SACD Players

Super Audio CD (SACD) is a high-resolution, read-only optical audio disc format developed by Sony and Philips Electronics, the same companies that created the Compact Disc. SACD is designed to provide high-resolution audio in both stereo and surround sound modes. SACDs use an audio format called DSD in addition to an optional CD-compatible layer using traditional PCM.

A stereo SACD recording can stream data at an uncompressed rate of 5.6 Mbps; four times the rate for Red Book CD stereo audio. SACD recordings can have a wider frequency and dynamic range than conventional CDs. As of October 2009, there were over 6000 SACD releases with more continuing to be made, slightly more than half of which were classical music. Jazz and popular music albums, mainly remastered previous releases, were the next two most numerous genres represented.

Today, most SACDs are issued as SACD hybrid discs. Such a disc can be played in high-resolution audio on a SACD player and conventional Red Book CD or DVD video players (albeit just with standard CD quality). The SACD format is thus backward compatible. SACD players can play CDs and SACD discs; CD players can play SACD hybrid discs as audio CDs.

We have many high-quality SACD player options from top names like Marantz and Cambridge Audio.