SACD Valve Audio Discontinued Valve Amplifiers Headphones Compact Disc Loudspeaker Drivers Cables and Connectors Manufacturers links Distributors Defunct Audio Companies Record Labels Jargon Dictionary About Audiotools.com Record Players - Tonearms Discontinued Turntables Pickups - Discontinued Arms 78 Rpm. - Phono Preamps Discontinued Pickups Reel to Reel - DAT Vintage formats - NR Compact Cassette - Mini Disc Microphones - Other Formats Vintage Open Reels Hardware modifications Vacuum State Electronics Modifies all types of Sony players, various versions available both as kits and through agents world-wide, more info here Electronic Visionary Systems (EVS) This company modifies Pioneer DV-45A DV-47Ai and DVD 656A, Philips DVD963SA and Denon DVD-2900 players Matthew Anker Modifies a variety of Sony players, also offers modification kits Octave Electronics Modifies some Sony players, more info here ModWright Modifies most Pioneer models in addition to Sony 9000 and 777 Soundlabs Modifies and sells modification kits for the Philips 1000, the Marantz SA-1 and SA-8260 Audiocom International In addition to manufacturing clock, opamp and regulator upgrades that can be used in any CD/DVD/SACD player they offer some player specific mods Audience Modifies the Sony SCD-XA 777ES, DVP-NS 900V and DVP-NS999ES players, more info here Audio Crafters Guild Examplar AudioModifies the Denon 2900 model, more info here Technical info Philips SACD Homepage Lots of useful info. Sony SACD homepage More Sony Info Mastering EQ magazine take a look at the SADIE DSD matering workstation. Noise Shaping Discussion from AMB on the differences between PCM and Bitstream SACD & DVDA Stereophile takes a look at the technical diffrences between SACD and DVDA SACD Specification Sharp Transport Articles SACD Explained SACD Into to SACD from Canadian Pro Media Multichannel setup An article from Telarc on recommended multichannel setup Jerry Goldsmith recording An article on the recording of his recent multichannel disk SACD Releases Discusses how similiar the reception that SACD is getting now to what the record companys said when the CD came out WSJ on SACD An article from The Wall Street Journal Philips presentations Philips has made available a series of presentations on various aspects of the SACD in PDF and Powerpoint formats. Subjects covered range from basics to pressing techniques. Whitepaper Guide to DSD recording Hybrid Disks Content Protection Consise discussion on the encryption and watermarking systems used by the format DSD Editing DSD Authoring SACD Integrators DSD Editing 2 More on DSD Replication Technology Software Retailers Acoustic Sounds (US) Euphoric Sound (USA) SACD & DVDA specialist store. Super-Audio.de (Germany) Euphoric Sounds (UK) Other Resources The SACD mailing list Please send any factual corrections, dead links, information and/or links that you feel that should be on this page to the page maintainer but please note that I do not have an Internet access at the moment so there may be some time before I can answer.

SACD which is the common abbreviation of Super Audio Compact Disk, is a format that was invented by Sony and Philips in an attempt to create a replacement for the CD Audio standard. Unlike CD's and other familiar digital mediums like DAT and DVDA the sound is not stored in PCM format but rather in a losslessly compressed 1 bit format (or bitstream) that they refer to as Direct Stream Digital (hereafter DSD). The players mechanism and the file system (UDF) is the same as for DVD but processing and conversion is completely different so the players are not compatible with most current digital converters or processors except via analogue links, this is not due to some conspiracy on half of Philips and Sony as has been suggested, but simply because the data read from a SACD disk is not PCM, hence it is not possible to use established digital interfaces such as SPDIF or SDIF to transfer digital audio as they are designed for transporting PCM only, there has however been recently ratified as standard based around the 1394 interface that supports the transfers of encrypted multichannel DSD data between devices, and AV amplifiers and players that sport that interface have already appeared on the market. The sound quality of DSD is considerably better than PCM, and you may remember digital recorders from the 70's and the 80's made by companies such as dbx corp. that used a one bit recording format that were considered to sound superior to the competing PCM based offerings from Sony and Denon but lost out in the marketplace when the PCM based CD was introduced. It should also be noted that all DSD data on a SACD disk is solidly encrypted, not watermarked as many people think (the now defunkt DVD-A format used that method), this means that SACD will not play on a computer even if it has a DSD converter since the data on the disk needs to be decrypted before you can play it.

