Super Audio CD (SACD) is an
optical disc
In computing and optical disc recording technologies, an optical disc (OD) is a flat, usually circular disc that encodes binary data (bits) in the form of pits and lands on a special material, often aluminum, on one of its flat surfaces. ...
format for
audio storage
Sound recording and reproduction is the electrical, Mechanical system, mechanical, electronic, or digital inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of ...
introduced in 1999. It was developed jointly by
Sony
, commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
and
Philips Electronics
Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters i ...
and intended to be the successor to the
Compact Disc
The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then rele ...
(CD) format.
The SACD format allows multiple audio channels (i.e.
surround sound
Surround sound is a technique for enriching the fidelity and depth of sound reproduction by using multiple audio channels from speakers that surround the listener ( surround channels). Its first application was in movie theaters. Prior to sur ...
or multichannel sound). It also provides a higher bit rate and longer playing time than a conventional CD.
An SACD is designed to be played on an SACD player. A ''hybrid SACD'' contains a
Compact Disc Digital Audio
Compact Disc Digital Audio (CDDA or CD-DA), also known as Digital Audio Compact Disc or simply as Audio CD, is the standard format for audio compact discs. The standard is defined in the ''Red Book'', one of a series of Rainbow Books (named fo ...
(CDDA) layer and can also be played on a standard CD player.
History
The Super Audio CD format was introduced in 1999,
and is defined by the ''Scarlet Book'' standard document.
Philips
Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters i ...
and
Crest Digital
Crest Digital was a privately owned company specializing in post production and DVD/CD replication. Crest Digital provided editing, DVD and Blu-ray authoring, digital asset management, audio mixing, language dubbing and subtitling, and DVD/CD ...
partnered in May 2002 to develop and install the first SACD hybrid disc production line in the United States, with a production capacity of up to three million discs per year.
SACD did not achieve the level of growth that compact discs enjoyed in the 1980s,
and was not accepted by the mainstream market.
By 2007, SACD had failed to make a significant impact in the marketplace; consumers were increasingly downloading low-resolution music files over the internet rather than buying music on physical disc formats.
A small and niche market for SACD has remained, serving the
audiophile
An audiophile is a person who is enthusiastic about high-fidelity sound reproduction. An audiophile seeks to reproduce the sound of a piece of recorded music or a live musical performance, typically inside closed headphones, In-ear monitors, open ...
community.
Content
By October 2009, record companies had published more than 6,000 SACD releases, slightly more than half of which were
classical music
Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...
.
Jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
and popular music albums, mainly remastered previous releases, were the next two genres most represented.
Many popular artists have released some or all of their back catalog on SACD.
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd are an English rock band formed in London in 1965. Gaining an early following as one of the first British psychedelic music, psychedelic groups, they were distinguished by their extended compositions, sonic experimentation, philo ...
's album ''
The Dark Side of the Moon
''The Dark Side of the Moon'' is the eighth studio album by the English rock band Pink Floyd, released on 1 March 1973 by Harvest Records. The album was primarily developed during live performances, and the band premiered an early version of ...
'' (1973) sold over 800,000 copies by June 2004 in its SACD Surround Sound edition.
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in London in 1964. Their classic lineup consisted of lead singer Roger Daltrey, guitarist and singer Pete Townshend, bass guitarist and singer John Entwistle, and drummer Keith Moon. They are considered ...
's rock opera ''
Tommy
Tommy may refer to:
People
* Tommy (given name)
* Tommy Atkins, or just Tommy, a slang term for a common soldier in the British Army
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''Tommy'' (1931 film), a Soviet drama film
* ''Tommy'' (1975 fil ...
'' (1969), and
Roxy Music
Roxy Music are an English rock music, rock band formed in 1970 by Bryan Ferry—who became the band's lead vocalist and principal songwriter—and bassist Graham Simpson (musician), Graham Simpson. The other longtime members are Phil Manzanera ...
's ''
Avalon
Avalon (; la, Insula Avallonis; cy, Ynys Afallon, Ynys Afallach; kw, Enys Avalow; literally meaning "the isle of fruit r appletrees"; also written ''Avallon'' or ''Avilion'' among various other spellings) is a mythical island featured in the ...
