The Audiophiliac

Matching SACD player and stereo amplifier from Onkyo

(Credit: Onkyo)

Face it: Most people listen to music on CD, LP, radio, or some form of downloaded file, and each and every one is a stereo format.

Even high-resolution formats like SACD have stereo mixes, so it's no surprise that Onkyo just introduced two new stereo components: An integrated stereo amplifier, the A-5VL, and a stereo SACD player, the C-S5VL.

The amp seems like a rational alternative to a feature-laden AV receiver, jam-packed with so much wizardry you need to read and comprehend a 100 page user manual to get it to do much of anything. Stereo is simple; no need to navigate multilayer menus to turn the bass up or down. No, with the stereo Onkyo amp, all you'll ever do is select the input--CD, aux, radio, etc.--and adjust the volume. Then sit back and enjoy the tunes.

Five speakers and sub for music? I don't think so!

(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)

It's interesting. Tens of millions of homes are equipped with multichannel home theater systems, but multichannel music is a dead issue. Stereo rules the roost, for going on 50 years.

Ten years ago it looked like stereo's days were numbered--the two new multichannel formats, SACD and DVD-Audio, were on track to be the next big things. Funny, it didn't work out that way. I cover the subject in detail in my "Whatever happened to 5.1-channel music?" article that appeared in the July issue of Stereophile magazine.

Obviously, 5.1-channel sound makes sense for movies and home theater, mostly because 5.1 was an outgrowth of theatrical film-sound technologies stretching all the way back to the 1950s.

Every attempt to bring surround music into the home without video has flopped, big time. Are you old enough to remember the rise and fall of quadraphonic in the 1970s? What was needed was a surround format that didn't require music lovers to invest in new playback gear. Surely such a format would prove the viability of music surround...wouldn't it?

Sony got it right with the CD.

(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)

Betamax was one of Sony's biggest blunders.

The videocassette format was introduced in 1975, and initially sold well. But when JVC's VHS tape cartridge was introduced in 1978, Betamax quickly lost its lead. The media loved Beta for its superior picture quality, but Standard Betamax tapes were only 60 minutes, and VHS 3-hour tapes could record more TV shows.

VHS was more popular, but Betamax refused to die. Production in the U.S. ended in 1993, and the last Betamax machine in the world was produced in Japan in 2002.

Ah, but the Compact Disc was a hit from the get-go. On August 31, 1982, an announcement was made in Tokyo that four companies, Sony, CBS/Sony, Philips, and Polygram had jointly developed the world's first CD system. Talk of the CD's demise are premature, sales are still in the hundreds of millions of discs a year.

The MiniDisc was introduced January 12, 1992. The recordable music format was originally based exclusively on ATRAC audio data compression, but the format never caught on in the U.S. MiniDiscs were popular in Japan and Asia as a digital upgrade from cassette tapes.

Which reminds me, Sony's ill-fated Elcaset came out in 1976. Like Betamax, Sony was trying to make a higher quality tape format, in this case better than the Philips Compact Cassette. Elcaset was better, but it was too large and cumbersome. Elcaset was a flop.

If CDs really are on their way out, Sony is ready with their replacement: Blu-spec CDs.

Although details about the new format, launched in Japan in November, are somewhat scant, we do know that users won't need a new player for Blu-spec CDs.

"The Blu-spec CD format boasts a new approach to the faithful reproduction of music by utilizing the leading-edge blue laser diode technologies optimized for the manufacturing of Blu-ray," according to CDJapan. The new discs' polycarbonate plastic, optimized for Blu-ray discs, is used "to ensure accurate reading of the data."

Sony doesn't claim that the Blu-spec CD sounds any better than a CD or how the new discs compare with Sony's previous and nearly dead super-CD format, Super Audio CD (SACD).

Although Sony made its Blu-spec PR splash in Japan, a few titles to the United States. The site lists Blu-spec CDs from Aerosmith, Jeff Beck, Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, and Weather Report. While most Blu-spec CDs carry a list price of $25 in Japan, Amazon.com is selling them for $35.49 here.

Another CD format, SHM-CD, seems to be similar to Blu-spec CD, but with non-Sony artists.

Have you heard a Blu-spec CD or SHM-CD yet?

