Just a quick one guys.

Saw an article over on High Fidelity Review which had the news that Sony is finally releasing some in-car SACD head units. Check this out: High Fidelity Review on in-car SACD

Here's a quote:

"According to Sony, the MEX-DV1000 is a 1-DIN sized multi-disc player that features Stereo SACD playback along with DVD Video, Windows Media Audio (WMA), MP3 Audio and Dolby Digital playback. It has 52 watts per channel of power for all 4 channels in the unit and offers sound output in excess of 100db. The MEX-DV2000 is essentially identical to the MEX-DV1000 except that it provides both Stereo and Surround Sound SACD playback.

In the summer, these two SACD Car Stereo products will be joined by the XAV-W1. This unit will be a 2-DIN size model that will include a WVGA TFT Touch Screen Monitor along with both Stereo Super Audio CD and Surround Sound Super Audio CD playback as well."



So perhaps we can expect the next Alpine F#1 to have SACD and DVD-A? (they could pump DSD throught he same firewire cable) I guess a hybrid headunit is the next one to be developed. Don't think it'll be Sony doing it, surprise surprise ...

cheers

black_magic

Nice, but they aren't the first SACD, Abyss/Zelos where the first and it's been out a couple years now I believe.

I thought Macintosh and/or Nakamichi had one a couple of years ago also??

Doesnt the Helix Commander do them as well???

Well, there you go!

But I think having a slightly more available and accessible (and slightly cheaper?) in-car SACD player will only be good for the format - speaking here as someone who works in the classical music industry and whose company produces the only home-grown SACDs in Oz. Together with PS3 (which does SACD in stereo via RCAs and hi-res multichannel through HDMI) Sony is obviously trying to get the technology into more living rooms and dashboards ...

Time will tell if Sony is going the cheap route of DSD->PCM->analog conversion or genuine DSD->analog converters. Did either the Nak / Helix / Abyss/Zelos decks use genuine DSD converters? (just curious - the availability of these decks doesn't seem to have been that well publicised - hence my assumption that the Sony was the first)

Cheers

black_magic

PS. Personally, I use DVD-A in the car and it's great, even in stereo and with very ordinary speakers (we test press discs in DVD-A, you see). 24-bit alone makes a huge difference, despite no increased frequency response with standard speakers/amps.

Definitely - now all we need is more SACD titles to be available which have been recorded and mastered appropriately.

If the Sony does DSD to PCM, it will be a winner for DIY'ers, as the DVD/SACD transports are usually quite good.

And yes, 24-bit is fantastic on recordings that use all the bits. I am disappointed that most new titles only use the first 8-bits (or fewer) of dynamic range.

Not sure about that stuff, but here's the link to see if you can figure that out... http://en.iabyss.co.kr/product/product_vie...HEAD&page=1

Apparently they actually use an old Sony CD carriage mechanism design think pre xplod, as they thought it was one of the better mechanisms. But no they aren't readily available outside of Asia, and some parts of Europe. So yes it will be good to see something more readily available, I wonder how long till some other companies follow suit.

Luke

whats SACD :?

Wouldnt get too hyped up on SACD, like Pulse R has pointed out, the formats not being used to its full potential. I have about 5 SACDs in my collection and 3 of those sound no better than a semi decent ordinary 16 bit disc.

Alpine doesnt need to release a new SACD capable top end player, cos I'd bet $100 the current F#1 status unit would leave this Sony player in the dust.



google.com

Too little, too late IMO. They should have pushed it out faster along with DVD-A.

The Helix doesn't do SACD or DVD-A from the specs I've seen (and complained about..) nor does the iabyss



and iabyss is only available within Korean market as has been explained numerous times before.. >> search <<

as for alpine F1 comparo with sony, its pretty safe to assume F1 would wipe floor with sony. Or would they?
Sony have been making small in roads back to their XES status of old..
Question why Alpine down mix DVD-A in their units and restrict options instead of providing all channel outputs

only 8x oversampling - yuck!
even my el-cheapo behringer gear is 128x at 24/96

Our own label's classical stuff aside (here) there ARE good SACDs out there, mainly in classical land I'm afraid and with the independent labels.

Thing is with SACD, most discs are NOT recorded direct to DSD as the recording gear can only do 8-16 tracks at once at this resolution (16 is rare and costs over $100k) - not good for orchestral stuff - and if you need to do any EQ, noise reduction or reverb, they only operate at 96k so you have to downsample then upsample again (obviously really high end outboard gear helps minimise the damage). Most SACDs are usually 96/24 upsampled to DSD.

You're not necessarily better off with DVD-A though. I've seen some DVD-As that are only 48/24 and there are even a few classicals (Naxos) that are 16 bit PCM 5.1! DVD-A allows for simulatenously different sampling/bit rates in the rear/centre/sub channels as well. So just because it says 96/24 for the MLP program on DVD-A, it doesn't mean all channels are

Re: Alpine vs. Sony. I have no doubt that the Alpine will kick Sony's butt here. It's just a shame that DVD-A's tend to be even thinner on the ground than SACDs. And that's buying from overseas (useless trying to get the software here)

And yes, it would be nice if the lower-end Alpine units with DVD-A did more than supply a 2-channel downmix - I ended going with the JVC single-din 3.5 screen for that reason; it may not have great EQ but it can do multi-channel no worries. Even in the car, DVD-As don't seem to need much if any EQ ...

black_magic