| Article: | The SuperAudio CD (SACD) explained | Date: | 25 october 2002 |
| Author: | Mr. Belvedere |
44 KiloHertz, 74 minutes of playing time, stereo music and 650 megabytes of data : We all know the audio CD. 20 years ago Philips and Sony came up with the idea of making a 120 mm. disc to put music on. The red book standard was set and they were on their way to make lots of money by selling CDs , CD players and CD writers. After some introduction time the Audio CD was on its way to become the standard of quality audio. The CD promised a good sound quality and durability.
Philips and Sony were both happy to introduce the CD-ROM, the data oponent and later on; The DVD. The DVD was meant for movies. It promised an even better sound quality, more data capacity and the possibility to get an entire hollywood movie on a single disc.
Featuring things as multi-language , Dolby surround sound and lots of other extra's and enhancements were developed to give the consumer a theatre-like experience on his own TV and stereo set.
Naturally you had to buy a widescreen tv and a dolby surround set as well as the cool 6 speakers to get that experience On a side note, if you happen to have such a cool tv and stereo set, then you have to buy the right DVD as well. Nowadays DVDs come in such different versions, the consumer might have trouble which one to choose.
But for the audiophiles there was still only normal stereo on their normal cd players even if they hooked their cd player on some really fancy cool Dolby surround set. They could buy a DVD set of course, given a better experience and sound quality than CDs. But Philips and Sony thought those audiophiles deserved something better than just plain stereo on their audio CD's or even DVD and they developed he SACD technology.
SACD stands for: Super Audio Compact Disc, and that is where this article is all about.