Now in 2005 there are now basically 3 types of SACD capable players out there, with some minor variations. The Japanese companies in particular are pushing the Stereo SACD player as a replacement for the mid priced CD player, this is simply a music only player that will play any CD usually with upsampling capabilities and SACD disks but only have 2 channel output, most stereo players have proper DSD converters and filters and do not transcode to PCM, but that is not a rule. The Universal player is a DVD player that is mainly geared towards playing DVD video but also supports the playback of CD, DVDA, SACD, MP3 audio disks and usually VCD/SVCD video disks as well, with formats originating in the computer industry such as Xvid/Divx/MPEG4 and WM being common also. All of those players regardless of price range support multichannel playback but almost all of them do not have a proper 1 bit converters built in but rather convert the bitstream into a PCM format and thus loose the advantages of the DSD format, making the point of SACD rather pointless if I may say so, as convenience devices or for those that are primarily used as DVD players they are valid option, however do not expect the same sound quality when playing SACD disks. There are also hybrid DAC's out there that can work in both DSD and PCM mode but the sound quality in DSD mode is not as good as with a separate DAC but still preferavle to transcoding. Note that the universal player is not neccesearly universal, Sony and Philips along with an increasing number of other suppliers shun DVD-Audio and quite a few players do not support some video formats for a variety of reasons, mostly political it would appear. Thirdly there is the High End SACD player, those are players made by traditional high end audio companies that are aimed at audiophiles but vary somewhat in execution, most of these players only support 2 channel playback but some of them have multichannel and a few even have video outputs, but those can usually be switched out in keeping with the audiophile pretensions of the device.

Accuphase
Makes a high quality SACD transport called DP-100 and a SACD compatible D/A D/D converter named DC-101, more info here, this has been in production for a couple of years and has been well received but is in the upper ranges of the price spectrum, they also manufacture the DP-85 player. The company has more recently introduced a new SACD integrated player called DP-77, notably the unit has digital outputs AND inputs allowing you to use the high end converters in the device for other digital units but it also has an option for a SACD digital link.

Alouette Audio
Makes the plainly named but exquisite looking SACD player, it's housed in the same nice case as their CDD, but I have been unable to find any reviews of it.

Audio Aero
Has recently introduced the Prestige multichannel high end player that also upsamples normal CD's to 196KHz/24bit resolution before converting , this is not a true SACD player however, there is no DSD D/A converter on board the DSD data is resampled at 88KHz (they do not specify the bitrate) and then upsampled like the CD data.

Bladelius Design
Makes the Freja universal player, more info here"> (in Danish).

Bel Canto Designs
Makes the PLayer an universal DVD player that supports DVD, DVDA and MP3 in addition to the usual, has multichannel analogue outputs.

Classé
Makes the high end Omega SACD-1 a high end player that uses the top loading Sony transport, 2 channel only but has both balanced and unbalanced outputs for the analogue and digital sections, upsamples CD's to 24bits/96KHz and has a HDCD filter (getting more rare these day's).

Daisy Laser
This industrial supplier has a SACD module that you can use to build your own player with.

dCS
Makes the Verdi a high end SACD transport that has a high speed 1394 interface for connection to an external DAC, while this will hook up to any DCS dac they probably want you to hook it up to a Purcell or an Elgar .

Denon
Their DVD-2900 is a mid priced universal DVD player that has a reputation for an excellent video performance, amongst the best if not the best in it's price range but less so for audio, that is for audition general nb. the player has a full DSD converter, it just has a tendency to sound slightly harsh or bright regardless of media used (in comparison with other players in this price class that is), but should be on your short list if you prioritise video performance, it's stunning making this one of the best balanced choises out there. Recently introduced 2 new universal DVD players, the high end DVD-5900 that appears similar to the DVD-A11-N Japanese model and the budget priced DVD-1400. The company also has 2 dedicated audio only SACD players that are only sold on the Japanese market namely the high end DCD-SA10-N and the more moderatly priced DCD-SA-200-N, these 2 are replacements for the high end CD players from the company that also never showed up in the west and are aimed squarely at the audiophile market.

