I think SACD is dead. 'DSD' is now on regular CD's (no pcm)

[aaharvel]

Just noticed this today while browsing through the CD' department at b.buy.

A noticable amount of new CD's released under the Sony Music label are being created through the 'DSD' process instead of through regular PCM.

This suggests to me that Sony has given up on SACD (where DSD encoding originated) and crossing over SACD's technology to the CD format in order to squeeze as much quality out of it as possible.

The first CD I saw that said "DSD" I looked everywhere on it for an "SACD" label but there was none. What do you guys think about this?

[Danny Tse]

The DSD logo on regular CD only means that the music was remastered/mastered with DSD and downsampled to CD. A lot of releases out there are like that....remastered Elvis, remastered Brian Eno, remastered Sony classical albums, remastered sountracks to Star Wars Episode IV, V & VI, etc., not to mention the CD versions of new releases from Telarc. The new CD versions of the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan albums also carry the DSD logo.

Last year, I tried to compile a list of all DSD mastered/remastered titles, but it turned out to be too time consuming.....

http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showt...&highlight=dsd

BTW, get the SACDs of The Animals and Herman & The Hermits....they are going out of print. New versions are CDs.....in regular jewel cases with the DSD logo. Not sure about the Sam Cooke SACD titles. These are all released by ABKCO.

You did notice that Sony plans 5 confirmed SACD releases between December 20, 2005 to January 03, 2006, right? There's also 2 other unconfirmed SACD titles that may get released.

[aaharvel]

THanks for the info about DSD cd's Danny.

5 SACD's in 1 months span? geez...

[Danny Tse]

Just for your information, the 5 confirmed multi-channel hybrid SACD titles from Sony are....

Duran Duran - Astronaut
John Legend - Get Lifted

soundtrack to The Legend of Zorro
soundtrack to Phantom of the Opera
Yo-Yo Ma plays Ennio Morricone

The unconfirmed SACD titles for 12/20/2005 release are John Mayer's Room For Squares and Switchfoot's Beautiful Letdown (both of these titles carry a catalog number that indicates SACD, but are yet to be confirmed).

Sony BMG also announced 10 additional RCA Living Stereo SACD titles to be released in February 2006. Telarc has a SACD release scheduled for January 2006.

[organ]

That's very interesting. How do the DSD ceedee's sound? A good recording/mastered cd can sound absolutely fantastic.