 5.1 surround mix, and some dont.

are you sure you dont mean sacd vs dvda?
If thats the question id say sacd is better because, theres more titles and players for it and it will probbly become the more prominent format among the hi res.

It sounds like the store you were looking in may have piled all of their multi-channel music cd's in together.

Here's a quick rundown...

DVD-A (DVD-Audio) - Higher resolution music format that requires a DVD-A player. (many dvd player can also play dvd-a, but not all can.) Most titles have both a 2channel mix as well as a 5.1 mix. Titles are quite limited.

DTS - There are a number of titles available in DTS mixes. These disc are NOT high resolution discs (as DVD-A and SACD are). They are multichannel mixes using the standard DTS technology used in many dvd movie titles. Any dvd player can play these discs. (Provided the player or receiver can decode DTS, which nearly all newer players and receivers can.)

SACD - This is the "other" high resolution music format. (DVD-A being the other). The SACD format requires a SACD player. There are some CD/SACD players available, as well as some "universal" players which will play back all formats. Most titles have both a 2 channel mix as well as a 5.1 mix. Many of the newer titles being released are being released as hybrid discs, which have both a SACD layer which would require the specific SACD player, as well as a standard CD layer which will play back on any CD player. Titles are still quite limited, but not as scarce as DVD-A, and more popular titles are being released quite often.

Others on here can give you a more detailed explaination of how each format works, and what technology is behind it, but that's a general rundown of the different formats. Hope this helps.

Although SACD and DVD-A are high resolution (SACD is 2.8 megasamples/sec), DTS 5.1 and Digital Dolby 5.1 can have some advantages. DTS and DD 5.1 are often used as the compatibility tracks on DVD-A discs so anybody with a home theater surround system can play them.

One advantage is these require only one optical coax cable from the player to the amp. The data goes over in digital format, and the amp's bass management, equalization, digital time arrival, calibration, etc. will all work on it.

By contrast most SACD and DVD-A players require six analog connections, and essentially bypass most amplifier functions. This in turn requires doing (and maintaining) separate calibration for the high-res player. None of the fancy digital amp functions (including things like variable crossover) will usually work on SACD/DVD-A inputs.

Early SACD/DVD-A players couldn't do any bass management at all. Even some current ones do it poorly. E.g. the Sony DVP-685V has a fixed crossover at 120Hz, and the Pioneer DV-563A has a fixed crossover at 120Hz for SACD and 200Hz for DVD-A.

So in the real world there's a lot more involved than sampling rate. I have a Yahama RX-V1400, M60ti/VP150/QS8 Hsu STF-2 and Sony DVP-685V SACD/DVD player. I've heard DD 5.1 music that sounds better than some multichannel SACDs, despite the super-high SACD sample rate. This might just be the indvidual release.

Or it might be with DD 5.1 I've got automatic calibration, digital bass management with variable crossover, 7 band parametric equalization, digital time arrival control, etc. With SACD I've got none of those -- just manual calibration with a meter, a fixed 120Hz crossover and nothing else.

That said I've heard superb sounding SACDs. Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon is mind boggling. But I think the DD 5.1 track on the Eagle's Hotel California DVD-A is just as good from an acoustic and surround standpoint, despite the much lower sample rate (which is still higher than a CD).

joema, in light of the bass management situation with SACD and DVD-A, what happens if you play one of them -- a DVD-A, for example -- in a system without a sub? For example, if you hook up the six analog inputs to your AV receiver, but only have five speakers and no sub, will the bass go to the mains? And to acheive this, do you have to configure something in the DVD-Audio player?

As a real-life example, when I play stereo off the regular analog inputs through my Yamaha RV-1105, I can still use its rudimentary bass management on any source to route bass through the sub (under the 90 Hz fixed cross-over) or through the mains, in the normal way. Do you think this option would be by-passed with a 6-channel analog input? The receiver is 4+ years old so the manual offers no detail on this (though presciently Yamaha did place the 6-channel analog inputs on the 1105).

If the receiver can't route the bass from a swfr to the mains, then can I anticipate that a good DVD-A player will give this option?

Birdman

For multichannel SACD is probably a better example. With DVD-A as a fallback you usually have a DD or DTS 5.1 soundtrack (in addition to the multichannel DVD-A soundtrack). This preserves all the capability of your amplifier.

If you play SACD (or DVD-A in DVD-A mode) without a sub, the bass goes wherever the player is configured. IOW the player itself is like a little amp -- the newer ones have bass management, speaker distence, speaker size, etc. You redundantly set all those in the player as well as the amp. You redundantly calibrate, level set, etc the player in addition to the amp. Unfortunately those features are usually not implemented as well as the amp -- sort of like an pure analog amp 10 yrs ago.

So in this case you'd go into the player's menus and tell it you have a 5.0 config, set your speakers to large, etc. The problem is it's rudimentally implemented in players I've seen -- no variable crossover but fixed at absurdly high frequencies, no speaker distence adjustment (aka time arrival).

Re your RV-1105, if it does bass management for 2-ch analog inputs, it's probably not doing it digitally. So maybe it would work for the 6-ch SACD/DVD-A analog in. OTOH, most current players have *some* kind of bass management, just not what we're used to.

Multichannel SACD sounds very good on my system. But the complexity and the inability to use my amp's features is frustrating.