SHM Cd's and SACD's - worth paying a premium for?
- Thread starter caesar
- Start date
SHM-SACD have a veery good reputation of being reliably higher quality. I own a handful of them and consider them to be the best available sources of some of my favorite albums. Cost $40-60/per.
This is a SHM-CD that I bought 2 months ago in Tokyo :
It is a new release SHM-CD.
I compared it with a made-in-EU version (available in stores currently) and my friend's Japanese version (ordinary CD bought >5 yrs ago in Japan).
The current EU version is rubbish.
The SHM-CD still paled in front of its older Japanese non-SHM sibling. The difference is in all aspects: freq extension, dynamics, resolution...etc.
Super High Material CDs are supposedly better with optical playback in real time.
Barry Diament, mastering engineer extraordinaire, claims that once it is ripped to a hard drive there is absolutely no difference between it and a standard CD. You can search his posts on Computer Audiophile.
These discs are all the rage in Japan.
I believe he may be correct. I have many SHM CDs, and the standard counterpart and I cannot hear a difference when played back via a server. YMMV
I cannot comment on SACDs, since I have never ripped one.
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Bruce B
WBF Founding Member, Pro Audio Production Member
Well I have and most of the time, the ripped file sounds better. Now this is probably because of many variables, like the filters used in the SACD player. But I can agree with Barry that both files are exactly the same.
While the SHM process is very good and the latest platinum CDs are exceptional, the SHM-CD/platinum CD/SACD's quality all depends on the mastering. A lot of them come from the Japanese master tapes and some are from US/UK master. For the record, the Black Sabbath Paranoid SHM-SACD apparently sounds bad. There are some really good ones and some not worth the money so caveat emptor. Check out the various threads on Steve Hoffman's forums regarding these.
-Hedwig
I agree at first I only had one sacd player and as such just one dac inside to listen to my sacd,s on. So my first reason was to rip and now I can play the music on other dacs and even convert to wav and play on non dsd dacs. But now my top dac is a MSB stack and it's now played directly on the UMT plus so the disk,s are inning again.
Al
Al
in my experience, it depends on what recordings you buy Sir. many of the shm cds I have sound excellent, but some of them are crap. I prefer recordings from FIM, especially their 32 bits ultra hd now, or even K2HD, DXD or XRCD2 are still awesome. Nowadays there are many recording companies which can give you awesome CDs in redbook but sounds spectacular, for example Stockfish record or reference recording. SACD also similar to Shm CDs, some of them sound great but others are crap actually, so it depends.
I made a reply on this quite awhile ago in a similar thread. I am all for what makes audio repro better. After some testing and comparing with an audio bud, our feeling was remastering was easily more Important than the physical process. Certainly the disc sounded great but comparing an SHM vs jp import cd with same mastering did seem to benefit, what I would call a entry level player. A better or more hi-end unit had no perceived benefit. Only compared redbook, they were not doing SACD SHM's at the time.
I agree completely that once read/stored any SHM benefit is finished. The whole point as I understand it is to cut down on errs while reading the physical disc. No more disc reads no more benefit.
I agree completely that once read/stored any SHM benefit is finished. The whole point as I understand it is to cut down on errs while reading the physical disc. No more disc reads no more benefit.
From my limited exposure/experience with digital I can vouch for this. My CD/SACD player is an older mass-market H/K and the SHM discs do appear to sound more vibrant and alive. In fact, quite a bit more detail is retrieved from them.
The biggest improvement between the SACD and redbook CD is the higher quality mastering done for the SACD's or XRCD's and the like.
When people spend $25 to $60 [or more] for an SACD it had better sound better than a $12 redbook CD.
It is the mastering and intelligence of the engineers, not the medium that really makes the improvement in the SACD's over the redbook CD.
When people spend $25 to $60 [or more] for an SACD it had better sound better than a $12 redbook CD.
It is the mastering and intelligence of the engineers, not the medium that really makes the improvement in the SACD's over the redbook CD.