'' (1982), were released on SACD to take advantage of the format's multi-channel capability. All three albums were remixed in
5.1 surround, and released as hybrid SACDs with a stereo mix on the standard CD layer.
Some popular artists have released new recordings on SACD. Sales figures for
Sting
Sting may refer to:
* Stinger or sting, a structure of an animal to inject venom, or the injury produced by a stinger
* Irritating hairs or prickles of a stinging plant, or the plant itself
Fictional characters and entities
* Sting (Middle-eart ...
's ''
Sacred Love
''Sacred Love'' is the seventh studio album by Sting. The album was released on 29 September 2003. The album featured smoother, R&B-style beats and experiments collaborating with hip-hop artist Mary J. Blige and sitar player Anoushka Shanka ...
'' (2003) album reached number one on SACD sales charts in four European countries in June 2004.
[
Between 2007 and 2008, the rock band ]Genesis
Genesis may refer to:
Bible
* Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind
* Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...
re-released all of their studio albums across three SACD box sets. Each album in these sets contains both new stereo and 5.1 mixes. The original stereo mixes were not included. The US & Canada versions do not use SACD but CD instead.
By August 2009 443 labels had released one or more SACDs. Instead of depending on major label support, some orchestras and artists have released SACDs on their own. For instance, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) was founded by Theodore Thomas in 1891. The ensemble makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival. The music director is Riccardo Muti, who began his tenure ...
started the Chicago Resound label to provide full and burgeoning support for high-resolution SACD hybrid discs, and the London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London. Founded in 1904, the LSO is the oldest of London's orchestras, symphony orchestras. The LSO was created by a group of players who left Henry Wood's Queen's ...
established their own ''LSO Live'' label.
Many SACD discs that were released from 2000-2005 are now out of print and available only on the used market. By 2009, the major record companies were no longer regularly releasing discs in the format, with new releases confined to the smaller labels.
Technology
SACD discs have identical physical dimensions as standard compact discs. The areal density
The area density (also known as areal density, surface density, superficial density, areic density, mass thickness, column density, or density thickness) of a two-dimensional object is calculated as the mass per unit area. The SI derived unit is ...
of the disc is the same as a DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
. There are three types of disc:[
*Hybrid: Hybrid SACDs have a 4.7 GB SACD layer (the ''HD layer''), as well as a CD (Red Book) audio layer readable by most conventional Compact Disc players.]
*Single-layer: A disc with one 4.7 GB SACD layer.
*Dual-layer: A disc with two SACD layers, totaling 8.5 GB, and no CD layer. Dual-layer SACDs can store nearly twice as much data as a single-layer SACD. Like most dual-layer DVDs, the data spiral for the first layer is encoded from the inside out, and the second layer is encoded starting from the point where the first layer ends and ending at the innermost part of the disc. Unlike hybrid discs, both single- and dual-layer SACDs are incompatible with conventional CD players and cannot be played on them.
A stereo SACD recording has an uncompressed rate of 5.6 Mbit/s
In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multi ...
, four times the rate for Red Book CD stereo audio.
Commercial releases commonly include both surround sound (five full-range plus LFE multi-channel) and stereo (dual-channel) mixes on the SACD layer. Some reissues retain the mixes of earlier multi-channel formats (examples include the 1973 quadraphonic
Quadraphonic (or quadrophonic and sometimes quadrasonic) sound – equivalent to what is now called 4.0 surround sound – uses four audio channels in which speakers are positioned at the four corners of a listening space. The system allows for th ...
mix of Mike Oldfield
Mike may refer to:
Animals
* Mike (cat), cat and guardian of the British Museum
* Mike the Headless Chicken, chicken that lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off
* Mike (chimpanzee), a chimpanzee featured in several books and documen ...
's ''Tubular Bells
Tubular bells (also known as chimes) are musical instruments in the percussion family. Their sound resembles that of church bells, carillon, or a bell tower; the original tubular bells were made to duplicate the sound of church bells within a ...
'' and the 1957 three-channel stereo recording by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) was founded by Theodore Thomas in 1891. The ensemble makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival. The music director is Riccardo Muti, who began his tenure ...
of Mussorgsky
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky ( rus, link=no, Модест Петрович Мусоргский, Modest Petrovich Musorgsky , mɐˈdɛst pʲɪˈtrovʲɪtɕ ˈmusərkskʲɪj, Ru-Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky version.ogg; – ) was a Russian compo ...
