The Blue Man Group DVD-A is really good. Drums circling all around you, etc. Very nice use of the surround channels.

Any of the Stones SACDs are good too.

There's a website I contribute to once in a while. It has some SACD and DVD-A reviews; not comprehensive, but enough to get you started. Helps to know which discs are worth getting and which aren't, before spending your hard earned money.

High Fidelity Review .

Best,
Sanjay

Just be sure that when listening to multichannel SACDs or DVD-As (or when calibrating the 950) you need to be in multichannel mode first or else you will be stuck in stereo mode. It was very disconcerting when listening to James Taylor's Hourglass after a stereo CD, only to have his voice muted and sounding like he was singing from the bottom of a deep well. You can get into multichannel mode by switching to a dolby digital mode; there may be other ways as well. Just search this forum for other SACD and calibration topics.
BTW, Norah Jones is due immently for an SACD release, and Steve Hoffman indicates that he is working on an SACD of the late, great Eva Cassidy's 'Songbird'. In the meantime, in addition to the Stones SACDs, I highly recommend all of Alison Krauss' SACD offerings (I found the best prices at the http://www.rounder.com web site). Alison's latest release, Live, is supposed to be out as an SACD (the red book is out already) probably around the same time as the concert DVD. As for DVD-A, Appalachian Journey with Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer and Mark O'Connor is superb, but it is just 2 channel. If you're into eclectic stuff, Bela Fleck has an interesting, Grammy nominated SACD, Tabula Rasa, that I really like, but may be an acquired taste. I only hope that Uncommon Ritual is released in SACD some day.

i recommend looking for the hybrid multichannel label on the front of the case of sacd. you can play the stereo cd version on any cd player and the multichannel version through the 950.

spyro gyra's 'in modern times' is probably the best mixed surround music i've heard. the songs are great, too.
see a review:
http://timefordvd.com/sacd/review/inmoderntimes.shtml

I'm waiting for that one myself. IMO, Nora's current release "come away with me", is one of the better recorded CD's I've listened to lately. I also like Alison Krauss- will wait for the SACD "Live" release.

Yes, the Blue Man Group DVD-A is awesome!! Not quite as good as the live performace I saw in Vegas, but still cool.

This is a little off topic, but I've been wanting to ask someone who might know...

When using the digital output from a DVD player (I know DVD-A and SACD aren't output through this, yet), why would one of these high end expensive players sound any different that a cheap one?? I mean, it's just 1's and 0's, right??

Now if you're using the analog out, I can see, but if strictly using the digital, I don't know what could possibly make any difference.

I'm sure I'm wrong about this, so please...someone educate me!!

fly guy

Technically, that's true, but he cheaper player is more likely to suffer from jitter problems than the expensive one. Jitter can really nasty-up the sound of digital if it is high enough. Also, the error correction of the cheaper player is very likely to be inferior, which can cause some audible glitches if uncorrectable errors need to be filled in. Of course, it's just so UN-cool to have a cheap player, 'ya know

Unless you want to double up the bass in your subwoofer, you need to set up your universal player's speaker setup to FULL RANGE all the way around.

Then flip the 950's bass-management toggle switch in the back to ON, which will give you an 80 Hz analog cross-over (no way around it). It's really a bummer the OFF position on the toggle switch doesn't mean just that.

Besides, here's a nasty little secret: you don't want to use any internal bass management or DSP modes in those current universal players (with or without a proprietary digital audio link) and receivers (with a proprietary digital audio input and internal PCM/DSD decoding) because it converts the DSD bitstream into PCM before implementing the digital bass mangement or DSP features. That's not what you want to be doing... why buy SACD's for DSD's supposed superiority if you are going to switch it to PCM?

Dan

[This message has been edited by Dan Hitchman (edited November 25, 2002).]

Dan- That's not quite true. The Pioneer DV-45a and 47ai both use Sony chips for the DSD (SACD) portion. Includes bass management. But no time alignment, that's how you know it's not being converted to PCM. If it was, why not do time alignment on it too?

Over on HTF somewhere...

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Kevin C Brown:
[B]Dan- That's not quite true. The Pioneer DV-45a and 47ai both use Sony chips for the DSD (SACD) portion. Includes bass management. But no time alignment, that's how you know it's not being converted to PCM. If it was, why not do time alignment on it too?
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kevin, how do you like the pioneer player? have you tried sacd? is the picture good, also? does it have BM for dvd-a/sacd?