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| Media type | Optical disc |
|---|---|
| Encoding | Digital (DSD) |
| Capacity | up to 7.95 GiB/GB |
| Read mechanism | 650 nm laser |
| Developed by | Sony & Philips |
| Usage | Audio storage |
Super Audio CD (SACD) was developed by Sony and Philips Electronics, the same companies that created the Compact Disc. SACD is a high-resolution, read-only optical audio disc format which, in contrast to the standard audio CD format, was designed to provide high-resolution audio in both stereo and surround sound modes. Introduced in 1999, SACD was not accepted by the mainstream market, the SACD format is currently used where higher resolution and fidelity are necessary, see specialist classical labels (Channel Classics, Pentatone, Chandos, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Alia Vox, Dacapo, London Symphony Orchestra, Exton, Harmonia Mundi, Chicago Symphony Orchestra etc) and audiophile/specialist record labels (Analogue Productions, Mobile Fidelity, Groove Note, Opus 3 etc) The list of manufacturers supporting the SACD format includes brands such as Accuphase, Pioneer, Sony, Wadia, Luxman, Mark Levinson, Krell, Onkyo, Denon, Yamaha, Marantz, McIntosh, EMM Labs, Ayre, Korg.
Overview
SACD is a disc of identical physical dimensions to a standard compact disc with the distinction that it encodes audio data using a 1-bit delta-sigma modulation process known as Direct Stream Digital, which is altogether a different technology from CD and DVD-Audio. The SACD sampling rate is 2822.4 kHz. A stereo SACD recording can stream data at a rate as high as 5.6 Mbps; four times higher than the standard Red Book CD stereo data rate of 1.4 Mbps. SACD recordings can achieve a high frequency response of up to 100 kHz, though such high frequencies would be unplayable on most equipment, unheard by listeners, and, because they are presented at a lower dynamic range of 40 dB, they would compete with high levels of ultrasonic quantization noise. With appropriate low-pass filtering, a practical high frequency response of 50 kHz can be achieved along with a dynamic range of 120 dB.
| CD | SACD | |
|---|---|---|
| Format | 16 bit PCM | 1 bit DSD |
| Sampling frequency | 44.1 kHz | 2822.4 kHz |
| Dynamic range | 96 dB | 120 dB |
| Frequency range | 20 Hz - 20 kHz | 20 Hz - 50 kHz |
| Disc capacity | 700 MB | 7.95 GB |
| Stereo | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-channel | No | Yes |
There are three types of SACDs:
- Hybrid: The most popular of the three types, hybrid discs include a Red Book layer compatible with most legacy Compact Disc players, dubbed the "CD layer," and a 4.7 GB SACD layer, dubbed the "HD layer." It is not uncommon for hybrid discs to carry the "Compact Disc Digital Audio" logo to show that the disc is CDDA-compliant .
- Single-layer: Physically a DVD-5 DVD, a single-layer SACD includes a 4.7 GB HD layer with no CD layer.
- Dual-layer: Physically a DVD-9 DVD, a dual-layer SACD includes two HD layers totaling 8.5 GB, with no CD layer. It enables nearly twice as much data to be stored, but eliminates CD player compatibility. This type is rarely used.
SACD can be authored with a 2-channel stereo mix though not all SACD have it (for example, in 2005 Sony Music Entertainment (Germany) GmbH released Charles Rosen's performance of the Goldberg Variations as a hybrid SACD with 16-bit PCM and DSD 5.1 surround but no DSD stereo). They may contain a surround sound mix of up to six channels. Although the disc always stores all channels, the surround mix does not have to use them all, and some may be mute; for example the 2001 SACD release of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells remains in the quadraphonic 4.0 mix, and in the RCA reissue of the 1957 Chicago Symphony Orchestra recording of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition the original 3.0 (three track) recording is available . The correct designation for the surround part of an SACD is "multi-channel", and usually has either the label "SACD Surround" or its own "Multi-Ch" logo on the back cover.
DVD-Audio
DVD-Audio is a high-resolution format that can stream data as high as 9.6 Mbps in stereo, and was brought to the market two years earlier than SACD. Sales for DVD-Audio peaked in 2005 at 0.5 million units, and subsequently dropped to approximately 0.2 million units per year, with a market share (in dollars, not units) of 1.2 and 1.3% in 2006 and 2007, respectively. In 2008, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) did not report DVD-Audio sales. Nevertheless, it is still possible to purchase some discs from specialist retailers.
Downloads
Some think that physical media will lose market share to downloadable media, even in the high fidelity market, others think that downloadable files will be only a niche subsegment of high resolution audio dominant format Super Audio CD, one of the biggest on-line stores selling lossless files, HDGiants, filed for bankruptcy on may 18, 2009 . Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) media files with data rates equaling that of physical media are available from niche record companies..