's ''Pictures at an Exhibition
''Pictures at an Exhibition'', french: Tableaux d'une exposition, link=no is a suite (music), suite of ten piano pieces, plus a recurring, varied Promenade theme, composed by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky in 1874. The piece is Mussorgsky's ...
'', reissued on SACD in 2001 and 2004 respectively).
Disc reading
A Super Audio CD uses two layers and the standardized of conventional CD players to enable both types of player to read the data">focal length of conventional CD players to enable both types of player to read the data
Objective lenses in conventional CD players have a longer working distance, or focal length
The focal length of an optical system is a measure of how strongly the system converges or diverges light; it is the inverse of the system's optical power. A positive focal length indicates that a system converges light, while a negative foca ...
, than lenses designed for SACD players. In SACD-capable DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray players, the red DVD laser is used for reading SACDs. This means that when a hybrid SACD is placed into a conventional CD player, the infrared laser beam passes through the SACD layer and is reflected by the CD layer at the standard 1.2 mm distance, and the SACD layer is out of focus. When the same disc is placed into an SACD player, the red laser is reflected by the SACD layer (at 0.6 mm distance) before it can reach the CD layer. Conversely, if a conventional CD is placed into an SACD player, the laser will read the disc as a CD since there is no SACD layer.
Direct Stream Digital
SACD audio is stored in Direct Stream Digital
Direct Stream Digital (DSD) is a trademark used by Sony and Philips for their system for digitally encoding audio signals for the Super Audio CD (SACD).
DSD uses pulse-density modulation encoding - a technology to store audio signals on digital ...
(DSD) format using pulse-density modulation
Pulse-density modulation, or PDM, is a form of modulation used to represent an analog signal with a binary signal. In a PDM signal, specific amplitude values are not encoded into codewords of pulses of different weight as they would be in pulse- ...
(PDM) where audio amplitude is determined by the varying proportion of 1s and 0s. This contrasts with compact disc
The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then rele ...
and conventional computer audio systems using pulse-code modulation
Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a method used to digitally represent sampled analog signals. It is the standard form of digital audio in computers, compact discs, digital telephony and other digital audio applications. In a PCM stream, the ...
(PCM) where audio amplitude is determined by numbers encoded in the bit stream. Both modulations require neighboring samples to reconstruct the original waveform, the more the lower frequency that can be encoded.
DSD is 1-bit, has a sampling rate of 2.8224 MHz
The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...
, and makes use of noise shaping
Noise shaping is a technique typically used in digital audio, image, and video processing, usually in combination with dithering, as part of the process of quantization or bit-depth reduction of a digital signal. Its purpose is to increase the ap ...
quantization techniques in order to push 1-bit quantization noise up to inaudible ultrasonic frequencies. This gives the format a greater dynamic range
Dynamic range (abbreviated DR, DNR, or DYR) is the ratio between the largest and smallest values that a certain quantity can assume. It is often used in the context of signals, like sound and light. It is measured either as a ratio or as a base-1 ...
and wider frequency response than the CD. The SACD format is capable of delivering a dynamic range of 120 dB from 20 Hz to 20 kHz and an extended frequency response up to 100 kHz, although most available players list an upper limit of 70–90 kHz, and practical limits reduce this to 50 kHz.[ Because of the nature of sigma-delta converters, DSD and PCM cannot be directly compared. DSD's frequency response can be as high as 100 kHz, but frequencies that high compete with high levels of ultrasonic ]quantization noise
Quantization, in mathematics and digital signal processing, is the process of mapping input values from a large set (often a continuous set) to output values in a (countable) smaller set, often with a finite number of elements. Rounding and t ...
. With appropriate low-pass filter
A low-pass filter is a filter that passes signals with a frequency lower than a selected cutoff frequency and attenuates signals with frequencies higher than the cutoff frequency. The exact frequency response of the filter depends on the filter des ...
ing, a frequency response
In signal processing and electronics, the frequency response of a system is the quantitative measure of the magnitude and phase of the output as a function of input frequency. The frequency response is widely used in the design and analysis of sy ...
of 20 kHz can be achieved along with a dynamic range of nearly 120 dB, which is about the same dynamic range as PCM audio with a resolution of 20 bits.
