Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo SADC

Greetings from Maine.
Been an Axiom owner for 3 years and have been lurking on this site for a while, (it was real helpful, also Brent, in choosing the EP400). I am hooking up my DVD player for SADC and was wondering from a music purist point of view, do you listen to it in stereo or 5.1? Appreciate any help. I also want to thank everbody for the recomendations for music to heighten my experience with my M22's. Yes, you can really notice the difference in quality, (Chesky Records).

Lord knows, if the SACD has 5.1 available, I listen in that.

So how's the EP400? We don't have many people using it around here.

If by purist you mean "as close to the performance as possible" than the answer is definitely 5.1. Especially with SACD which carry the original room info in discrete channels.

The EP400 is great. Been slowly upgrading my system, hence the daisy chained EP125. I would rather meld my music for the best possible sound that just run with whatever makes my walls shake the most. I don't have the room (insert wife reference here) so the EP400 is a nice fit for me. adding the 125, the bass just sound so pure. exactly what i was looking for especially since the M22's are known to lack bass. Will probably get another on one with the upgade program someday. Thanks for the SADC advice, can't wait to give it a run this weekend. Gary

Hey Gary, welcome to the forums. It's nice to hear the report on the 400 and the 125, neither of which get much airtime here.

Stick around if you can, you're one of the few people who can answer the firsthand questions that come up about those speakers from time to time. You can be our local resident expert on both!

Jason

I'll try to do my best. logging off 2nite but tomorrow being a friday, I will check back in tomorrow nite. I feel like I am amongst a good group of people.

Gary

snicker...snicker...we fooled another one....

You know, I was just thinking that.

OK, who let those two out??

Nice to find another Chesky fan.

And another SACD fan.

I have no hard and fast rules about whether I listen to the 2.0 or the 5.1 layer. I switch depending on my mood. It depends on the recording and how good of a job the engineers did at mixing it. Some 5.1 mixes have an extra pop of realism to them. Others just sound like they're overdone.

If I had to make a sweeping generalization, I think that with older recordings newly 'upmixed' to 5.1 and released on SACD, I often prefer the original 2.0 mix. Then there are SACD's specifically designed for 5.1 'demos', and those are certainly much more fun in 5.1 than 2.0.

wasn't it Groucho Marx that said, "I would never want to be part of a group that would accept me as a member".... hehe.

Close. It was "club"!

Club Marx? I only knew about Groucho, Harpo, Chico, Gummo, Zeppo and Karl.

what is SHM cd, and do i need a sacd, or is this just a better quality cd is all, compared to the other super cheap american crap

I prefer SACD for the 5.1 tracks especially for live music recorded in arenas and concert halls. I personally can’t tell the difference between well recorded CD and SACD 2.0 tracks, but then I’m fairly new to having a nice audio system. However, I have noticed that often older songs converted to SACD seem to be re-mastered and mixed to sound better than their older counterparts. As Peter said “…it depends on the recording…”



No worries, there are very good cult deprogrammers these days.

Karl, he was the funny one wasn't he?

He wrote their material. . .

These forums are worth their weight in gold just for the daily chuckles.

Gary, another welcome. Since when attending a concert the sound doesn't come to us only as direct sound from the front, but at least equally as reflections from other angles, "purity" calls for trying to more nearly duplicate that at home. When playing multi-channel source materials such as most SACDs, they should certainly be listened to in surround. When listening to CDs or other 2-channel material they should also be listened to in surround by applying DPLII or a similar mode which extracts the surround ambience which had to be mixed into the front channels(there was no place else to put it)and steers it to the surrounds where it belongs. This brings listening realism a little closer.

That's interesting John. I didn't realize that was your take on 2-channel music as well. Would you say that's a majority opinion or more of your personal preference (or both?). The reason I ask is because I thought that the majority opinion was that 2-channel music should be listened to in direct stereo mode with only the fronts and subs involved.

Thanks,

Jason

Jason, it doesn't matter if it's a "majority opinion", since this is a question of audio technology which isn't decided by vote. Listening to 2-channel sources in correctly implemented surround is simply a little more realistic, regardless of whether an individual listener doesn't think so.

Hey John, fair enough. I just wondered if you felt your opinion was common or uncommon. I'm definitely not arguing which sounds more realistic (as I have no idea). I haven't listened to much 2-channel music in PLII surround, but I will definitely give it a try to see what I prefer.

Jason

Jason, it's pretty common; for example, Alan has made the point here several times in articles and individual posts. What the majority actually is, I have no idea. I do note that at least some who spout a "purist" dogma don't understand the technology involved and think that something "artificial" is being introduced.

I think the room and setup has as much to do with how the system sounds playing PLII as anything else. I am not getting anywhere near as nice a sound field as I did during the demo at Axiom.

I suspect that at least part of it is because my room is so reflective.

I suspect a lot of people form opinions based on systems that are not set up for optimal performance.

In my case, using a Dire Straits live cd, I noticed a huge difference between two channel and matrixed when demoing at Axiom. At home, with the same speaker set, that difference is mostly gone.

(The purpose of this response was just to fix the title. Please carry on.)

Oh! I though it was supposed to be ACDC.

But not on i-Tunes.

He he he.
There's a Wall*Mart nearby!

Well, some interesting responses. The PLII suggestion was helpfull, will have to play around with that. Now if My SACD's would arrive,the fun would really begin. Does anybody use DVD-Audio? My Player is capable of that also.


Gary

DVD-A? You bet. I've really only got a couple of SACDs, but quite a few DVD-As. Even with my modest gear I find a huge difference vs standard CDs. Of course there differences in the master of the recordings, distinct 5.1 vs. virtual-style 5.1 like PLII, Neo, circle-surround, etc., but the big difference between the DVD-A and SACD formats I enjoy are the potential for video content in addition to the hi-res audio.

That, and the fact that I can loan DVD-As to friends who only have DTS decoding available (which sound pretty good in and of itself - not quite MLP lossless but still - arguably - better than CD ) and get them hooked on surround mastered music too.

I personally prefer the SACD format as many DVD-As require the tv on to navigate menus (I use a projector). The sound quality is just as good, however, and sometimes the DVD-A will have extra features that are nice. The main determinate for me is the availability of a title. Usually a band will be in one format or the other (ie Porcupine Tree is DVD-A). DVD-A is also often price discounted as the general public doesn't seem to understand the format and gets angry that there is no, or very limited, video.

Spell check. SACD, duh!

Next question. I recieved two (Marta Gomez & Pizzarrelli Swing Live) SACD's today and getting no sound from my center channel, I checked the inputs and they all seem connected properly. Is that just the way they are mixed.

Many SACDs are 4.0. What is your receiver... "receiving" (does it have an "input info" mode)?

Check the CD label. They'll usually say. I have a couple of SACDs from the Living Stereo recordings (done in the 50s). One is 2 channel only, since only 2 channels were miked. The other is 3 channels, since 3 were miked.

You're right, Marta Gómez's Cantos de Agua Dulce doesn't utilize the center channel.

I think I might have found the answer to the way Chesky records their music. here's an interesting link.

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/manufacture/chesky.htm

Hey, thanks for the link.

To the earlier question re: DVD-A, I have a few as well and really like them. I can't comment on DVD-A versus SACD, but I can say that I really enjoy listening to DVD Audio disks.

Jason

Interesting read. I wonder if/how he proposes one should set up a space for both music and movies?

Too bad they don't seem to be aware of the system developped in Germany called 2+2+2. I have several recordings compatible with it, but I don't have a preamp supporting it.
http://www.222sound.info/english/2plus2plus2_listen_in_3d.html