Question About SACD's, converting, ripping, ect.

[CHAOS]

Hi
Does anyone know of a site where they have program's & or guide's for ripping & copying sacd's or converting them to wav's for burning to normal cd-r's ?
Thank's

[Sefy]

Please enlighten me, what is SACD ? Sounds like Super Audio CD

[uxbridge]

Hi
I read that all the SACDs have also a layer carrying normal CDDA tracks for compatibility. If your CD or DVD reader can read it, then rip from this CDDA layer.
Ciao

[rb]

SACD stands for Super Audio CD. Made by Sony and some other companies it contains specially encoded audio format called DSD. Is a bit strange, I dont know it really, they say its sampling rate is over 2Mhz (instead of 44.1 or 48kHz!!) but only one-bit (instead of 16). Not too much software for it, using almost only in professional studios. DSD files can recorded with the new Sadie5 equipped with DSD card, or Tascam's DA-98HD (can record 8track PCM or 2track DSD, costs over 9k$)

[uxbridge]

SACD is music coded in Sigma-Delta fashion at extremely high sampling rate, single-bit with aggressive noise shaping.

To make it simpler, nearly every CDDA player today (including portable stuff worth 20 US$) is converting the 16-bit PCM format internally to Sigma-Delta modulation, single-bit fashion.
Rationale is the more often you sample, the less bits you need per sample if you code something related to the signal difference compared to the previous sample. If you go to the limits (Mhz) you just need one bit.

This technique allows easier D/A conversion since the digital output is very close to the analog shape. It was put in place first in the early 90s and has replaced 2x, 4x, 8x oversampling. (remember?)

The idea with SACD is to simply code the signal in this way in the media rather than convert it internally generating artificial samples. It also allows multi channel.

Many home DVD player top of the line are now featuring SACD reading capabilities, some together with DVD-audio.
Audio quality is fantastic but you need very expensive stuff to appreciate it, and some people cannot tell the difference with a good CDDA.

SACD was marketed to audiophiles 2/3 years ago. Now it seems it is more marketed to the normal consumers, probably because the disk is much more difficult to copy than a CD, until DVD-drive and software will be able to read SACDs.

Many SACDs have 2 layers, one carrying SACD coding, the other traditional CDDA tracks for compatibility. All of the TELARC (Classic) new music is released as SACD, pop music is coming as well.
I think the CDDA compatibility track of a SACD can be read by a CD or DVD drive.

Ciao

[CHAOS]

Hey
Thank's for all the reply's, but i know most of that stuff
& from what i have seen so far, the vast majority of sacd's ARE SINGLE LAYER, so normal cd player's can not read them, the newest release of pink floyds "dark side of the moon" which is dual layer, can be played in a standard cd player, but kind of defeat's the purpose of 5.1 . but most of my sacd's are not dual layer, i just did'nt want to buy them again in normal cd format so i was hoping to be able to rip & convert them somehow to a normal cd, figured it would have to be better quality then downloading them.
Also, some sacd's are very hard to tell from a normal cd, but the multi channel one's are vastly better sounding then normal cd's, like going from vhs stereo with a pro-logic rec. to dvd with a DTS rec. IE: "dark side of the moon" which is 5.1, but i still feel dvd-audio is better, as i own several of those as well.

[BlondePower]

so can you copy SACD 's. I just purchased a Denon 2200 and want to start a new collection of SACD

AJ

[rallynavvie]

There's no way to rip the DSD data off an SACD. The only thing you could possibly do is record the tracks right off an SACD player, but you'd need either a mixer between that and your PC or a PC with a sound card with 6 inputs.

[astroruben]

Or, instead of taking multichannel sound from analog outputs, take them from S/PIDF OUT on SACD player and connect it to your soundcard via S/PIDF IN. At S/PIDF OUT, the DSD is gone. Then use any good mastering/mixing software to convert it to PCM and then to DVD-Audio (or whatever multichannel audio format is supported for burning). This might not be bit for bit copying, but its sure very close, something like 99.9%, which is insignificant to notice any difference on common home theater & computer speakers. Anyway it will be much better in quality than standard CDs.

[dark_myuutwo]

Just one question: How does S/PDIF recording from one S/PDIF source to a PC S/PDIF input supported sound card work?

[Kurt S]

Unless something has changed recently, I don't think the audio on a SACD comes throught the SP/DIF outputs, only through the 6 analog outputs.

[astroruben]

This is the back of Denon "universal" DVD Player DVD-2900

S/PIDF outputs PCM stream, multi-channel or stereo.

[vitualis]

Someone correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that part of the SACD specs is that it NEVER gets directly outputted as a digital stream... so for combined DVD/SACD players, the SACD output is always from the analogue outputs...

Regards.

[Kurt S]

vitualis confirmed what I said. Also, DSD is not done at the SP/DIF output, it's done by the recieving unit. You must have the ability to decode at your reciever/preamp. This is why you see recievers with the Dolby and DTS logos. You won't find a reciever with the SACD logo on it.