Direct Stream Transfer
To reduce the space and bandwidth requirements of DSD, a lossless data compression
Lossless compression is a class of data compression that allows the original data to be perfectly reconstructed from the compressed data with no loss of information. Lossless compression is possible because most real-world data exhibits statistic ...
method called Direct Stream Transfer (DST) is used. DST compression is compulsory for multi-channel regions and optional for stereo regions. It typically compresses by a factor of between two and three, allowing a disc to contain 80 minutes of both 2-channel and 5.1-channel sound.
Direct Stream Transfer compression was standardized as an amendment to the MPEG-4 Audio
MPEG-4 Part 3 or MPEG-4 Audio (formally International Organization for Standardization, ISO/International Electrotechnical Commission, IEC 14496-3) is the third part of the International Organization for Standardization, ISO/International Electrote ...
standard, ISO
ISO is the most common abbreviation for the International Organization for Standardization.
ISO or Iso may also refer to: Business and finance
* Iso (supermarket), a chain of Danish supermarkets incorporated into the SuperBest chain in 2007
* Iso ...
/IEC
The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC; in French: ''Commission électrotechnique internationale'') is an international standards organization that prepares and publishes international standards for all electrical, electronic and r ...
14496-3:2001/Amd 6:2005 (Lossless coding of oversampled audio), in 2005. It contains the DSD and DST definitions as described in the Super Audio CD Specification. The MPEG-4 DST provides lossless coding of oversampled audio signals. Target applications of DST are archiving and storage of 1-bit oversampled audio signals and SA-CD.
A reference implementation
In the software development process, a reference implementation (or, less frequently, sample implementation or model implementation) is a program that implements all requirements from a corresponding specification. The reference implementation o ...
of MPEG-4 DST was published as ISO/IEC 14496-5:2001/Amd.10:2007 in 2007.
Copy protection
SACD has several copy protection
Copy protection, also known as content protection, copy prevention and copy restriction, describes measures to enforce copyright by preventing the reproduction of software, films, music, and other media.
Copy protection is most commonly found on ...
features at the physical level, which made the digital content of SACD discs difficult to copy until the jailbreak of the PlayStation 3
The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on Novemb ...
. The content may be copyable without SACD quality by resorting to the analog hole
The analog hole (also known as the analog loophole or analog gap) is a perceived fundamental and inevitable vulnerability in copy protection schemes for noninteractive works in digital formats which can be exploited to duplicate copy-protected wo ...
, or ripping the conventional 700 MB layer on hybrid discs. Copy protection schemes include physical pit modulation and 80-bit encryption
In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can decip ...
of the audio data, with a key encoded on a special area of the disc that is only readable by a licensed SACD device. The HD layer of an SACD disc cannot be played back on computer CD/DVD drives, and SACDs can only be manufactured at the disc replication facilities in Shizuoka
Shizuoka can refer to:
* Shizuoka Prefecture, a Japanese prefecture
* Shizuoka (city), the capital city of Shizuoka Prefecture
* Shizuoka Airport
* Shizuoka Domain, the name from 1868 to 1871 for Sunpu Domain, a predecessor of Shizuoka Prefecture
...
and Salzburg
Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian) is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872.
The town is on the site of the ...
. Nonetheless, a PlayStation 3
The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on Novemb ...
with an SACD drive and appropriate firmware can use specialized software to extract a DSD copy of the HD stream.
Sound quality
Sound quality parameters achievable by the Red Book CD-DA
Compact Disc Digital Audio (CDDA or CD-DA), also known as Digital Audio Compact Disc or simply as Audio CD, is the standard format for audio compact discs. The standard is defined in the ''Red Book'', one of a series of Rainbow Books (named fo ...
and SACD formats compared with the limits of human hearing are as follows:
; CD: Dynamic range: 90 dB; 120 dB (with shaped dither
Dither is an intentionally applied form of image noise, noise used to randomize quantization error, preventing large-scale patterns such as color banding in images. Dither is routinely used in processing of both digital audio and digital vide ...