Let's face it, setting up a home theater with five speakers and a subwoofer is a hassle.

Home-theater-in-a-box systems ease the pain somewhat, but you still have to run wires to five speakers and a subwoofer. Single-speaker sound bar systems? Sure, they eliminate the tangle of wires, but they're just glorified stereo bars and never really sound all that good. You can get much better sound from a decent set of stereo speakers.

You could put together a much better sounding system with Integra's DSR-4.8 DVD/AV receiver ($600) and a nice pair of speakers and possibly a subwoofer. It's a stereo receiver with 50 watts per channel with a built-in DVD/DVD-Audio/SACD player; video connectivity includes a 1080p HDMI output, one HDMI input, and two composite inputs. (You can multiply the usefulness of that single HDMI input by adding an inexpensive HDMI switcher that multiplies the number of available outputs.)

(Credit: Integra)

Let's compare and contrast an Integra DSR-4.8 based system with Yamaha's YSP-4000 single-speaker surround system ($1,800). The Yamaha is self-powered so it doesn't need an AV receiver, but it doesn't make much bass. So, you'll need to add a subwoofer, like Yamaha's YST-FSW150 ($280) and a DVD or Blu-ray player.

Fifty watts may not seem like much, but Integra components sound pretty good; pair the DSR-4.8 with efficient speakers you'd get a big sound. Klipsch's RB-61 bookshelf speakers ($499/pair) would be ideal and make better and more powerful bass than the YSP-4000, so some of you won't have to get a sub. But if you're thinking about going whole hog, I like Klipsch's Sub-12 subwoofer ($500). That's all together a $1,600 MSRP system, so it's at least $500 less expensive than the Yamaha system.

The Integra/Klipsch system would be way, way more dynamic, with vastly greater clarity for movies and music (single-speaker systems never quite sound right for music). To be fair, the Yamaha big claim to fame is its ability to produce a facsimile of surround sound from the single speaker, and it's the best of its type (I've reviewed a ton of single-speaker surround systems for CNET--both units with built-in video connectivity and those without--so I should know). The Integra/Klipsch is strictly stereo, but it'll be really good stereo. Big and wide, with a great sense of depth and spatiality.

(Credit: Woo Audio)

You have two grand to spend on a fantastic stereo system. Can your cash get you there? Yes, it can!

In this case, we're talking about a headphone-based system, but I will in the coming months cover speaker-based audiophile-grade systems for less than $3,000.

For the headphone system, I'm recommending the Woo Audio WA6 Special Edition vacuum tube headphone amplifier ($1,050) I reviewed in yesterday's blog, along with Grado RS-1 headphones ($695), and Oppo's DV-981HD SACD/DVD-Audio player ($229). All prices are manufacturer's suggested retail price.

Mind you, the Woo and Grado are hand-crafted in New York, and they are truly stunning designs built to last a long, long time. The Oppo is nowhere as extravagant, but the brand has gained quite a reputation among audiophiles for building budget-price high-performance players (I didn't have time to acquire an Oppo, so I used my Sony DVP-NS90V ($220) SACD/DVD player for most of my listening tests. DVD-As were played on a Pioneer DV-45A.

(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)

First, a word about the W-G-O's sound signature: the clarity and "listenability" made long sessions a joy. The tubes didn't--not even a little--soften the sound or add a mellowing influence. The resolution of fine detail was right up there with the very best I've heard.

"Lies" from The Black Keys' Attack & Release CD wasted no time in telling me what the W-G-O system did so well. The duo's distortion-strewn blues rock was all there, and it was great to be able to play it as loud as I wanted without worrying about disturbing my neighbors.

The W-G-O made it all sound vivid and immediate, as if there was nothing between me and the musicians. Bass went plenty low but never turned flabby.

Neil Young's Greendale on DVD-Audio upped the ante even more. I found the "live," you-are-there quality to the sound highly addictive. Neil's acoustic guitar, in particular, had an eerie presence over the W-G-O.

(Credit: Oppo)

Oh, and there's no reason why you couldn't use the W-G-O to enjoy DVD movies. Two-channel home theater-in-your-head will be just as amazing.