Content
By May 2009, there were over 5500 SACD releases, slightly more than half of which were classical music. Jazz and popular music albums, mainly remastered previous releases, were the next two most numerous genres represented.
Today, most SACDs are issued as SACD hybrid discs. Such a disc can be played in high-resolution audio on a SACD player and on all existing Red Book CD or DVD video players (albeit just with standard CD quality). The SACD format is thus backward compatible. SACD machines can play all CDs and SACD discs; CD players can play SACD discs as audio CDs.
Artist releases
Main article: List of SACD artistsMany popular artists have released some or all of their back catalog on SACD. Pink Floyd's seminal album The Dark Side of the Moon sold over 800,000 copies by June 2004 in its SACD Surround Sound edition. The Who's rock opera Tommy, and Roxy Music's Avalon, were released on SACD to take advantage of the format's multi-channel capability. All three albums were remixed in 5.1 surround, and released as hybrid SACDs with a stereo mix on the standard CD layer.
Some popular artists have released new recordings on SACD. Sales figures for Sting's Sacred Love album reached number one on SACD sales charts in four European countries in June 2004.
As of May 2009, over 440 labels have released one or more SACDs. Instead of depending on major label support, some orchestras and artists have released SACDs on their own. For instance, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra started the Chicago Resound label to provide full support for high-resolution SACD hybrid discs , and the London Symphony Orchestra established their own 'LSO Live' label.
Disc reading
Objective lenses in conventional CD players have a longer working distance, or focal length, than lenses designed for SACD players. This means that when a hybrid SACD is placed into a conventional CD player, the laser beam passes the high-resolution layer and is reflected by the conventional layer at the standard 1.2 mm distance, and the high-density layer is out of focus. When the disc is placed into an SACD player, the laser is reflected by the high-resolution layer (at 600 µm distance) before it can reach the conventional layer. Conversely, if a conventional CD is placed into an SACD player, the laser will read the disc without difficulty since there is no high-resolution layer.
Playback hardware
Hybrid Super Audio CDs (which include both a Stereo CD and a Super Audio CD layer) can be played back on CD players. To hear the Super Audio CD Stereo, and on many discs the Super Audio CD Multichannel layer, requires a Super Audio CD player.
The Sony SCD-1 was a player which was introduced concurrently with the SACD format in 1999, at a price of approximately US$5,000. It weighed over 26 kg (57 lb). The SCD-1, no longer produced, was introduced before multi-channel SACDs existed and played two channel SACDs and Red Book CDs only.
Many electronics manufacturers, including Denon, Marantz , Pioneer and Yamaha offer SACD players. None, however, has offered a portable SACD player capable of playing the high-definition layer of an SACD. Most portable CD players will play the conventional CD layer of a Hybrid SACD.
Sony has made in-car Super Audio CD players.
SACD players are not permitted to offer an output carrying an unencrypted stream of Direct Stream Digital (DSD) . Players initially supported only analog output; later some proprietary digital interfaces such as Denon Link permitted encrypted transmission of DSD. There are now two standard digital connection methods capable of carrying DSD in encrypted form: i.Link and HDMI (version 1.2 or later, standardised in August 2005).
The older i.Link interface is generally found on older mid- to high-end equipment and some current top-of-the-line units from Japanese manufacturers. HDMI is more common, being the standard digital connection method for high-definition video with audio. Most new mid-level and higher 2007 model year and later A/V processors support the HDMI 1.2 specifications DSD over HDMI feature. Most boutique manufacturers still do not support DSD. Some HDMI 1.1 spec DVD players convert DSD to LPCM and then pass it to an HDMI 1.1 spec or later processor. Lower end processors usually convert the DSD to LPCM, higher end ones usually convert it to LPCM for bass management or DSP but can also process it natively at the expense of DSP and bass management. Some new DVD players from Oppo Digital, Pioneer, Onkyo, etc. now support HDMI 1.2 or 1.3 and will pass DSD over HDMI as well as LPCM. Be aware that some players, for instance, Onkyo DV-SP504, will not support DSD or LPCM over HDMI without resampling it to 48 kHz. SACD or DVD-A will be played through analog outputs instead. The older i.Link interface has been dropped from all but high-end A/V processors and DVD players.
Some players, such as the PlayStation 3 (not the 40GB version), do not send DSD over HDMI, but instead convert it to PCM.
PlayStation 3 and SACD playback
The first two generations of Sony's PlayStation 3 (PS3) game console were capable of reading SACD discs. Starting with the third generation (introduced October 2007), SACD playback was removed altogether.