); frequency range: 20 Hz—20 kHz
; SACD: Dynamic range: 105 dB; frequency range: 20 Hz— 50 kHz[
; Human hearing: Dynamic range: 120 dB;] frequency range: 20 Hz—20 kHz (young person); 20 Hz—8-15 kHz (middle-aged adult)
In September 2007, the Audio Engineering Society published the results of a year-long trial, in which a range of subjects including professional recording engineers were asked to discern the difference between high-resolution audio
High-resolution audio (high-definition audio or HD audio) is a term for audio files with greater than 44.1 kHz sample rate or higher than 16-bit audio bit depth. It commonly refers to 96 or 192 kHz sample rates. However, there also ex ...
sources (including SACD and DVD-Audio
DVD-Audio (commonly abbreviated as DVD-A) is a digital format for delivering high-fidelity audio content on a DVD. DVD-Audio uses most of the storage on the disc for high-quality audio and is not intended to be a video delivery format.
The sta ...
) and a compact disc
The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then rele ...
audio (44.1 kHz/16 bit) conversion of the same source material under double-blind
In a blind or blinded experiment, information which may influence the participants of the experiment is withheld until after the experiment is complete. Good blinding can reduce or eliminate experimental biases that arise from a participants' expec ...
test conditions. Out of 554 trials, there were 276 correct answers, a 49.8% success rate corresponding almost exactly to the 50% that would have been expected by chance guessing alone. When the level of the signal was elevated by 14 dB or more, the test subjects were able to detect the higher noise floor
In signal theory, the noise floor is the measure of the signal created from the sum of all the noise sources and unwanted signals within a measurement system, where noise is defined as any signal other than the one being monitored.
In radio com ...
of the CD-quality loop easily. The authors commented:
Following criticism that the original published results of the study were not sufficiently detailed, the AES published a list of the audio equipment and recordings used during the tests. Since the Meyer-Moran study in 2007, approximately 80 studies have been published on high-resolution audio, about half of which included blind tests. Joshua Reiss
Joshua Reiss is a British author, academic, inventor and entrepreneur. He is best known for his work in intelligent audio technologies and his co-authorship of the book ''Audio Effects Theory Implementation and Application''.
Biography
Early l ...
performed a meta-analysis on 20 of the published tests that included sufficient experimental detail and data. In a paper published in the July 2016 issue of the AES Journal, Reiss says that, although the individual tests had mixed results, and that the effect was "small and difficult to detect," the overall result was that trained listeners could distinguish between hi-resolution recordings and their CD equivalents under blind conditions: "Overall, there was a small but statistically significant ability to discriminate between standard quality audio (44.1 or 48 kHz, 16 bit) and high-resolution audio (beyond standard quality). When subjects were trained, the ability to discriminate was far more significant." Hiroshi Nittono pointed out that the results in Reiss's paper showed that the ability to distinguish high-resolution audio from CD-quality audio was "only slightly better than chance."
Contradictory results have been found when comparing DSD and high-resolution PCM formats. Double-blind listening tests in 2004 between DSD and 24-bit, 176.4 kHz PCM recordings reported that among test subjects no significant differences could be heard. DSD advocates and equipment manufacturers continue to assert an improvement in sound quality above PCM 24-bit 176.4 kHz. A 2003 study found that despite both formats' extended frequency responses, people could not distinguish audio with information above 21 kHz from audio without such high-frequency content. In a 2014 study, however, Marui et al. found that under double-blind conditions, listeners were able to distinguish between PCM (192 kHz/24 bits) and DSD (2.8 MHz) or DSD (5.6MHz) recording formats, preferring the qualitative features of DSD, but could not discriminate between the two DSD formats.
Playback hardware
The Sony SCD-1 player was introduced concurrently with the SACD format in 1999, at a price of approximately US$5,000. It weighed over and played two-channel SACDs and Red Book CDs only. Electronics manufacturers, including Onkyo, Denon
is a Japanese electronics company started in 1910 by Frederick Whitney Horn, an American entrepreneur. Denon produced the first cylinder audio media in Japan and players to play them. Decades later, Denon was involved in the early stages of de ...
