Sacd vs blu ray audio

Has anyone compared similar titles between the two formats? Or to DVD-a? Curious...

I have compared several albums over a variety of formats using A/B comparisons as best I can. I have two Oppos in my Vegas system the 93 and the 95. The 93 plays HDMI into a Meridian HD621 > 861 v6 > Bryston 28BSST^2> CLX. The Oppo 95 S/PDIF >Meridian 861 v6 >Bryston 28BSST^2> CLX (here I'm just listing the mains). Without too much trouble I can get the two Oppos sync'd very close and then with the push of a button and a modest delay I'm testing. I spent probably 40 hrs going over various mixes and formats of "Dark Side of the Moon" and Tom Petty's "Mojo".

Using the 2003 James Guthrie 5.1 mix of "Dark Side" for example, I compared the SACD vs Blu Ray. Both are 96 kHz / 24 bit. I was unable to tell any difference in SQ.

I compared the stereo '73 mix on cd vs the the '73 mix 96 kHz / 24 bit on Blu Ray. While the cd was closer than I thought it would be, IMHO the Blu Ray was better. I had similar results with the Tom Petty material but no SACD comparison and Petty recorded at 48 kHz / 24 bit.

I switched discs between players/paths and repeated to extinguish path variances etc.

Gary

In my experience mixing and mastering version is much more critical than format. However if exactly same source then SACD has slight advantage to CD, no experience with Blu Ray audio.

MPS said:

In my experience mixing and mastering version is much more critical than format. However if exactly same source then SACD has slight advantage to CD, no experience with Blu Ray audio.

Click to expand...

Agreed. Much more critical. I prefer the early MoFi CD variant of DSOTM to the previous SACD version. I haven't heard the newer SACD version, however.

Thanks Gary. That is the type of comparison I was wondering about.

To other posters - of course other things are more important. I agree - but all things being equal was wondering if there were any advantages to either format. Btw I didn't realize there were 2 sacd releases of dsotm?? I find the first sacd to be a bit curious in that at times it sounds incredible and then certain parts of the disc seem to be lacking.

I jumped on the sacd trend early on and later transitioned into to blu ray audio. One obvious advantage blu ray has is the addition of a visual stimulus...even if it is just cover art. Leaving that out of the comparison, I prefer the actual sound from blu ray more than sacd. I just use my playstation 3 for blu ray playback and it works better than my dedicated sony sacd player. Most sacd recordings I run into seem to have less dynamic range. Not sure if I am using that term correctly so I will clarify by saying that the volume of high's and low's in the music seems to have a greater spread with blu ray. With sacd, I find that the quieter parts are louder and the louder parts are quieter giving you a more consistent volume level. The blu ray feels like it is closer to the real performance to me.

Dominick

Can you do blu ray audio without a monitor easily? I would want 2 channel playback. Or is it like DVD-a where you needed to fumble thru a menu to get to the correct layer on the disc?