Re: sacd

While one cannot rip the DSD information from an SACD, and most (all?) 
SACD players don't provide a digital output of the DSD stream, most (if 
not all) SACD discs are multi-format discs and contain an ordinary Red 
Book CD layer, which can be ripped.

Even if you have an SACD-compatible drive in your computer, and figure 
out how to hack it so it provides a DSD stream, I'm pretty sure that EAC 
wouldn't know what to do with the DSD layer. The formatting and encoding 
is completely different from audio CD.

It is a pity that both of the high-resolution audio formats -- DVD-Audio 
and SACD -- have failed as mass-market formats. DVD-Audio releases are 
completely dead; SACDs are still being made and sold, but it is a niche 
market. I would suggest that the Digital Restrictions Management is only 
part of the problem: the real issue seems to me to be that, high-end 
audiophile fantasies apart, there really is no audible need in a release 
(not mixing) format for anything with higher sample rate or greater bit 
depth than Red Book CD. All the audible differences seem to be in the 
mastering, not the mathematics.

Because SACD is a niche market, there's no commercial pressure to make 
the SACD master playable for car-radio or portable listening, so the 
dynamics are more natural instead of being squashed and clipped into 3dB 
at the top of the loudness range. Pop CDs sound terrible, like most 
radio (even classical radio), all of which use pop-designed 
compressor/limiters nowadays.

So while you can't rip an SACD's DSD stream, you might still prefer the 
mastering and mixing, and you can get almost all of that by putting the 
analog audio output through a decent analog to digital converter and 
capturing that PCM stream on a computer.

On 02/14/2017 05:32 AM, Fred Maxwell [email protected] [EAC] wrote:
>
>
> EAC cannot make a copy of an SACD because of the digital rights
> management (DRM) of the SACD format.
>
> Sony’s decision to so tightly lock down the SACD format is a big part of
> why it failed commercially.  The people who would be most enthusiastic
> about SACD are often the same ones who want to be able to rip audio from
> the discs they buy so that they can put them on home music servers,
> portable music players, and USB thumb drives for use in their cars.  I
> know that I don’t want to spend money on a disc that I can’t rip, can’t
> backup, and that only plays on one device in my home.
>
> Regards,
>   Fred Maxwell
>   Moderator, Exact Audio Copy Yahoogroup
>
>> On Feb 14, 2017, at 2:12 AM, [email protected]
>>
>>
>> can an sacd be played by a wndows 7 pc? can an exact audio copy of an
>> sacd be made by EAC in a windows 7 pc?