Sound Quality/Music Reviews and Comments on SACD/DVD-A - Page 7

Hey Bill-Happy Holidays!

Just a guess but I don't think it would be a violation of AVS policy. I doubt too many people would have a problem with this, especially forum sponsors. This idea is similar to one I suggested a while back (SACD/DVD-A "bargains"). If anything, it would keep people like me from clogging up the "Recent SACD purchases" thread with deals found on eBay, etc.

I'm not exactly sure--are you leaning towards listing specific websites in general or specific titles (or both)? I'm sure there are many ways to accomplish this, but either way I like the idea of fellow members knowing how to get good deals without getting ripped off.

AIX All-Star Band – Moonlight Acoustica: (AIX 80041)

Title Info: AIX All-Star Band - Moonlight Acoustica, AIX/80041/2005

Format: Hybrid DVD-A, 2.0/5.1 DVD-A/5.1 DVD-V (stage/audience)

Review: MCH/stage layer reviewed only.

AQ: 10

Performance: 9.5

This is an amazing disc. This is a jazz/rock jam session of a spin off of Moonlight Sonata, all acoustic and recorded in one take. This isn’t a live recording…it’s a studio job done in high rez from the get go. It includes Carl Verheyen on electric guitar (Supertramp), Luarence Juber on acoustic guitar and a host of others.

I’ve got close to 300 SACDs/DVD-As and this one is top 5 in audio quality. Simply amazing and is probably the most “I’m there” as any I have in my library. No vocals, all acoustic in the round. I simply cannot recommend a title more than this one. Really need a great 5.1 with strong surrounds to fully appreciate because all speakers are heavily utilized. It may be a little heavy on the right side, but crap this is as good as a recording you can get with today’s technology. The transparency, detail and dynamics are every bit as strong as Sea Change, Avalon, PG Up, etc. Simply amazing. The performance is very strong and to believe they did this in one take is almost unbelievable. The jam session…wait for it…is in my opinion as strong as TAB – Live at the Fillmore. Top notch. By the way, this is not a disc I just got…this review was based off my 5th listen over a 6 mo period. A must have for any serious listener.

Stereo, Audience 5.1 not reviewed

System Info

Pre/pro/AVR: Outlaw 970
Main Amplification: Outlaw 7125
Player: Oppo BDP-95

Speakers
FR/FL: Aperion Verus Forte Towers
Center: Aperion 533 VAC
Surrounds: Aperion 532L/R
Surround angle from CC: 100 deg.
Sub(s): Aperion S-10

Yeah, no kidding. I'll have to look around for this one.

Hey, don't forget, all of Dr. Aix's recordings are available for download on his iTrax website. Here's the link to this one:

Moonlight Acoustica

I recently purchased from iTrax Vantage Point's "Resolution" which is another excellent HD recording from Dr. AIX.

Marcus

Thanks Buddy Happy New Years to every one as well, and may we all quadruple our libraries by tenfold and more imporatantly that we find the time to listen to it all.

Daniel

Thanks, Bill-hope everyone has a safe and Happy New Year as wel!

Martin,

WOW. I downloaded this from iTrax (5.1 WMA "stage presentation") yesterday and it is truly outstanding. Thank you for the review. Listening to it for a second time right now!

Happy New Year

Marcus

My favorite version of Aja is the Mobile Fidelity CD - until it came out, I listened to the MoFi LP in preference to the MCA CD. I didn't think an SACD or DVD-A had ever been released. The story I had heard was that the masters for Aja had disappeared and a bounty had been offered for them!

A warning about listening to this album in high resolution: this was the Dan's last analog recording (starting with Gaucho, they recorded digitally) and if you watch the DVD about the making of Aja you'll hear about the scotch-tape and baling-wire approach to making it, manually mixing - on a time-critical basis - tracks recorded at different times. The did a very good job of covering their tracks (sorry!) but there 's a clearly-audible tape splice in the title track!

I've always thought of Aja and Gaucho as part of a single suite, by the way.

