SACD

(Super Audio CD) A high-resolution audio format from Sony and Philips. Designed as an optical disc format with higher-quality sound than a CD, SACD never caught on. Neither did DVD-Audio, a competing next-generation disc format. However, high-resolution music downloads are available in DVD-Audio resolutions as well as the DSD format used in SACD discs (see DVD-Audio, 88.2/24, 176.4/24 and high-resolution audio).

In 1999, Sony introduced the first SACD player. The SCD-1's $5,000 price placed it squarely in the audiophile league, but subsequent players moved SACD well into the consumer realm, with combo CD/DVD/SACD/DVD-Audio units less than $200.

SACD Uses Direct Stream Digital (DSD)
Sony's SACD uses a 1-bit pulse density modulation (PDM) method that encodes 2,822,400 samples per second. For more details, see DSD.

Multi-Channel and Hybrid Discs
Introduced in only stereo, 5.1 channel support was later added. In 2003, hybrid SACD discs included a separate CD layer with the same titles for playback in regular CD players.

The DSD Approach

Sony's SACD audio format is a dramatic departure from PCM, the common way audio is sampled. Direct Stream Digital (DSD) 1-bit samples are either 0 or 1 (up or down) depending on the previous sample point (see DSD).

SACD, DVD-Audio and More

This BDP-83 player from Oppo Digital not only played SACD and DVD-Audio discs, but regular CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray videos. Oppo made a line of excellent players for more than a decade but streaming became too popular, and equipment manufacturers suffered as a result. (Image courtesy of Oppo Digital, Inc., www.oppodigital.com)

High-End Players Still Exist

There always seems to be a market for high-end audio equipment, because this PerfectWave SACD player from PS Audio was available in 2021 for $6499. It uses the I2S interface if coupled with PS Audio's own DAC (see I2S and D/A converter). (Image courtesy of PS Audio Inc., www.psaudio.com)

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References in periodicals archive

The vision of iSubscribed and WC SACD is that iSubscribed, through its Intrusta brand and the pending combination with Intersections, will create a unified digital threat protection platform that uses adaptive technology to make it easy for consumers to manage disparate cybersecurity needs.

Identity Guard Owner Intersections Acquired by JV

Only Sony Music in Japan, Sonopress in Germany, and Crest National in Hollywood, Calif, have SACD production lines up and running.

COC gives new CDs a sweeter sound. (In Brief)

Ingersoll-Rand's Stationary Air Compressor Division (SACD) is the leading supplier in its product category: capital equipment that provides "compressed air" in many industrial applications.

Managing multiple channels

This includes its impeccable graphics, the extensive booklet which includes an interview with Hrusa, or the SACD multi-channel sound format, created in collaboration with the sound engineers from the Bavarian Radio in Munich.

Brahms/Dvorak Bamberger Symphoniker

M2 EQUITYBITES-December 31, 2018-WC SACD JV Extends Tender Offer for All Outstanding Shares of Intersections

WC SACD JV Extends Tender Offer for All Outstanding Shares of Intersections

WC SACD One, a newly formed joint venture entity of iSubscribed Inc., WndrCo Holdings, LLC, General Catalyst Group IX, L.P., and GC Entrepreneurs Fund IX, L.P., announced that in light of the year-end holidays, its indirect wholly-owned subsidiary, WC SACD Merger Sub One, with the consent of Intersections, has extended the expiration date of its previously announced cash tender offer to purchase all of the issued and outstanding shares of common stock of the company, for $3.68 per share, in cash, until 5:00 P.M., New York City time, on Friday, January 4, 2019, to give Intersections stockholders additional time to tender their shares.

WC SACD One extends tender offer for shares of Intersections

DFI grantee film Divines, the debut feature by Houda Benyamina scooped the coveted Camera d'Or prize at the award ceremony held yesterday, along with a special mention from the French film screenwriters guild (SACD) for debut film in the Directors Fortnight section.

DFI-supported films corner glory at Cannes

Karl Amadeus Hartmann's darkly brooding Concerto funebre (1939) completes a well-programmed disc, with fine performances and sound to match, both in CD and SACD stereo and surround-sound formats.

Classical; CD RELEASES

Connected by the power of music, inspired by fin de siecle, this SACD glorifies the influential ballet/theatre/opera music from the interwar period.

PENTATONE June Release: the Turn of the Century in Three-Quarter Time

[The initial phase of the Chicago trial (R305L030072), a component of the Social and Character Development (SACD) Research Consortium, was a collaboration among Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Division of Violence Prevention, Mathematica Policy Research Inc.

Replication of Effects of the "Positive Action" Program in Randomized Trials in Hawai'i and Chicago Schools

As for SACD, the Sony car audio demo was the only place I could listen to my SACD test material in multichannel.

CES 2008