Just for fun, I plugged my old Sennheiser HD-580 headphones into the Woo, and I have to say, they never sounded better. Nowhere as vibrant as the Grados, but the Sennheiser's more laid-back sound might suit some tastes better than the Grado. The HD-580 is no longer made, but the current model, the HD-650, might be a worthwhile option.

(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)

The SACD is a "super" CD, it sounds better, offers multichannel, high-resolution sound, and hybrid SACDs are backwards compatible with CD players. Sony initially pushed SACD as a CD replacement and the market yawned. OK, but you would have thought that audiophiles would have, en mass, supported SACD, especially after so many of them bashed CD for its harsh digital sound. SACDs, at least ones sourced from high quality recordings, really do sound better than CD (but a crappy original recording, remastered to SACD, still sounds crappy). No, just a small segment of the audiophile market embraced SACD, why, I'm still not sure.

So my question is, now with the distraction of the HD DVD/Blu-ray format war finally out of the way, why would the market embrace Blu-ray, which is merely a "super" DVD? Yes, the format can hold up to 25GB on a single-layer disc and 50GB on a dual-layer disc, offers 1080i/p resolution, and a host of other features that, for the most part, no one cares about. My videophile pals tell me that Blu-ray's superior picture quality won't be all that visible to most people with 50 inch or smaller displays (especially when their DVDs are upconverted to 1080i/p). Hell, most people are pretty happy with DVDs and already think DVDs are HD.

I also think that the problem for both SACD and Blu-ray is that the new and improved discs looked almost identical to the older format. There's no perceived difference between the physical appearance of a SACD and a CD, or a Blu-ray and DVD disc. When CDs were introduced, the sonic differences between LPs and CDs was obvious, plus the difference in the way the played was likewise unsubtle. CDs also looked way cooler than LPs. The same benefits to the consumer were apparent during the transition from VHS tape to DVD. Consumer didn't have to be "educated," and once prices came down on DVD, the vast majority of VHS holdouts jumped on the DVD bandwagon.

With HD DVD out of the picture, I have no doubt Blu-ray will do better, but it will grow far more slowly than DVD did. Blu-ray will likely remain a niche format, while the market for downloads gains more and more momentum. DVD sales, already past their peak will continue to decline.

Neil Young's latest release is available on DVD-A.

It's safe to say most, I mean like 99 percent, of music buyers don't give a hoot about sound quality. Why else would CD sales continue to plummet and worse than CD quality downloads go up every year?

OK, that's the mainstream, what about the other 1 percent; why have the audiophiles, according to a poll on the Stereophile website, already given up on SACD and DVD-Audio? Before I cite their feedback I'd like to point out that despite the naysayers, the super sound formats are still hanging on. Neil Young's latest release, "Chrome Dreams II" just came out on DVD-A, because he still cares about the sound of his music. You can still buy Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" on SACD, and it really is one of the best sounding remasters of all time. Amazon currently lists 3,436 SACDs and 3,303 DVD-As, so anyone interested in checking out high-rez audio can do so. Audiophile labels like Telarc and Chesky Records are still putting out SACDs all the time.

Ah, but Amazon currently offers just 596 Blu-ray titles and 687 HD DVDs. Gee, I would have thought the tens of millions of people with HDTVs would have gobbled up high-rez discs by the boatload by now. Aren't Blu-ray and HD DVD supposed to be the up and coming video stars?

Ray Charles on this recently released SACD.

(Credit: Telarc)

Back to audio: thirty eight percent of Stereophile's readers believe SACD and DVD-Audio are "dead," and 23% more think the formats are "mortally wounded." Only 3% claim they're "alive and kicking." Wow, that's pretty bleak. But one guy wrote "I own about 900 SACDs. In Japan everything high-quality in Jazz, and/or classical music is issued in DSD/SACD/CD. There are stores exclusively dedicated to the format. DVD-A's pretty much dead." Somebody chimed in with the hope that SACD and DVD-A "May get resurrected via Dolby TrueHD if Blu-Ray and HD-DVD don't kill each other first." And I think another guy hit the nail on the head with, "The market has voted in favor of convenience over quality. Consumers are unwilling to purchase new hardware and make complex new connections for the sake of quality. . . But, as high speed broadband connectivity becomes more commonplace, all digital content will be distributed over the web. All physical media, including HD-DVD and Blu-ray, will become obsolete." Gee, I think, gulp, he's right.