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Coverage of HI-FI '99 from Chicago, USA -- May 12-16, 1999
What's our advice regarding the next wave in digital reproduction? Enjoy your CDs for now, and if you have a DVD player, try a Classic Records disc or two to get an idea of what's around the corner. |
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Copyright © 1999 |
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![[SOUNDSTAGE! LIVE]](../../covers/ssmainlive.gif)
SACD, DVD
Audio, and DAD were all on musical display at HI-FI '99, and we can't call one a clear
winner in terms of sound quality. Who could after hearing them in a number of different
systems? However, all three made impressive music, in some cases wowing showgoers with
sound that was more than just a little better than CD.
Sony's SACD demo (shown
above) was one of the hottest tickets at the Show. Sony representatives played various
pieces during the demo, and near the end performed a direct comparison between SACD and CD
via a hybrid SACD disc. The difference was not subtle -- and the characteristic effects of
the new digital technologies -- greater space and loss of CD's tendency to sound harsh in
the upper midrange/lower treble region -- were very evident. Sony used a pair of its own
speakers, the portly SS-M9EDs, that are not available yet but will be in the fall along
with Pass Labs electronics and the SCD-1 SACD player, which will cost $5000 when available
in the US in October. Marc Mickelson thought this demo provided the very best sound at the
Show. The Sony SCD-1 player was also used in rooms other than Sony's, and Marantz showed a
prototype SACD player too (shown above)
Pioneer had a full system of
"virtually prototype" DVD Audio-ready gear on display and the discs to push it
all to its full sonic potential. This included not-in-production speakers with hand-made
ribbon tweeters, a six-channel decoder, special wide-band amps, and a player that's up to
the .9 DVD-Audio specification (shown above). Two-channel and multichannel recordings were
used, and their signature was recognizable -- but a little less so than with the SACDs in
the Sony demo.
Finally, one of the Standout rooms of the
Show used the Muse Eight/296 transport/DAC combination ($6500) to play Classic Records DAD
discs, which along with titles from Chesky are still the only 24/96 discs currently
available to consumers. Here again, the sound was very good -- as it has been when we play
the discs on our own systems.