Staff picks.

It was way back in Issue 63 that we published our first "Staff Picks" compilation, following it up in Issues 65 and 67 with additions by contributors who were a bit tardy in getting their lists together for that first installment. A year later, in Issue 69, we assembled a more complete and updated listing of our reviewers' advice and recommendations, and decided to update this listing on an annual basis; we published our most recent version one year ago in Issue 88. Our hope in publishing these recommendations is that not only will readers gain some valuable insights into equipment, but that they will also gain some valuable insights into our contributors' preferences and prejudices, insights that can be most helpful when reading our contributors' component and recording reviews. In alphabetical order, then, here are our contributors who have submitted their updated staff picks for 2002:

Steven G. Baird (SGB)

It was just a little more than four short years ago when I first learned that there were movements afoot to replace the conventional CD with other new formats (DVD-Audio and SACD) that are said to offer audio enthusiasts a more accurate or musically satisfying sound than what one hears on the present CD. One finds all sorts of reactions both pro and con to the idea of replacing a format after such a short time in the marketplace, but it now appears that both DVD-A and SACD have established enough of a foothold with consumers for me to state with confidence that, like it or not, high-resolution digital audio is a reality that just won't go away.

There are a number of questions in the minds of those who haven't dipped their toes into the "hi-rez" waters; many of them concern the present format war between DVD-A and SACD. Some of the audio equipment manufacturers have rendered this concern moot, though, by offering what are referred to as universal players. Such a player is compatible with virtually any digital format out there--mp3, CD, DVD (both pure audio and the various sub-formats for video), DVD-A and SACD. Moreover, these new components are compatible with a wide range of non-standard disk types. Not only will they play commercially produced media, most of them can read CD-R and CD-RW disks made on one's home computer, so the chances are great that whatever kind of digital disk you insert into these components it will play. Currently there are universal players from Pioneer, Panasonic, Yamaha, Denon, Marantz, Onkyo, and Philips for sale in the American market. Even more options exist in the European and Far Eastern countries that will be, presumably, available here in the near future. Owing to the fact that Sony developed the new SACD format, it is not surprising that their component line does not offer a universal player such as these. Likewise, there are a number of DVD/DVD-Audio players that do not offer SACD, so it is important for the prospective buyer to identify those players that are truly universal in order for it to be compatible with all formats.

Of course, many view the major advantage of these two new formats as being their ability to play multi-channel music. With the growing popularity of multi-channel home theater systems in the home, it stands to reason that the next logical progression for music entertainment would be to benefit from the surround sound capabilities of many consumers' current systems. The music industry is painfully aware of the fact that the market trend has been away from music-only purchases, and toward a variety of others, including video games and DVD movies. Many believe that if the music industry is to survive it must adopt both the surround sound and visual capabilities of modern systems. To this end, both DVD-A and SACD have made such provisions in their design architecture, although there have been no SACD products yet released that take advantage of that format's video provisions.

The other claimed advantage of SACD and DVD-A is the higher resolution playback available. The digital sampling rates for both of these are significantly higher than standard CD. While I don't intend to delve into this matter, my own experience with remastered titles in both of the formats would indicate that the quality of the results are as much dependent on the engineer's attention to detail in creating his remaster as they are to the quality of the original analog or digital masters. The latter is of greater concern since digital recordings that were made at lower sampling rates (and often much lower) years ago cannot offer any true advantage over standard red book recordings if a direct transfer is to be made. In either format the most appreciable improvements will come from new recordings (as opposed to reissues of older ones) in which the music is made using hi-rez recording equipment.

The reader is advised to be aware that both SACD and DVD-A will require a compatible player in order to make use of these new formats, even though most of the current releases can be used with your existing equipment. While hybrid SACDs will play in a standard CD player, for example, this is only because a second layer containing a standard CD segment is on the disk to guarantee its backward compatibility with your current player. Single-layer SACD-only disks will not work in this case. DVD-A disks are not backward compatible with CD, although they are compatible with early DVD players that were originally intended for movies. Like hybrid SACDs, DVD-Audio disks have segments that allow consumers to hear a version of the music on their existing DVD player using the same audio capabilities that movies do; some even offer both DTS and Dolby surround alternatives. In my opinion, one important drawback to DVD-A compared to SACD is that many of the disks require a video monitor for set-up. I have read that some audio manufacturing companies have identified this as a potential shortcoming, and will be introducing players with the ability to choose the kind of playback desired from the unit's own display. Another potential problem for DVD-A is that unlike the SACD format, there is no guarantee that a true stereo mix will be available on the disk. Since all currently available multi-channel SACDs also provide a segment for stereo playback, the disk remains compatible with the earliest SACD stereo-only players. DVD-A disks could require the DSP in your equipment to "fold down" their multi-channel data in order to play back in two channels. The sound you hear would, thus, be dependent upon the quality of your unit's DSP chip.