Esoteric
Has recently released the DV-50, a high end multichannel universal DVD player that features balanced analogue outputs for the 2 channel section, when this was written it was so new that the only info we could find was the above Japanese link and this first impression that should not be taken too seriously, they also released the DV-30 also a universal DVD player that is around 40 to 45% cheaper than the DV-50 model.

Faroudja
Recently released the DVP-2000, a high end DVD player that features in addition to a plethora of video gadgetry a SACD multicahnnel playback option.

Krell
Makes the SACD Standard.

Lexicon
Makes the high end RT-10 universal player, apparently based around a Pioneer transport but has Lexicon designed processing electronics.

Lindermann
Has the D-680 player, a high quality unit with a Sony transport that has some real high end features such as dual mono conversion and analogue path, the CD portion is upsampled to 192KHz/24 bits and the unit features balanced analogue outputs. Notably this was the first SACD player to the market that was not designed in Japan and it got rave reviews in Germany, was even dubbed the worlds best CD player in one of them.

Linn
Makes the Unidisk 2.1 an universal DVD player that supports multichannel SACD playback.

Luxman
The first company in the world to manufacture a universal player, i.e. a player that can play back VCD's, DVD's, CD's, SACD's and DVD-A disks, it's very high quality and expensive like most other Lux products. It's a behemoth that features all the high end features that you would expect from the company and is named DU-10, in addition a cheaper model called DU-7 is available in Japan, it's still no slouch all outputs are balanced etc.

Marantz
Marantz has the 8400 universal DVD player and the but much more interesting is the SA8260 a multichannel audio only player with discrete channel outputs.

McCormack
Manufactures the UDP-1 universal player, it's a high end model but does not have a separate DSD converters.

Micromega
Manufactures DVD player called Reference SACD upsampling capabilities for 24bit/96KHz and balanced digital and analogue outputs test here in Italian that compares it with the venerable (but much cheaper) Philips 963.

Musical Fidelity
Has the Trivista TRISACD digital inputs, upsamples cd's or other digital data at it's input to 24bit/192KHz based around the "tri-vista" valves, in a limited supply since the valves used in it are rare..

Music Hall Audio
Makes the Maverick, this is a 2 channel audio only high end player that features upsampling on the CD section.

Onkyo
Makes the SP-800 universal DVD player.

Opera Audio
Manufactures the hybrid silicon/valve Consonance Reference SACD-2.0, a high end 2 channel model that has balanced analogue outputs.

Philips
Has the DVP-900SA universal player that offers qute a few novel features for this pricepoint includes upsampling from CD's to DSD, the ability to turn off all video circutry for improved audio performance and so on, as a DVD player it supports HDTV resolutions and has and HDMI in addition to progressive scan etc..

Pioneer
Under reconstruction.

Primare
revealed the DVD 30 in early 2004 and while it's is a universal DVD player at heart, the company has been making lots of noises about the units SACD capabilities.

Revox
There are persitent rumours of an updated version of their S 27 DVD player that supports SACD and in fact a number of Russisan shops list a SACD capable version but I have not been able to get further details.

Shenzhen Shanling
Makes the SCD-S200 player, a reasonably priced model that is still built with audio in mid (separate converters for SACD and CD audio for instance) but the product that has been getting all the attention is the stunning SCD-T200 has both valve based and discrete analogue processing circuitry and output connectors for both that uses Sony's top drawing mechanism and features volume control so you can connect it directly to a power amplifier if you so choose.

Sharp
This Japanese manufacturer is usually only known for their budget audio system, however in late 2000 they released the 1. Bit system, a high end SACD transport and digital amplifier combo that took many by surprise, not the least since it included digital transfer of the DSD data between the player and amp, something that has not been available from Sony. It got rave reviews despite being a bit expensive and you can read more about the technology here or just about the DX-SX1 SACD Player. Note that the recent 1 bit microsystems do NOT have a SACD player but a CD unit whose PCM info is converted to bitsream and then to analogue in the amplifier.

Sony
Under reconstruction.

Theatris
The company's new C-3 high end DVD player/server has support for multicahannel SACD playback.