Fantastic can't wait to get this one, ordered it from ebay as well and looking forward to playing this one. Thanks for the great review Bill.

Dan

I've been experimenting with the 96/24 free five track, 25 minute demo download at HDtracks, since I found out that I could use a standard DVD burner and freeware at SourceForge to make:

96/24 stereo standard DVDs - no DVD-A player needed! Yes, it's part of the spec for standard DVD-Video. I'm going to pay more attention to the "Stereo PCM" option on concert disks in the future. If you have a Windows machine, a freebie there called "lplex" makes it very simple - drag a 96/24 or 48/24 FLAC or WAV file (or folder of them) onto the icon for lplex and it pops up a command window where you can watch it create an ISO file that you can then burn to a DVD with Nero or any other ISO burning software

and

DVD-A disks at not just 96/24 but also 88.2/24 and 192/24 - which are not part of the DVD-V spec - with DVD Audio Tools, also free, but a lot trickier process,

Why I'm posting here is to ask a question about players that won't be as influenced by owner-bias as if I asked it in a thread devoted to a particular model.

What I found when I made a pair of identical DVD-V 96/24 disks and played them in sync, switching between my two disk players, is what leads me to this question.

I found that the rendition of the disk through my Panasonic BD50 - the first Blu-ray player to decode DTS MA as well as Dolby TrueHD and feed them out through 5.1 analog jacks - while good, was subtly outclassed by the rendition through my old Denon 2910, a "universal" DVD/DVD-A/SACD/HDCD player hooked up the same way.

[Both disk players use the analog multichannel jacks on my pre-HDMI Yamaha RX-V457. I use a mechanical Phillips switchbox (electronics-free) to let the two players share the same input jacks.

For speakers I use Paradigm Studio 40s for FR/L, the center is the Paradigm CC (which looks just like the 40), and my surrounds, hung from the ceiling on either side of the listening position, are a pair of Studio 20s. The bottom octave of the surround channels is steered to my sub, a Paradigm PDR-10.]

I had noticed the same aural difference with standard CDs when I first got the Panny BD50: the Denon's sound is subtly warmer and deeper, meaning that it sounds like it has more layers.

So, after that extended warm-up, here's my question:

While I'm in no position to buy either of them in the forseeable future, and I know that the Oppo BDP-95 is the cat's pajamas, would the BDP-93, also connected analog, represent a similar step-up in warmth and richness over the BD50 for Blu-ray disks that that the Denon 2910 provides for CDs and 96/24 DVD-Vs?

One thing slowing me down on this - aside from money - is that according to a site in Denmark called DVD-Basen, which has tech specs on all the Blu-rays I have, most are mastered at 48/16! A few are at 48/24, and even fewer are at 96/24.

On the other hand, my BD50 sounds great on Blu-ray music just the same. Just wondering if the BDP-93 would turn that up to 11.

If the BDP-93 is as good as the 2910 that would be all I would be asking for - since my objectives are to upgrade the sound of Blu-ray disks and let me move the 2910 to my living room system since the Oppo would also play the SACD and DVD-A disks.

The real question is whether it's necessary to get one of the pricer "super" editions of Oppo's Blu-ray players to get multichannel analog output quality as good as the 2910, or whether even Oppo's base models are as good.

Philnick,

I've got the 95, but the 93 is still a solid player. The great thing with Oppos is their 30-day free trial...if it doesn't meet your requirements, send it back on their dime. A lot of folks are using the 93's HDMI out and using an AVR or pre/pro with ARC for great results, claiming to beet the 95 analoge results. Most feedback I've read has the 95 analoge out clearly besting the 93 head to head with all things equal. I haven't heard your player, so I can't attest if the 93 will equal your player.

Another great perk, both the 93 and 95 play flac files, no need to burn ISOs.

Yup, pretty OT, but I doubt anyone cares. I've been through several players and AVRs, amps and preamps and done lots of analog/DAC/DSP comparisons with Oppo and Denon, but sorry not your specific Denon player. If your Denon has DenonLink3, that is cool technology that improves music SQ IME but it requires a Denon AVR (and only the fairly high-level AVRs have DenonLink, which is a special CAT5 connection that reduces jitter).

