What Is The Difference In Sound Quality Between CD's, SACD's & Records?

by James Leahy

Most of my regular customers do not believe me when I quite openly tell them that records are far superior to the common CD. Most of them are so unfamiliar with modern turntables, cartridges and phono stages that they look at me as if I have gone crackers. I can assure you technology has not stood still in the analogue world over the last 25 years and the advancements that have been made in the sound quality are nothing short of amazing. When some people speak disparagingly about vinyl, many times they are the one's that have not heard an analogue system of any description since the 60's.

Can CD's sound as good as records? To truly answer this accurately you have to define what is good. Some customers find the slightest hint of surface noise unacceptable regardless of tone and transparency. This is usually the novice would-be audiophile that is too busy looking at the hole and not the doughnut. This is not the attitude I would recommend. After all, if you look hard enough at almost everything in life you can find faults. Let's not loose sight of what we are trying to achieve here. It is what sounds more natural and lifelike that most of us would find superior. Rather than a clinically manufactured sound so sterile, cold and flat and engineered to within an inch if it's life that it looses all flavour.

With today's technology CD's can NOT to me sound as 'good' as Record's but with SACD the gap is narrowing but it is still far from closed. For all the many customer's systems I have set up with valve phono stage and a good MC cartridge & turntable none have wanted to go back to CD. It is just that so few people have had the opportunity to hear a good analogue rig set up to be able to experience the difference for themselves you almost feel sorry for them. I did say almost. But ignorance can in a lot of cases be bliss.

In today's audio market place is it just much cheaper, easier and quicker to use a digital source in place of the far superior record. This simplistic reasoning sadly appeals to 99% of the general population. However, if you are willing to go the extra mile and find a top quality turntable, tonearm, moving coil cartridge and valve phono stage you too might be able to experience audio nirvana like few have. Now I didn't say the road to perfect sound was a easy one but the efforts you spend here will be well worth the time and expense.

The sound of SACD comes directly from Direct Stream Digital (DSD) recording technology. DSD's simplified mechanism for recording and playback results in a frequency response of over 100kHz and a dynamic range over 120dB across the audible frequency range. DSD increases the resolution of music by more closely following the original wave form of the music, which results in music reproduction that is remarkably pure and faithful to the original. In addition to exceptional sound quality through the DSD system, the SACD format can accommodate more than four times the information of the current CD format.

While this all sounds fine and dandy most of the good/bad recordings on whatever the format comes down to the sound studio and the mixing not just the format. I have heard absolutely terrible SACD's that have been mixed incorrectly but the fault is not the technology of the SACD but the sound engineer's preferences. Most multi microphoned recording techniques over stretch the boundaries of the studio mix compared to real life. This phenomena creates listener fatigue and a sense of over saturation. Most pop recordings are so over recorded in full blown Technicolor rather than subtle hues of translucent colour that it over powers the listener and produces a blurry soundstage rather and a focused precise image. Just like most things today, sound engineers seem to want to over process the sound less then be accused by their management of not doing their job correctly!