For models that are capable of reading SACD, three output options exists.
- Using the AV output will give an analog stereo sound for SACDs that include a stereo track.
- Using HDMI will give access to multichannel high-resolution PCM audio (converted from DSD).
- Using S/PDIF will give digital stereo sound (of either the stereo track, or a down-mix of the surround track)
PS3 was capable of converting surround DSD to lossy 1.5 Mbps DTS for playback over S/PDIF using the 2.00 software. The subsequent revision removed the feature.
DSD
SACD audio is stored in a format called Direct Stream Digital (DSD), which differs from the conventional Pulse-code modulation (PCM) used by the compact disc or conventional computer audio systems.
DSD is 1-bit, has a sampling rate of 2.8224 MHz, and makes use of noise shaping quantization techniques in order to push 1-bit quantization noise up to inaudible ultrasonic frequencies. This gives the format a greater dynamic range and wider frequency response than the CD. The SACD format is capable of delivering a dynamic range of 120 dB from 20 Hz to 20 kHz and an extended frequency response up to 100 kHz, although most currently available players list an upper limit of 70–90 kHz, and practical limits reduce this to 50 kHz.
Because of the nature of sigma-delta converters, one cannot make a direct technical comparison between DSD and PCM. An approximation is possible, though, and would place DSD in some aspects comparable to a PCM format that has a bit depth of 20 bits and a sampling frequency of 96 kHz, except that the dynamic range of the DSD audio begins to degrade above 20 kHz while the PCM does not. Double-blind listening tests reported in 2004 between DSD and 24-bit, 176.4 kHz PCM recordings showed that no significant differences could be heard.
DST
To reduce the space and bandwidth requirements of DSD, a lossless data compression method called Direct Stream Transfer (DST) is used. DST compression is compulsory for multi-channel regions and optional for stereo regions. This typically compresses by a factor of between two and three, allowing a disc to contain 80 minutes of both 2-channel and 5.1-channel sound.
Pit Signal Processing
SACD includes various copy protection measures of which the most prominent is Pit Signal Processing (PSP), a physical watermarking feature that contains a digital watermark modulated in the width of pits on the disc (data is stored in the pit length). The optical pickup must contain special circuitry to read the PSP watermark, which is then compared to information on the disc to make sure it is legitimate. Because the majority of DVD players and all DVD-ROM drives use an optical pickup that lacks this specialized watermark detection circuitry they cannot read the data on the SACD layer of a protected SACD disc.
On hybrid SACD discs, PSP is only applied to the SACD layer, not to the CD layer.
Sound quality of SACD vs CD
In the audiophile community, sound from SACD is generally considered substantially higher in quality compared to older format Red Book CD recordings. However, in controlled listening tests over stereo reproduction subjects have not been able to tell SACD recordings from their CD-quality converted version.
Copy protection
SACD has several copy protection features at the physical level which, for the moment, appear to make SACD discs impossible to copy without resorting to the analog hole, or ripping of the conventional 700MB layer on hybrid discs. These include physical pit modulation and 80-bit encryption of the audio data, with a key encoded on a special area of the disk that is only readable by a licensed SACD device. The HD layer of an SACD disc cannot be played back on computer CD/DVD drives, nor can SACDs be created except by the licensed disc replication facilities in Shizuoka and Salzburg.
A number of new SACD players have encrypted IEEE 1394 (also called FireWire or i.Link) or HDMI digital outputs carrying DSD data, and it may be possible to get the raw DSD data from these links. The protection mechanism used is Digital Transmission Content Protection (DTCP), which can be used in "Copy Once" or "Copy Never" modes.
There seems to be one solution for obtaining digital non-DRM output on SACD as well as DVD-A players. A Switzerland-based company is offering a modified output-board that taps into the digital datastream prior to D/A conversion as well as converting DSD to PCM that the S/PDIF port can transfer.
See also
- Audio format
- Audio storage
- DualDisc
- Earlier attempts at higher fidelity that stayed within the CDDA standard: XRCD and HDCD.
- Later attempts at higher fidelity that stayed within the CDDA standard: DSD-CD and Blu-spec CD.
References
- C|Net News, March 26, 2009 Betamax to Blu-ray: Sony format winners, losers by Steve Guttenberg. "SACD was praised by audiophiles, but fizzled in the market. Sony Records no longer releases new SACD titles" (This is not entirely true; while Sony Classical does not appear to be making new SACD releases, Sony Classical in Germany and Japan made SACDs as recently as June 5, 2009 Sony Classical Germany Sony Music Japan) Retrieved on May 29, 2009.
