What's up with DVD audio?
drewnice
5,465 Posts
So now I've seen RAMP "Come Into Knowledge" and S.O.U.L. "Can You Feel It" (huh?) on eBay in DVD audio format. Not that I think this is going to be much of a thing, but can anyone familiar with it explain the enhancement to the music? Is it that significant? What's the appeal? I'm curious...
Comments
Warmest regards,
JLo
you have 4 speakers - 2 front, 2 rear. imagine driving and having 5.1 surround coming out the muhfucka? it's such a closed, monitored environment, i think it would be ideal.
But you would have to have a Surround Sound stereo setup in your car to get that effect...
There are different types of DVD-Audio.
The first is simply called DVD-Audio, or "DVD-A". In terms of music, DVD-A makes it possible to hear an album in surround sound (5.1) or in high resolution stereo. You can't play it in a regular CD player, but you can play it on most standard DVD players. However, in order to hear the music in 5.1 surround sound or high resolution, you have to have extra decoders to do so. If you have those budget DVD players that come with five speakers, then you are more or less set. Of course, if you want to hear the true quality, you'll need more than clock radio speakers.
For surround sound fans like myself, there has been a format war, and it used to be between DVD-A and SACD. SACD is "Super Audio CD", which was not only capable of playing the Super Audio Layer, but some SACD's also had surround sound mixes as well. A small handful of them featured original quadraphonic mixes that came out in the 1970's. However, both of these formats did not do extremely well, and that's partially because Sony is pushing the "new and improved" Dual Disc. Fortunately, a small number of artists are still pushing for both, as they know there is an audience, however limited. That's the standard DVD-A format.
------
Then there's "Digital Audio Discs", or DAD. They too are audio on DVD discs, but it is strictly high resolution audio, encoded at a rate much higher than a standard CD, and generally not surround sound unless it's indicated as such. There's also "HDAD", or "Hybrid Digital Audio Discs", where you can play them on standard DVD video players, or players made specifically for DVD-A only. They offer music in "master sound quality", which means it will be the best thing you will listen to, next to the master tape, IF the master tape is the source of the disc. Here are some links:
http://www.classicrecords.com/mastertape.htm
http://www.classicrecords.com/hdad.htm
As for the discs on eBay you're looking at, I would assume they are nothing more than vinyl transfers/"needle drops" recorded at a high bit rate, and burned as DVD-audio. They will obviously sound a bit better than a standard audio CD, but it also depends on the vinyl source too, and the turntable.