, Marantz, Pioneer
Pioneer commonly refers to a settler who migrates to previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited land.
In the United States pioneer commonly refers to an American pioneer, a person in American history who migrated west to join in settling and de ...
and Yamaha Yamaha may refer to:
* Yamaha Corporation, a Japanese company with a wide range of products and services, established in 1887. The company is the largest shareholder of Yamaha Motor Company (below).
** Yamaha Music Foundation, an organization estab ...
offer or offered SACD players. Sony
, commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
has made in-car SACD players.
SACD players are not permitted to offer an output carrying an unencrypted stream of DSD.
The first two generations of Sony's PlayStation 3 game console were capable of reading SACD discs. Starting with the third generation (introduced October 2007), SACD playback was removed. All PlayStation 3 models, however, will play DSD Disc format. The PlayStation 3 was capable of converting multi-channel DSD to lossy
In information technology, lossy compression or irreversible compression is the class of data compression methods that uses inexact approximations and partial data discarding to represent the content. These techniques are used to reduce data size ...
1.5 Mbit/s DTS for playback over S/PDIF
S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface) is a type of digital audio interface used in consumer audio equipment to output audio over relatively short distances. The signal is transmitted over either a coaxial cable (using RCA or BNC connectors) ...
using the 2.00 system software
System software is software designed to provide a platform for other software. Examples of system software include operating systems (OS) like macOS, Linux, Android and Microsoft Windows, computational science software, game engines, search engin ...
. The subsequent revision removed the feature.
Several brands have introduced (mostly high-end
In economics, a luxury good (or upmarket good) is a good for which demand increases more than what is proportional as income rises, so that expenditures on the good become a greater proportion of overall spending. Luxury goods are in contrast t ...
) Blu-ray Disc
The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and c ...
and Ultra HD Blu-ray
Ultra HD Blu-ray (4K Ultra HD, UHD-BD, or 4K Blu-ray) is a digital optical disc data storage format that is an enhanced variant of Blu-ray. Ultra HD Blu-ray discs are incompatible with existing standard Blu-ray players, though a traditional Bl ...
players that can play SACD discs.
Unofficial playback of SACD disc image
A disk image, in computing, is a computer file containing the contents and structure of a disk volume or of an entire data storage device, such as a hard disk drive, tape drive, floppy disk, optical disc, or USB flash drive. A disk image is usua ...
s on a PC is possible through freeware
Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the f ...
audio player foobar2000
foobar2000 (often abbreviated as fb2k or f2k) is a freeware audio player for Microsoft Windows, iOS and Android developed by Peter Pawłowski. It has a modular design, which provides user flexibility in configuration and customization. Stan ...
for Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
using an open source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
plug-in extension called SACDDecoder. macOS
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
music software Audirvana also supports playback of SACD disc images.
See also
* DSD-CD
* DualDisc
The DualDisc is a type of double-sided optical disc product developed by a group of record companies including MJJ Productions Inc., EMI Music, Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and 5.1 Entertainment Group an ...
* Extended Resolution Compact Disc
Extended Resolution Compact Disc (XRCD) is a mastering and manufacture process patented by JVC (Victor Company of Japan, Ltd) for producing Red Book (audio CD standard), Red Book compact discs. It was first introduced in 1995.
An XRCD is priced ...
(XRCD)
* High Definition Compatible Digital
High Definition Compatible Digital (HDCD) is a proprietary audio encode-decode process that claims to provide increased dynamic range over that of standard Compact Disc Digital Audio, while retaining backward compatibility with existing compact d ...
(HDCD)
* Timeline of audio formats
An audio format is a medium for sound recording and reproduction. The term is applied to both the physical recording media and the recording formats of the audio content—in computer science it is often limited to the audio file format, but its w ...
References
Bibliography
* Janssen, E.; Reefman, D
"Super-audio CD: an introduction".
''Signal Processing Magazine, IEEE'' Volume 20, Issue 4, July 2003, pp. 83–90.
External links
''Super Audio Compact Disc: A Technical Proposal''
Sony (archived PDF)
SA-CD.net
Reviews of SACD releases and a discussion forum.
{{DVD
Audiovisual introductions in 1999
Compact disc
DVD
Audio storage