I find that when considering the next HT purchase, it makes sense to step back and consider the entire audio chain. So looking at your basic "about me" info, it seems to me that you're using analog conversion in the players in part as you have no HDMI on your Yama AVR.
You're quite correct to ask the questions as the Oppo "top of the line" players are intended for folks like you with no HDMI. But
I've found to my surprise that my room acoustics are actually the limiting factor in squeezing out higher SQ from my gear. I'm limited in the acoustic treatments by WAF and like most house-size rooms, it has bass mode problems amongst other issues. I did the best i could with speaker and sub positioning and added curtains (over her objections!)and I've been really pleased with subsequent SQ improvements with increasingly sophisticated DSP room correction. So I recommend that for your next HT upgrade, rather than another player, consider whether the $ would be better spent on an updated processor with HDMI and a capable DSP RC system like Audyssey. In particular, I recommend at least the Audyssey MultEQXT version. Surprisingly that technology is currently available for under $400 (street price, authorized etailer) in the "bargain basement audiophile" Denon AVR 1712. Your budget may well be much higher for this crucial piece of gear in your HT and you may want other cool features not in that model like networking capability. Also, I've found significant SQ improvements as I went up the Denon product chain with more expensive models especially the AVR4311/A100 (about $1.3K street) which features the new top-of-the-line MultEQXT32. I've paired this with the Denon DBP A100 (4010) through DenonLink and it is superb. BTW, the Oppo BDP 83SE's vaunted dedicated analog Stereo outputs were not as good. And MC analog is a nightmare IMO. So my vote is to move you into a 21st century processor! I have some threads I can link you to if you want more info.

I use analog MCH as well from my Integra dps 10.5 to my onkyo 876.

I don't have the option to use HDMI with my Integra DPS 10.5. Someday when I can afford an oppo or some other higher end SACD/DVD audio player I will gladly use Hdmi for MCH music. As long as it sounds as good as the analog from Integra. To me my analog MCH music sounds amazing through the Integra.

Analog is not plug and play, making the setup more difficult. And, with some processors, it may not be possible to calibrate for both analog and digital sources. But, nightmare seems to be a bit overstated.

I don't know if he's referring to sound quality, but having set up my own MCH analogue audio gear (and getting it dialed in correctly) and having set up a system for a friend via HDMI, I can attest that the setup part for analogue is a relative nightmare. Once in place, however, analogue MCH can be excellent (though I'm a big believer in having the sub properly EQ'd, which is easier in an HDMI setup).

^Sorry, didn't mean to offend analog buffs. First, I should have used the qualifier that MC analog is a nightmare for me. Staying way OT, let me elaborate on that a bit. What I was referring to when speaking of MC analog in such a dramatic way was that despite spending a lot of time and $ trying to optimize analog, even just Stereo (as it's simpler to do) I found no joy...

1. Getting the speaker distance setup right for MC analog is difficult for me because my surrounds are not at the same distance from MLP, and in addition they are further from MLP than the FR/L. The speaker distance settings restrictions on the Oppo BDP83SE made this impossible (=a nightmare for me). I'm not sure if the BDP95 has sufficient flexibility to get all that right, but even so that leaves me with...

2. I'm stuck with what my wife would let me do irt acoustic treatment and I've optimized speaker/sub placement as well as I can. My analog path SQ (by definition without DSP RC), be it Stereo or MC, is overall significantly worse than my SQ when sending digital and applying DSP RC, which was quite good before sending HDMI from the Oppo to the Denon AVR4310 with MultEQXT. And it's simply no contest now since I've upgraded to the Denon AVR A100with the latest DSPRC technology, MultEQXT32, and polished that with Audyssey Pro and added a Denon Universal player with DenonLink. There's really no way I'm going back.

3. I won't even mention that tangle of MC analog cables replaced by one HDMI and one DenonLink...
But YMMV and TEHO.