Van Den Hul
Makes the high end Multi Format Player or MFP, this is a part of their new SixCA series of multichannel audio products and it plays MP3 files, a VdH product that plays MP3? Downright weird.

Yamaha Corp.
Makes the DVD-S2300, a mid priced universal player that supports multichannel SACD playback, has true and wholly separate DSD converters and unusually has bass management for the SACD portion as well as the DVD portion and interestingly has a playback sound quality much better than average but by some reports an average video quality for the price range, but best check that out for yourself, there is also a high end player on the way from the company that has a 1394 interface.

Here are listed music systems that have SACD playback capability, the definition of a music system is rather loose, but to be considered as such it should have at the least an amplifier built in, most systems are designed to provide basically everything needed for a home cinema system bar the visual interface (that's a TV, mate).

Philips
Makes the HTS3500S/05 which is one of the best such systems seen in the last few years, not surprisingly since it is based around the underrated and now discontinued Philips DVP-720SA and shares all of it's features, more info here.

Yamaha Corp.
Makes one system that appears to be only available in Japan, namely the Cinemastation DVR S200, it's actually a quite capable system that I am not sure of why the company has not released in the west considering the popularity of similar systems from Sony, it has a 6x 100W amplifier and a AM/FM tuner section in addition to an universal DVD player that supports multichannel SACD playback and has 4 column style loudspeakers in addition to a centre channel speaker and a subwoofer, unusually for such an integrated system if features a tape output and a monitor input.

Software for SACD comes in 4 variations, the most common one is for audiophile and classical disks is the Hybrid, but in that case the disk comes with a 2 layers of stereo mixes, layer 1 is visible to a standard CD player and contains a standard 16 bit 44.1 KHz PCM data, this layer usually ignored by a SACD player but allows the disk to be played on any CD player. Layer 2 is on the other hand invisible to a CD player but is seen by the SACD player and contains a high resolution DSD stereo track. This sort of a backward compatibility is a first for the audio industry, while there have been formats like Digital Compact Cassette that allowed you to play back old software on your new machine, the SACD player will not only play your old CD's but you can play your SACD's on your CD player as well. This not only allows you to build up a collection of disks in anticipation of a player purchase but also allows you to interchange music with others without any headaches. In the near future there is a real possibility that all full price releases will be hybrid SACD's (This has already happened with a number of classical and audiophile labels), relegating the CD to a role of a budget carrier like the one that the Compact Cassette enjoys today.

Plain SACD disks are 1 layer disks just like DVD disks and will only play back on SACD players, this makes the disks slightly cheaper to make than the hybrid variants but kills any compatibility advantage that the format has. At the present time only Sony Music is putting out plain SACD disk and most of them are stereo mixes only but the company has recently started to put out 1 layer multichannel SACD disks as well, those disks contain a stereo DSD mix along with the multichannel one so that they are playable on any SACD player. A fifth variant of the SACD format is technically possible in the form of a multichannel only version with only a one partition and no 2 channel compatibility, this would cut down mastering costs a bit but would be a bit daft though and no such disks have appeard.

Apex Digital
Sold the AD-7701 multi-format DVD player for a limited period of time (2001 - early 2002), it was a chinese sourced model that supports the playback of stereo and multichannel SACD amongst other formats (and had karaoke capabilities....), dreadful sound by all accounts and noisy in particular with SACD playback, dead cheap however, RRP of 250USD in early 2002 down from 399 in 2001, so it might be a reasonable second hand buy if found at the right price (well under 100 that is), as a DVD player it was quite reasonable and has non-interlaced NTSC, here is an old review of it, note that it's perhaps overly negative and that street prices were considerably lower than quoted in the article. There were reliability problems and the company replaced it with the AD-7702 model that was only on the market for a couple of months but was supposidly more reliable but as with most electromechanical things, if they survive a year they usually survive a few more, problems tend to show up in the first couple of months. Another smaller model was announced at the same time as the 7701 called MD-200 that had all the same features minus karaoke and an RRP of only USD299 but it appears that it was never shipped.