- The Guardian, Thursday 2 August 2007 No taste for high-quality audio by Jack Schofield. "Such a format - Super Audio CD (SACD) - has been out there since September 1999. And now, it's dying." Retrieved on May 29, 2009.
- Stereofile eNewsletter, January 10 2006. Io Saturnalia! by Wes Phillips. Mentions "the failure of SACD and DVD-A to gain traction." Retrieved on May 28, 2009.
- Audio Video Revolution, October 19 2006. The Symbolism Of Losing Tower Records by Jerry Del Colliano. "The pure failure of SACD and DVD-Audio as high resolution formats was analogous burning down a small town." Retrieved on May 28, 2009.
- ^ Extremetech.com, Leslie Shapiro, July 2, 2001. Surround Sound: The High-End: SACD and DVD-Audio. "A stereo SACD recording has a data rate of 5.6Mbps, which is four times higher than a stereo CD data rate of 1.4Mbps." Retrieved on May 20, 2009.
- ^ Ambisonic.net. Richard Elen, August 2001. Battle of the Discs. Retrieved on May 20, 2009.
- Amazon.com Tubular Bells Hybrid SACD "a pristine condition four-channel master of this legendary recording" Retrieved June 3, 2009
- ArkivMusic.com, Album Details: Mussorgsky: Pictures At An Exhibition, Etc / Reiner, Chicago "The three-channel remastering is equally successful" Retrieved June 3, 2009
- ^ RIAA. 2007 Year-End Shipment Statistics. Retrieved on May 4, 2009.
- RIAA. 2007 Consumer Profile. Retrieved on May 7, 2009.
- RIAA. 2008 Consumer Profile. Retrieved on May 18, 2009.
- Spector CD Extinction
- http://www.twice.com/article/CA6661607.html?nid=2402&
- Linn Records
- 2L: the Nordic sound
- High Fidelity Review. News. Retrieved on May 20, 2009.
- SA-CD.net
- ^ High Fidelity Review. Universal Music Artists Hit SACD Gold and Silver in Europe. Retrieved on May 18, 2009.
- SA-CD.net. FAQ
- http://lso.co.uk/buyrecordings/
- "The Sony SCD-1 SACD Player". @udiophilia. Retrieved 2006-05-18.
- Denon's web page shows a single SACD player, the DCD-SA1. Retrieved June 3, 2009
- Marantz's list of Hi-Fi Components shows one SACD player and Marantz's "Reference series" list shows four SACD players. Retrieved June 3, 2009
- The PD-D6-J and PD-D9-J are two SACD players that Pioneer offers. Retrieved June 3, 2009
- Yamaha's web page shows the CD-S1000 and CD-S2000] SACD players. Retrieved June 3, 2009
- "Sony Announces Three Super Audio CD Car Stereo Players". High Fidelity Review. Retrieved 2007-01-18.
- "Why did Sony take SA-CD out of PS3 again?". Retrieved 2009-01-04.
- "PS3SACD.com News, November 22, 2007".
- Reefman, Derk; Nuijten, Peter. "Why Direct Stream Digital is the best choice as a digital audio format." (PDF) Audio Engineering Society Convention Paper 5396, May 2001.
- Blech, Dominikp; Yang, Min-Chi. "DVD-Audio versus SACD: Perceptual Discrimination of Digital Audio Coding Formats." (PDF) Audio Engineering Society Convention Paper 6086, May 2004.
- practical-home-theater-guide.com Direct Stream Digital Technology Retrieved June 3, 2009
- "Details of DVD-Audio and SACD". DVDdemystified.com. Retrieved 2007-07-12.
- Meyer, Brad. Audibility of a CD-Standard A/D/A Loop Inserted into High-Resolution Audio Playback. Journal of the Audio Engineering Society (Engineering Reports).
- "Sony Starts Hybrid Super Audio CD Production Facilities in Europe". SA-CD.net. 2003-01-22. Retrieved 2007-07-12.
- dvdupgrades.ch
Bibliography
- Janssen, E.; Reefman, D. "Super-audio CD: an introduction". Signal Processing Magazine, IEEE Volume 20, Issue 4, July 2003, pp. 83–90.
External links
- Super Audio Compact Disc: A Technical Proposal, Sony (archived PDF)
- SA-CD.net Reviews of SACD releases and a discussion forum.
- SA-CD Faq
- New SACD releases Sony website.
| High-definition (HD) | |
|---|---|
| Concepts | |
| Resolutions | |
| Analog broadcast (All defunct) | |
| Digital broadcast | |
| Audio | |
| Filming and storage | |
| HD media and compression | |
| Connectors | |
| Deployments | |