Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Bought my FIRST DualDisc!

In reply to:

---

I give you that with SACD, but DVD-A doesn't. We could have been hearing 5.1 channel mixes of music for the past decade!

---

Yeah it does. How many of your friends can play the hi-res mix on a DVD-A disc? And I don't mean the DD5.1 or DTS mix.

OK,
I've just gotten done with A/B-ing the DD5.1 and SACD versions of Kind of Blue, and I am shocked.
The DD5.1 version on the Dual Disc is nothing short of a disaster compared to the SACD version.
Insane levels of background noise, it actually sounded WORSE than Tape versions I have had! How is this possible???
Nothing in the surround channels. (Or at least nothing in the 10 minutes that I could bear to have it on!)
Cutoffs in notes and cymbals, NOTHING even close to what is achieved on the SACD. Heck, it is WORSE than the latest remastered Redbook version.
I stood there and checked and double checked all of my settings and parameters for the player and the reciever, because I could not believe what I was hearing, and all was as it should be.
I was simply stunned by how bad the DD5.1 was.
I will not presume to comment on any other Dual Disc out there, as this is the only one that I have heard, but I will caution anyone that is considering buying this version of this album to stay away from THIS Dual Disc. No, that is not strong enough. I BEG You not to buy this Mess!
Not only is it NOT comparable to what is available on SACD, it is a huge step backwards from the latest Redbook CD versions available.
Wow.

I and most other people don't really care so much about the "high rez" versions. We want well mastered and mixed 5.1 music. That can be had on a DVD-A and played back on any dvd player, no?

I was afraid of that.

Anybody else out there done any A/B comparisons of Dual Discs and SACD or even regular cd's?

In reply to:

---

I and most other people don't really care so much about the "high rez" versions. We want well mastered and mixed 5.1 music. That can be had on a DVD-A and played back on any dvd player, no?

---

Then it is not really a DVD-A disc you are refering too. DVD-A is specific to the hi-rez track. DD5.1 and DTS are not specific to the DVD-A spec....that is just plain 'ole DVD-Video....that any DVD player can handle. DVD-A hi-res has to be a DVD-A compatible player.

That is why DVD-A and SACD are compared to each other...they are both hi-res. SACD/DVD-A are not compared to DD5.1 or DTS.

In reply to:

---

Anybody else out there done any A/B comparisons of Dual Discs and SACD or even regular cd's?

---

The Rob Thomas dualdisc that I have problems with has a DVD-A track on the DVD side....sounds great!

The CD side I can not play in my 2900, but one of my drives in my PC handles it fine, so I made a copy. The copy plays fine in my 2900, and sound great too.

By the Way...
The two Bill Evans' discs, Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debbie, are NOT multi-channel SACDs. They are simply 2 channel stereo SACDs. They both sound fantastic.
Not as big a difference from the Redbook CDs as the Miles is though.
(But, you can hear someone sitting in the rear left corner of the room who keeps hitting his glass with his ring, and I do not remember hearing that on the Redbook version. I just want to slap him!)
The In a Silent Way SACD is the same sort of revelation as the Kind of Blue SACD.
Mixed MUCH more aggressivly in the surrounds, but that would fit considering the material.
BUT!!!
Neither of the Miles discs are hybrid discs (as far as I can tell from reading the jackets.) They will NOT play in NON SACD players.

And I have to agree with Curtis on the DVD-A vs DD5.1 thing. It is a whole different animal, and does not stand side by side.
Sure, the IDEA is the same, but the excecution is completly different.
I do not know enough about the Science of DVD-A compared to DD5.1, but based on what I just listened to on my system, I do not know that DD5.1 is capable of achieving what I hear from DVD-A / SACD.
Maybe it is, and Sony just decided to settle for a lousy job with this release.
But I cannot imagine why they would choose to do so.
Especially with an album of this stature, and already widespread distribution.

"The Rob Thomas dualdisc that I have problems with has a DVD-A track on the DVD side....sounds great! "

Curtis,
Does it have anything else on that side of the disc, or is it simply a DVD-A version of the album?
I was just wondering if they can fit other content besides the DVD-A.

In the end, I think the wildly varying content on the "B" sides of Dual Discs are going to do nothing but add more shovels to the work of burying all of the new audio formats out there.
Just more throwing S#%T against the wall to see what sticks, and the buying public just keeps ducking, not knowing what is coming next.
Idiots.

I think it has DVD-Video and a DD5.1 track, but since I have the 2900 set to default to DVD-A if it exists, that is what I see....I have not tried anythingelse.

If the CD side and DVD side of the dualdiscs worked all the time.....I would buy them, but right now it is a crap shoot.

I just bought a "universal" player last weekend, so I'm still tweaking and tuning, but my initials thoughts are...

When playing a DVD-A or DualDisc through "6 Ch Input", they sound amazing...crystal clear. Then I turn off "6 Ch Input" (which then I assume the signal is DD 5.1, coming through the digital Toslink), it sounds like complete crap. My guess it's because DD 5.1 is compressed.

I liked that fact that the 2 DualDiscs I purchased were only a couple of bucks more expensive than the CD only version. I did by Metallica's "Black Album" on DVD-A, but it cost me over $30 CDN!!