UHF No 70 (Net).indd - Ultra High Fidelity Magazine

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How SACD Won the War tles? Should you buy a Palm handheld or a PocketPC? Should you pick a PC or a Mac? Should you go for Beta or VHS? In the latter case, of course, even technophobes know the answer. We also know the outcome of the cassette vs 8-track rivalry, not that it matters so much anymore. And we know that consumers who guessed wrong got little sympathy from the merchandisers of failed standards. Of course, there have always been alternatives to the clear knockout of the Beta/VHS battle. Half a century ago, when RCA launched its 45 rpm discs against Columbia’s microgroove LP, both standards won, and they stayed around for decades. On the other hand, when Philips’ DCC digital cassette went up against Sony’s MiniDisc, there were two ways you could lose. So what about DVD-Audio versus SACD? Despite claims by numerous audio mavens, including a majority of specialty magazines, we have long known that the CD Red Book standard of 16 bits and a 44.1 kHz sampling rate wasn’t even giving us what the LP had offered, never mind the “perfect sound” that digital promised. promised. Over the years crack designers have have found ways to optimize the imperfect imperfect standard: better fi lters, mapping systems that minimized (or at least optimized) optimized) mathematical rounding errors in the digital bitstream, bitstream, and even HDCD encoding, a way of giving 16 bits the performance of 20 bits or more. Of course, course, we all suspected there was a better standard in our future…but what? And when? Nuts&Bolts Don’t you love technology bat- A disc that holds more The emergence of the DVD gave us hope. The new medium was conceived primarily for movies, to be sure — the 22 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine “V” stood initially for “video.” Still, a storage medium was a storage medium. The new disc would have nearly seven times the storage space of a conventional CD, more than enough for a superior digital music system. Doubling the sampling rate to 96 kHz* would of course take twice the data space, and bumping the 16 bits up to 24 bits would increase size by another 50%. That would be easy to handle, and in fact we could even double the sampling rate again to 192 kHz. Perfect sound would fi nally arrive. But of course movies was where the money money was, and it was on movies that the DVD Consortium (later renamed the DVD Forum) concentrated. There was plenty to concentrate on, because the DVD was an amalgam of two incompatible technologies, and the consortium consortium had to listen listen to many dissenting voices. The result was that the audio-only disc became an afterthought. Indeed, it nearly got derailed. As Or, to put it another way, way, how DVD-Audio blew it big time. members of the consortium tested different film sound systems on human subjects, they became convinced that one of the eventual winners, Dolby Digital (then called AC-3) was to all intents and purposes perfect. Then why not use a similar system for DVD-Audio? Even though the DVD had huge storage capacity, it wasn’t quite enough. If we wanted to add surround sound, with 5.1 channels, we would need to increase space by another 275%, taking us to nine times the CD’s storage space. Too much. Compression was inevitable. For some time it looked as though the new medium would be crippled by the same compromises that affected DVD-Video, and there were letter-writing campaigns by audiophiles, arguing for a lossless system. Finally, one was proposed, Meridian’s MLP (Meridian Lossless Packing) compressed the signal by as much as half but could reconstitute the original signal bit for bit. With its adoption in late 1998, DVD-A seemed to be on its way. There were more than 160 member companies, many of them eagerly waiting to release DVD-A discs…or so we were told. In the meantime, there was action elsewhere. The “other” superdisc The original CD standard had been developed by Sony and Philips, which had made a good deal of money over *Obviously, 96 kHz is more than double 44.1 kHz. It is in fact double the 48 kHz sampling rate that most first-generation digital masters were recorded at. The master would then be downsampled to the CD standard. That required an unwelcome transformation. Most DVD-A mastering is today done at 96 kHz. Some producers argued for 88.2 kHz, which would downsample nicely for CD. That rate was adopted as a DVD-A option, option, though it is seldom used. The truth about the new formats This has always been true of UHF: what you read in its pages is not what the best-known audio (and home theatre!) magazines tell you. This is even more true when it comes to the new media, such as SACD and DVD-A. Our goal is, and has always been, to help you make the choices best for you. Oh…by the way, the subscription information is on page 3…page 5 of the PDF.
