Upgrade Report [Tech At Home: High-Res Music to Your Ears -
12/07/2004]
December 7th, 2004
Tech At Home: High-Res Music to Your Ears
by Michael Desmond, Digital World contributing editor
For a few years now, recording companies have been issuing a small
number of new releases in high-resolution audio formats--Super Audio
CD (SACD) and DVD-Audio--while releasing a much larger number of
remixed classics. In time, these discs could shoulder aside mere audio
CDs by offering significantly better music quality, but you'll
probably never hear high-res audio on an IPod.
Most high-resolution audio discs cost about the same as their CD
counterparts; rarer titles may cost more. Both formats use 4.7GB DVD
media and are superior to CDs in nearly all respects, with greater bit
depth (typically 24 bits versus 16 bits for CDs), higher sampling
rates (96 kHz or 192 kHz, versus 44.1 kHz), and more speaker channels
(5.1-channel surround sound versus two-channel stereo). I've listened
to this stuff, and it is impressive.
Because some DVD-Audio releases have separate high-resolution DTS
Audio tracks as well, you may be able to play them in an older DVD
player that doesn't support DVD-Audio or SACD. Just look for a DTS
logo on the front of the player.
But why do we need yet another music format? After all, in theory,
sampling audio at 44.1 kHz (or 44,100 times per second) and storing it
as 16-bit data provides more aural detail than human ears can discern.
In fact, though, it still comes nowhere close to faithfully reproduced
music. One problem: High-frequency signals often get clipped on audio
CDs, and this robs the music of fidelity at the upper end of the
audible wave spectrum.
Specifications and figures are nice, but the listener's ears are the
final arbiters. When I dropped a DVD-Audio disc containing Marvin
Gaye's "Let's Get It On" into my home theater setup, I felt the music
as much as I heard it. Sting's "Desert Rose" on his "Brand New Day"
album is hypnotic. Music and voices swirl and wash about you,
providing a new perspective on songs you thought you knew.
Part of the magic comes from the addition of surround sound to these
discs. Even on remixed DVD-Audio discs like the Eagles' "Hotel
California" and SACDs like Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon,"
you're in the center of the band.
Neal Breitbarth, a longtime studio producer and now a manager with
audio equipment maker Digidesign, says that what he's heard from SACD
and DVD-Audio impresses him.
"It has a lot of depth to it that you won't find in CDs," Breitbarth
says. "The thing you really notice is the sound at the high end [of
the spectrum]. You will notice the difference, if you listen to an MP3
versus a CD versus a Super Audio CD."
High-Res Hardware
I checked out two DVD players that can handle both high-resolution
discs--the Pioneer DV-578A and the Yamaha DVD-S1500--and liked what I
heard. You can go to the PC World Product Finder for specs on these
players.
Pioneer DV-578A:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/304451/15377828/967384/0/
Yamaha DVD-S1500:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/304451/15377828/967385/0/
Both can read DVD video as well as the entire range of CD and DVD
rewritable disc formats, too. And since both drives also support Dolby
Digital and DTS audio, they can dish out the immersive surround sound
found on DVD videos. In the informal sessions I spent listening to a
5.1-speaker setup powered by a Yamaha RX-V650 receiver, both players
produced music that rose head and shoulders above that of standard
audio CDs.
The Pioneer DV-578A is sleek and compact. But I was frustrated by its
uninformative front-panel interface, which forced me to turn on the
television to do simple things like switch SACD audio modes and turn
on surround sound. Still, for $130, you can spin every medium this
side of a pepperoni pizza.
The Yamaha DVD-S1500 is a larger, more expensive unit (about $400)
that should have even more appeal to music enthusiasts. Though its
front-panel LCD is cramped, the display shows enough to let you get
most tasks done without having to resort to the TV. I also thought
that the DVD-S1500 provided somewhat greater clarity than the DV-578A
when playing some SACD titles.
For video playback, both drives offer high-quality, progressive-scan
video output over component connections. Regrettably, however, neither
offers DVI or HDMI connections, an important and convenient way to
move high-resolution audio and video among components.
Will It Play in Poughkeepsie?
Despite their impressive audio quality, SACD and DVD-Audio face an
uphill climb. Recording companies are promoting better-than-CD quality
music at a time when most consumers are happily compressing tunes to
MP3 format. What's more, you can't listen to high-resolution audio on
just any equipment. You need a home theater, computer, or automobile
(rare) equipped with both a compatible player and a 5.1-channel
speaker setup.
Another issue: You can't rip DVD-Audio or SACD music to a portable
audio format. Yes, many SACD titles offer a standard-resolution,
CD-compatible set of tracks on a second layer of the disc--and I could
rip these just as I could any regular CD--but the good stuff remains
firmly locked up.
More troubling, many CD players can't play DVD-Audio discs at all. A
new disc format backed by several large record companies may resolve
that problem. Called DualDisc, the format puts a standard audio CD on
one face of the disc and a high-resolution DVD-Audio recording on the
other. It's a neat idea that should allow DVD-Audio to match SACD's
compatibility. The new discs should begin appearing in the first
quarter of next year.
SACD isn't sitting still. There's already talk of an SACD 2.0 spec,
said to add video and photo handling to the mix (many DVD-Audio discs
already have this capability). There's no word yet on whether it might
render today's SACD-savvy drives obsolete. And both camps face an
emerging issue: Artists are demanding royalties for each instance of a
track on discs that contain multiple iterations of their work. The
various sides were still negotiating at press time.
* Mike's Rants and Raves *
High Definition Redux. Now that HDTV is here, it's high time I start
pushing the next big thing, don't you think? Ultra-high-definition
video (UHDV), demonstrated by Japanese broadcasting company NHK,
produces video at 7680 by 4320 pixels, for a total of about 33 million
pixels per frame. That's up from about 2.2 million pixels in a typical
HDTV picture; a minute of this stuff requires nearly 200GB of storage.
If you've just purchased an HDTV set, don't panic. UHDV products
aren't likely to emerge for decades.
Home Movies in HD? High-def is taking the TV world by storm; movies of
your peeps and pets look like the next stop: Sony's HDR-FX1 camcorder
captures them all in 1080i resolution. It's neither light (4.5 pounds)
nor cheap ($3700), but it's sure to be a hit with war correspondents,
documentarians, and struggling indie filmmakers. Remember, Sony
introduced the first MiniDV camcorder in 1995, and the format was a
standard by 2000. Could sub-$1000 HD-capable camcorders be coming
soon?
For more on the HDR-FX1, read "Out in Japan: High-Def Home Movies":
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/304451/15377828/967386/0/
For how-tos and reviews of consumer electronics--including the latest
high-definition televisions, DVD players, and mobile phones--browse PC
World's Digital World site:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/304451/15377828/755090/0/
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"A second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience." -- Samuel Johnson
