SACD - Sacre Bleu !

[hammill]

the record spot:gdavies09031977:

I have looked on the usual suspects (Amazon, Play etc), and maybe I'm being tight, but the prices seem a little high for the more mainstream stuff I would buy; E.g. Snow Patrol FInal Straw £39.50, MJ Thriller £59.99, Jamie Cullum Twenty Something £29.99, Genesis 1983-1998 £99.00 (ok, a multi disc set I know but...)

I don't mind paying £15-£20 for the increased sound quality...
I wouldn't touch the albums you mention with the prices they're offered at. In many cases, the original discs sound fine - as for Genesis, well, rest assured, you won't gain a whole lot from Nick Davis' treatment as his gifted touch went to lunch for these remixes.
Avoid by far the 76-82 box, that's dead in the water. Hopelessly EQ'd, hard pushed by compression, it's dire. I have them all and this is one of the worst examples of a mastering job I've heard yet. 83-89 isn't bad and you can get it for about £40-odd on Amazon just now. 70-75 is the best of the bunch (I think they'd learnt the craft by then...) but albums like Trespass, while enjoying greater clarity, lose out on the dynamics to some extent that the original discs had. I still prefer the US MCA release for that album and played it again yesterday for the first time in ages. Much better and as clear as a bell.
Yes, SACD can offer great potential. No guarantees that's what you'll get simply because it's a superior format if the work on the music's been botched.The multi channel versions of 70-75 are a revelation (no joke intended) I think that is where SACD really excels. I am not sure I would bother even if I was only listening in stereo - my only stereo only SACD (the wonderful Friday Night in San Francisco) is not much of an improvement on the original.

 

[6th.replicant]

the_lhc:6th.replicant:...Then again, one could argue that it was short-sighted of Arcam not to have fitted the rDAC with a Firewire socket, especially because Apple's Mac Mini seems to have become very popular with computer-based music buffs?

Does the Mini not have a USB socket? Firewire, to my eyes at least, seems to be fading in popularity, I suspect the cost of targeting such a niche market meant it wasn't worth the effort of including a firewire port...
Mac Mini does have a USB socket (and an HDMI). But no Coax.

the_lhc:...Are there many DACs that include a firewire connection? I can't think of any.
I'm only assuming so because of the following:

Andrew Everard:If you want to play the 192/24 FLAC files, surely better by far to do it over Firewire into a suitable DAC? ...

 

[The_Lhc]

6th.replicant:the_lhc:6th.replicant:...Then again, one could argue that it was short-sighted of Arcam not to have fitted the rDAC with a Firewire socket, especially because Apple's Mac Mini seems to have become very popular with computer-based music buffs?

Does the Mini not have a USB socket? Firewire, to my eyes at least, seems to be fading in popularity, I suspect the cost of targeting such a niche market meant it wasn't worth the effort of including a firewire port...
Mac Mini does have a USB socket (and an HDMI). But no Coax.

So presumably Mini owners could use the USB connection, although I don't think that goes all the way up to 24/192 on the rDAC does it? I seem to recall thinking that was an odd limitation, given the emphasis Arcam put on the USB connection and its reduced jitter circuitry.

the_lhc:...Are there many DACs that include a firewire connection? I can't think of any.
I'm only assuming so because of the following:

Andrew Everard:If you want to play the 192/24 FLAC files, surely better by far to do it over Firewire into a suitable DAC? ...

Hmm, I'll let Mr E provide some example when he's finished with the Man from Soncle...

 

[6th.replicant]

the_lhc:... So presumably Mini owners could use the USB connection, although I don't think that goes all the way up to 24/192 on the rDAC does it? I seem to recall thinking that was an odd limitation, given the emphasis Arcam put on the USB connection and its reduced jitter circuitry....
Indeed, rDAC only handles up to 96/24 via USB; 192/24 requires Coax and a £100 M2Tech hiFace if you're a Mac user.

 

[Andrew Everard]

the_lhc:
Hmm, I'll let Mr E provide some example when he's finished with the Man from Soncle...

There are several, but they range from the reassuringly expensive to the truly jaw-dropping.

 

[Chewy]

Thanks for the tips, I've now order a couple of Linn sampler discs (from Amazon though - a fiver each!) and also an album I listened to on the Linn website by a young lady called Maeve O'Boyle, sounds very good so looking forward to that! - Toe officially dipped...