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View Full Version : SACD guys - if I rip an SACD to .WAV, have I lost anything?

Scott Whigham
12-10-2011, 05:39 AM
A while ago, I went to an audiophile friend's house and we compared the same album on CD, vinyl, and SACD. It was on a really high end system and it was just amazing to hear the differences. It made me want to check out SACDs on my studio monitors. The problem is that, in my studio, I don't have a CD player connected to the monitors; I just have the computer. I usually just rip the CDs to WAV files and play through the monitors - sounds great.

I'm wondering though - if I rip an SACD to WAV, have I lost anything?
tiktok
12-10-2011, 08:46 AM
Resolution.
Tuco
12-10-2011, 08:56 AM
Most currently issued SACDs are hybrid discs, which allow both a PCM layer, which allows it to be read in a regular CD player, and a DSD layer (the hi-rez layer), which can only be read by an SACD player. The DSD portion has various copy protection schemes which make it very difficult to rip. If you rip to wav and get a usable file, it is merely the PCM, or Redbook, layer that you have ripped, so no better than regular CD quality.
Pietro
12-10-2011, 10:01 AM
I believe the only way to rip an SACD is using a very early PlayStation3.
Jack Gilvey
12-10-2011, 12:50 PM
That's my understanding as well. No SACD drives for computers I know of and a CD player won't read the SACD layer. Some (all, maybe?) Oppo players will transcode DSD to 88/24 PCM and transmit that over HDMI but I'm not sure how you'd rip that to your hard drive.

As far as I'm aware, Foobar can now play a DSD stream but it's getting it onto the PC that's the hangup.
Scott Whigham
12-15-2011, 04:29 PM
Awesome info - thank you to everyone for the knowledge. I'd never really looked into the underlying formats so this was a cool read.

Thanks!
Scott Whigham
12-15-2011, 04:44 PM
Awesome info - thank you to everyone for the knowledge. I'd never really looked into the underlying formats so this was a cool read.

Thanks!
overss
12-15-2011, 07:51 PM
Foobar can now play a DSD stream but it's getting it onto the PC that's the hangup. http://www.****.info/g.gif
guitarjazz
12-15-2011, 08:02 PM
There is or was a Swiss modded DVD drive that would rip SACDs. Google it and it'll probably turn up.
You can get astoundingly good sounding hi-def audio from hdtracks.com....much simpler.
Doug's Tubes
12-15-2011, 09:04 PM
A while ago, I went to an audiophile friend's house and we compared the same album on CD, vinyl, and SACD. It was on a really high end system and it was just amazing to hear the differences. It made me want to check out SACDs on my studio monitors. The problem is that, in my studio, I don't have a CD player connected to the monitors; I just have the computer. I usually just rip the CDs to WAV files and play through the monitors - sounds great.

I'm wondering though - if I rip an SACD to WAV, have I lost anything?

No, but you haven't gained anything. Now, transfer vinyl to .wav now you have something.