the years by receiving a small royalty on every CD made. If a new proprietary standard could replace the CD, the revenue stream would continue. It seemed unimaginable that just two companies could be successful against a consortium of well over a hundred competitors, but these were no ordinary companies. And it so happened that one of them, Sony, had a high-resolution standard waiting in the wings. For some time, Sony Music had been recording its masters with a system known as Direct Stream Digital. UHF discussed the system extensively in issue No. 55. DSD, unlike the DVD-A and CD standards, does not use the familiar pulse code modulation, and does not store actual signal values. Rather it uses what is known as Delta Sigma modulation to track changes in the signal. It works this way. The initial signal value is stored in a temporary memory register (but not in the recording) for reference. If the next sample is higher than the stored value, DSD records a one, and if it is lower it records a zero. During silence the signal doesn’t change, and so DSD records alternating ones and zeroes. Sony says that the density of bits is analog-like, and indeed that if you run the bitstream through a simple fi lter, you will actually hear the signal. DSD is inherently rather noisy, and noise-shaping is used to shift the noise into upper frequencies where it cannot be heard. A DSD channel takes up exactly four times the space of a CD channel. A 5.1 channel version would be too big for a DVD, but then Sony and Philips are not using the DVD as a storage medium. Interestingly enough, the DVD Forum included DSD as one of the standards of DVD-A, but that did not prevent Sony and Philips from launching its own disc, known as the Super Audio Compact Disc. It looks just like a DVD, and like a CD too for that matter. SACD was actually launched before DVD- Audio, in late 2000. The very expensive (C$8000) Sony SCD-1 player sounded excellent, but the DVD-A crowd was optimistic: unlike DVD-Audio, the SCD-1 was strictly a two-channel player. That was a temporary victory. Prices of SACD players came down, slowly at fi rst, and then much faster. What’s more, second generation players had surround sound, just as DVD-A did. The rivalry Nullam diat. Ipit pratet, sed tat vercin hent dolor iriustrud magnit prat. Gue mod tie eu facincil ent ad et wisis at alis alit wis ex eummod esto el eum quiscil dunt ipit, quisi. Ud tetum venis aut aut ad tem eugait iniat nulputatet, consequis ad ea feugueraessi exer ing etum duisit lumsandreet pratiscing esto eu faccccummod magnim zzrit lore eum zzrilla faccumm odigna feugiam, vel er sit autpat. Dui bla faccum do euismodolore magna faciduisl utat wis autpat, quat el dit wisit, sequat am iusci tionsequi tat, si. Ut wiscin henis eum irit, velessis adit ad et in exerilis augue modoloboreet wisi. Irit lum nulla feugiamcore minis alit lorerci llaore doleniam, vercilit il ut luptat la consed dipisi tio odionsequis exeraesed magna feuis adiam, conulla metuer inis dit velit, cor il utet, commy nosto coreet lor sustrud duissismod tatetummy nulla facin etum verosto odignis acipsusto odolorper si. Mincillandre vel ipismod min eugiam volestis nos nim esto dit laor sim ad tat, cor in ut irit adit in vulla feummod olorem aut at. Putat nis augiat. Ugait nos augait velestie faciduis nummy nonsed del il enisisi sciduipsum alit atumsandit vullaor eratummy nim volessectet num el ut dolorero conullaore diatum iurem alit lumsan exerci blam, vercipisi blamet nummy nullut venis numsan henim doloreet nos ea adio ea aut ilis elit, sed erit praesto od tatinci tio eliqui tat. Aci elenim zzrit lorperat. Wis accummod doloreriure tat. Borem zzriuscipsum dionsenim zzriliq uamconulla consed dolor sendreros nostrud tet alis augiam dolummy nostrud mod modo exerius cillut vel duismod ming eros nullupt atismoleniam iusto consenisl dunt ullandre tat prat, quat. Henissi smoloboreet, sequatet lore core facilla ndiatum quatie vullutpatum alit ea corem doloreet laor sed tat in velit la core verat niam vulla faccum eros ent autat. DVD-Audio stumbles Nullam diat. Ipit pratet, sed tat vercin hent dolor iriustrud magnit prat. Gue mod tie eu facincil ent ad et wisis at alis alit wis ex eummod esto el eum quiscil dunt ipit, quisi. Ud tetum venis aut aut ad tem eugait iniat nulputatet, consequis ad ea feugueraessi exer ing etum duisit lumsandreet pratiscing esto eu faccccummod magnim zzrit lore eum zzrilla faccumm odigna feugiam, vel er sit autpat. Dui bla faccum do euismodolore magna faciduisl utat wis autpat, quat el dit wisit, sequat am iusci tionsequi tat, si. Ut wiscin henis eum irit, velessis adit ad et in exerilis augue modoloboreet wisi. Irit lum nulla feugiamcore minis alit lorerci llaore doleniam, vercilit il ut luptat la consed dipisi tio odionsequis exeraesed magna feuis adiam, conulla metuer inis dit velit, cor il utet, commy nosto coreet lor sustrud duissismod tatetummy nulla facin etum verosto odignis acipsusto odolorper si. Mincillandre vel ipismod min eugiam ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 23 Nuts&Bolts
Page 1 and 2: No. 70 $4.99 ISSN 0847-1851 Canadia
Page 3 and 4: Issue No. 70 Cover story: The ultim
Page 5 and 6: DOG-EARS ARE FOR DOGS! Some audioph
Page 7 and 8: I have been an avid subscriber to U
Page 9 and 10: Free Advice Box 65085, Place Longue
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Page 15 and 16: much I know). I would like to spend
Page 18 and 19: Free Advice Response D25 New vitali
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Page 28 and 29: Feature Montreal 2004 This is no sm
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