Marantz
Marantz had their first player out in late 2000 called the SA-1, originally at around 7500€ or so but the price got lower in 2001, it's closely related to the revered Philips 1000 but is built to a much higher standard and is indeed notable for it's quality build and finish (it was the company's statement product at the time) but also for it's warm sound no matter if it's playing SACD or CD disks , it is a 2 channel only system that features balanced outputs in addition for digital outs for the CD section, Stereophile has reviewed this model and so did Hi-fi Choice, additionally for current owners of the unit this company offers upgrade kits. in early 2002 they introduced the gorgeous 12S1, who looks even better in real life than on photo. The 8300 universal DVD player also supported multichannel SACD playback, it was quickly replaced with the current 8400 model, the SACD playback is broadly similar but the older version looks better actually, you can find more info on this version by going to the Marantz homepage and choosing home audio, then Asia and then DVD players.

Philips
Introduced the worlds first multichannel SACD player in the form of the SACD-1000 that is also has DVD playback capabilities, in an interesting reversal of the usual practice this unit was designed by the company's Japanese department but made in Belgium. It was bestowed with awards left right and centre when it was introduced in and you can read a few old reviews of it online such as one by Audioenz, or by British high tech rag T3 Magazine, by the Home Theatre Magazine and finally by Stereophile, and all seem rather impressed. The DVP-720SA was a low/mid end universal DVD player that was introduced in late 2003 and discontinued in early 2005, it was when introduced an outright bargain just as a mid priced DVD player never mind the SACD playback capabilities, such features as PAL progressive scan, built in Dolby Digital, DTS and Dolby ProLogic II decoders and a 108MHz/12 bit video DAC where simply not available except on more expensive hardware, however it fell into a price group that was fast dissapearing at the time in the form of the mid price DVD player. The price of the budget player was falling fast at the time and dealers found it difficult to sell players that where above the 100£ mark, cheaper DVD recorders where only about 20% more expensive than the 720 when introduced and although their performance as playback units was sad to say the least the end result was not so much that punters where not interested in the 720 but that dealers simply did not stock it, I attempted to find dealers here in the UK that stocked the model in mid 2004 and after an extensive search found only 2 online shops that had them in stock, not a single traditional dealer had it, the electronic superstores only stocked cheaper models and the AV specialist dealers had mostly more expensive hardware with only a couple of budget models on hand to flog to the people who strayed in there by mistake. This meant that sales where abysmal and many magazines did not even bother to review the unit, which is a sort of sad since this was one of the most flexible DVD playback units out there, the built in decoders and 6 channel outputs enabled you to use the unit with a older AV amplifier or with a multichannel amplifier setup that does not feature decoders and the audio and video quality is better than similarly priced players and the unit supports MPEG4/Xvid/Divx and MP3 playback, the SCAD and CD playback quality, while not in the league of higher end players, is vastly superior to the similarly priced universal players, it even has an upsampling feature for the CD playback and region coding is defeatable via the handset. Since it did not sell well there are a few dealers that are selling the remaining stocks of this model at bargain prices, highly recommended for an audio/videophile on a tight budget.

Pioneer
The DV-AX10 was the first universal player on the market, early versions did not feature SACD playback options n.b. (these are very rare though) and the sound quality of the SACD portion is better described as acceptable than great.

Sony
As they were the first onto the market with the georgus but expensive SCD-1 in 1999 which was a stereo only version player that was totally overengineered as ofthen happens with the first products onto the market, conversly they were also the first to delete a product, current owners of the unit can contact this company that offers upgrade kits for both the SCD-1 and the 777, the SCD 555ES was discontinued in 2002, you can read this user review of that model with pictures of the internals and description of the components.

Philips
Discontinued the LX8200SA and MX5800SA in late 2004, the 8200 is bargain priced DVD music & video system that provides 5x 40w per channel amplification in addition to a 100w subwoofer channel and has an external input/output for a recorder, a turntable or something like that, and unusually enough the tuner section supports LW in addition to the more usual FM & AM (at the least the European version does), the speakers are 2 column type floorstanders with 2 satellites and the usual centre + sub, multichannel SACD playback of course. The MX5800 is a 5 disk DVD changer that is a similar basic configuration to the above system but with an improved 6x75w capable amp, better speakers and a dual sub. These where bargians when new but difficult to access their value in the second hand market.