SACD

Super Audio CD (SACD) is a read-only optical audio disc format aimed at providing much higher fidelity digital audio reproduction than the Red Book audio CD. Introduced in 2000, it was developed by Sony and Philips Electronics, the same companies that created the Compact Disc. SACD was in a format war with DVD-Audio, but neither format managed to replace regular audio CDs. there are now basically 3 types of SACD capable players out there, with some minor variations. The Japanese companies in particular are pushing the Stereo SACD player as a replacement for the mid priced CD player, this is simply a music only player that will play any CD usually with up sampling capabilities and SACD disks but only have 2 channel output, most stereo players have proper DSD converters and filters and do not transcode to PCM, but that is not a rule. Many vendors offer SACD playback capabilities in their product lines, although none has offered a portable Walkman-style SACD player capable of playing the high definition layer of an SACD.



Most portable CD players will play the conventional CD layer of a Hybrid SACD. SACD players are not permitted to digitally output an unencrypted stream of DSD. Players initially supported only analog output; later some proprietary digital interfaces such as Denon Link permitted encrypted transmission of DSD. There are two major types of SACD, Hybrid and Single Layer. A Hybrid SACD is made up of two separate layers. One layer carries the normal CD information and the other layer carries the high density SACD information. Any Hybrid SACD title can be played on any CD player or SACD player. While the SACD standard allows a hybrid disc-form containing a CD-layer compatible with CD-players, DVD-Audio discs are often mastered as DVD-AudioV, containing audio recordings for normal DVD-players. A Single Layer SACD can only be played with an SACD Player. Within those two groups are Stereo, Mono and Multichannel SACDs. Stereo SACDs carry 2-channel (left and right speaker SACD information), Mono carries just 1-channel and a Multichannel SACD carries as many as six separate channels, each captured on disc at the full DSD bit rate with the full DSD sound quality. Sony Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD) players are stocked and recommended by Hifi Corner. Sony SACD players were first shown in Scotland by Hifi Corner who successfully in conjunction with Radio Scotland and Sony broadcast the SACD in 2000. It is estimated that at present there are well over 4,000 SACD music titles, half of which are classical music. Popular music is among the least represented in the SACD music scene - mainly through remastered previously released albums. In fact, many renowned artists have re-issued some or all of their previous releases on SACD music.