I moved this over to here from a post in the subwoofer forums :)

I recently noticed the improvement in bass quality after picking up my SACD player. Not only does the SACD "side" have more dynamics, it seems to not "ring" or sound bloated. Now I'm still fairly new to all this but does this have something to do with the fact DSD is fairly close at reproducing a "square" wave?

I recently took a vist to a local hi fi shop and spoke to one of the veterans of the store who used to work for a sub company. He went on to make some pretty wierd claims; regarding a/b auditioning, and that the human brain is really good at remembering sound quality(that we have good acoustic memory) :rolleyes: , having a speaker or other cone(in this case the example was just having a subwoofer unpowered sitting in the room) in the room of a 2 channel system can alter the sound quite a bit and thus, why they don't recommend A/Bing (kind of goes against everything I've observed myself and on these forums).

Another one was that he mentioned quite a few audiophiles will spend $20k on a turntable, maybe a couple $1000 on an amplificatino and only a couple $1000 on the speakers (instead of the bulk of the money on the speakers).He also went on about timeing and how it was "everything" for a system to sound "realistic" anyone know what he was refering to in regards to this.

I'm fairly good at telling when someone is feeding me bs and lieing, this guy wasn't lieing...if it was mumbo jumbo I was getting fed he was passionate and sincere about it, not trying to sell or push me towards any product.

In regards to the Sinewave vs Squarewave, is this what plays the largest role in percieved quality of the bass signal? I used to think my CD's were the bread and butter of music now I find a lot sound like lousy radio or crummy mp3s in comparison to some of my SACDs. I'm in Vancouver so most of the record stores we have here in vancouver are the HMV chain, they all recently stopped carrying SACDs :(

From a buisness perspective I can understand why they dont sell, but it is a shame that it's becoming increasingly hard to find them.

[QUOTE=swerveddy]

I recently took a vist to a local hi fi shop and spoke to one of the veterans of the store who used to work for a sub company. He went on to make some pretty wierd claims; regarding a/b auditioning, and that the human brain is really good at remembering sound quality(that we have good acoustic memory) :rolleyes: , having a speaker or other cone(in this case the example was just having a subwoofer unpowered sitting in the room) in the room of a 2 channel system can alter the sound quite a bit and thus, why they don't recommend A/Bing (kind of goes against everything I've observed myself and on these forums).

QUOTE]

He may be talking about a sighted A/B. And yes you can be fooled by the brain. As in there is a sub sitting there so it must be on and hooked up, when in reality it isnt you could be fooled into thinking it was on and working so the A/B could be viewed as flawed.

Read page 5 of this PDF to see how you can be fooled in a large system even.
http://www.eaw.com/app/pdf/Smaart/case6.pdf

I recently noticed the improvement in bass quality after picking up my SACD player. Not only does the SACD "side" have more dynamics, it seems to not "ring" or sound bloated. Now I'm still fairly new to all this but does this have something to do with the fact DSD is fairly close at reproducing a "square" wave?


I think the improvements you notice are more likely due to that the SACD in general is better recorded/mixed/mastered than CDs.

The SACD most significant advantage, in my opinion, over a CD is the multi-channel capabilities at a very good resolution.

I've heard the argument that a unpowered speaker in the room has an effect as it acts like a passive radiator. IMO it seems unlikely that the amount of energy in the room could move the cones in an unpowered speaker enough to cause an audible effect.

Time coherence is what he is talking about, some speaker designers consider this critical - try a search on those terms and see what you can find.

Another one was that he mentioned quite a few audiophiles will spend $20k on a turntable, maybe a couple $1000 on an amplificatino and only a couple $1000 on the speakers (instead of the bulk of the money on the speakers).He also went on about timeing and how it was "everything" for a system to sound "realistic" anyone know what he was refering to in regards to this.

I'm fairly good at telling when someone is feeding me bs and lieing, this guy wasn't lieing...if it was mumbo jumbo I was getting fed he was passionate and sincere about it, not trying to sell or push me towards any product.


He wasn't lieing. There are actually people out there that are that retarded :eek:

You sound like you've got a pretty good idea. Just from your writing I know that you'd much rather(if you could) spend the $20k on the speakers.

That is exactly how it should be.

The best electronics in the world won't make bose speakers sound good :)

^^^I love to use that example when people go on rants about electronics making things sound so much better. LOL

-brien