Mike_Osadciw
member
Canada HiFi Magazine
Joined: 05/04/08
Location: Canada
Posts: 45
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I would have done the comparison when these titles first came available...2004...wow...so long ago. As far as I know, they are both sourced from the same 5.1 mix. There would be no reason for Trent to make two different 5.1 mixes. As far as mastering...well, what do you mean, really? The SACD needs to be converted from PCM to DSD. To truly hear the SACD, you need a disc player that will play back all native DSD without PCM conversion. Most universal players convert to PCM for their DACs because the cheap DACs won't do DSD. The Oppo players will do native DSD, as will some home theater pre-amps. The DVD-A edition of TDS is MLP (a form of lossless compression for PCM data) so it just needs to be decompressed, but I'm sure it's not that simple either.
I think on the average consumer system, the differences are negligable. Pick one or the other to listen to and enjoy. Virtually all of us will never hear what these discs had to offer because 5.1 equipment (players, receivers, preamps) have generally crappy parts inside...even the $5000 - $10 000 surround preamplifiers are no better as price is not always an indicator of high quality sound. The only surround processor I'd consider would be the Theta Casablanca III-HD with Extreme DACs...better yet, bypass all internal volume controls, use the upcoming digital out card to send to 4 Theta Generation VIIIv3 pre-amp/DACs and then we can actually hear some real audio.
I'd like to revisit this title using the new Oppo BDP-95 with the balanced out connectors. Years ago I was using a Denon DVD-3910 which did native DSD and MLP. I've since boxed the unit up once I bought a real CD player to play the CDs. Now that I've got some nice playback equipment, I'll put the Oppo in to give these two discs a spin. I suspect there should be no difference between these formats, but you never know. As I've said before, I prefer the simplicity of SACD. But the days of spinning discs are over anyways...
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