I never bought into SACD as a format, believing (correctly) that as a physical format it was going to be short lived, even as a niche, as it was inevitable that physical formats were on the way out. Besides, I have had an awesome redbook setup, and SACD, maybe due to the players themselves, just sounded to me like a CD with better bass and smoother, muffled highs.
However, having entered the hi-res arena full blast, I started to become interested in seeing what the DSD capablilities of my Chord DAC might be - and, with the assistance of a 'ripping partner', I started out by having every dual-layer SACD on hand ripped, extracting the DSD ISO file and converting them to .dsf files.
To some extent, now bypassing the physical limitations of a disc player, my opinion of SACD changed quite a bit.I generally prefer hi-res PCM - the higher the sampling rate, the better, and starting at 24/96 and moving up, PCM hi-res to me sounds more open and more transparent, and comparably DSD sounds ever so slightly veiled, or softer, or less three dimensional. But regardless, I am quite happy to have both, and enjoy direct DSD tremendously.
For sure, there is a fair bit of DSD I just consider to be a complete botch. I have the Analogue Productions John Coltrane - Standard Coltrane, for example, remastered by Steve Hoffman - and it is a complete botch job. Hoffman insisted on reducing gain by a whopping 6 dB on this one, digitally, and that is a whopping amount of resolution chopped off, completely defeating the purpose of higher resolution audio. He did it so his acolytes will all swoon, chanting about how 'dynamic' it is and how 'smooth' it is - because he has taught them that anything louder than a whisper 'fatigues' the ear and is a result of that nasty 'compression'. Stupid.
Similarly, Hoffman's Blue Note titles for Analogue Productions were digitally volume reduced also, by 2 to 4dB in most cases. Again here, that is shaving off resolution in favor of some artificial notion of 'smooth' - and in extreme cases, like Jimmy Smith's Back At The Chicken Shack, the cut is so severe that it renders the music at the level of a bad CD (truth is, on the AP Blue Notes, the CD layer sounds better than the SACD layer). For Blue Note, avoid these like the plague and get the 24/192 PCM if available - they sound hugely better, even though I am not completely convinced that Bernie Grundman's studio has the best 24/192 mastering chain.
When AP got rid of Hoffman, sound quality went up dramatically. There were mis-steps - the original mastering of Cat Stevens' Tea For The Tillerman, by Kevin Grey, was rejected by AP as too 'bright' (another convenient tag for Hoffmanites) and it was then done by the late George Marino, and although very good, it does have that 'audiophile' tinkering to mute the top end and punch up the bottom-mids.
Marino's DSD of titles from the Verve catalog apparently derive from 20 bit PCM, which is very strange, but they sound very, very good. Even better are Grey's remasterings from the Prestige catalog. The choices of titles are for the most part either bland (Verve) or downright weird (Prestige), indicating that Chad really doesn't know this music very well. But there are gems - Tommy Flanagan's Overseas is a major classic, if not generally well known.
The king of DSD right now must be Mobile Fidelity. A few titles are lame - Chicago VI?? Doobie Brothers? But the Sinatra series has been sublime, and the sound is exceptional. I was never big on Sinatra - I was more a King Crimson type myself. Great sound can be a door opener to new discoveries, though, and my appreciation of Sinatra increases by leaps and bounds through the MOFI series.
Better yet, and more in line with my taste - Carole King's Tapestry on MOFI is downright amazing in the DSD incarnation. Superbly organic, natural sound with not the slightest hint of digital. A model of how good hi-res can be.
Even more where I come from - the Miles Davis MOFI remasterings. Awesome! Tonally, these are just so golden, burnished - the tone of Miles and Coltrane so filled with copper and brass, alive. Absolutely the best these have ever sounded - particularly Round About Midnight, which sounds like the curtain has been pulled back, with a wide plank wood floor, and the band playing trough the roof. Milestones is just as good. In A Silent Way is somewhat less of a revelation, but still superior, and the ugly edit on the first track is proof of the analog provenance! The Japanese SACD remasterings are excellent all around, but these have a tonal edge that surpasses them. Bring on more!
On MOFI as well - The Pixies, the last title released being Trompe Le Monde, and this is simply a fantastic remastering - it loses none of the power of the original, but has a greater tonal range and presence. And it is a fantastic record. If you have not discovered The Pixies yet, you have been missing one of the greatest bands of the 20th century.
The Billy Joel MOFI are somewhat less spectacular. They are solidly good, but have a slightly 'soft' sound overall, lacking some element of 'punch' or 'rock' to them. Very good, but not mind blowing - although far better than the 24/96 transfers starting to appear, which are needlessly compressed.
If there is another series strongly worth acquiring, it is the Japanese SHM-SACD series that was revived late last fall. The SHM part is meaningless to me as I rip the discs and play the DSD directly. The Cram - Disraeli Gears easily supersedes the earlier Mobile Fidelity gold CD. It is remarkably clear, dynamic, and powerful. There is not the sense of bloat present on the MOFI, and it sounds far better than original pressings - particularly the rather dull sounding original U.S. Atco pressings. Ditto, by the way, on the Japanese Wheels Of Fire of a few years ago, which easily surpasses the early DCC which had excessive tape hiss. The Supertramp Breakfast In America is very close, but somewhat better than the 24/96 available on a recent Blu-Ray Audio disc. I prefer the Caravan In The Land Of Grey And Pink (a favorite band and album of mine) to the Steven Wilson remix of a acouple of years ago. The recent Sex Pistols titles, particularly Rock & Roll Swindle, are a revelation.
There has been no temptation to make the Japanese SHM-SACDs sound 'audiophile' or to cater to the American audiophile demographic. They are generally exquisite flat transfers from original tapes. There are misses. Rainbow Rising is ear bleedingly atrocious. But The Police - Regatta De Blanc easily sounds much better and alive than earlier SACD incarnations, and there are great titles to come.
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