DVD-Audio: High-Resolution Digital Audio at its Best 

My first DVD-AUDIO purchase was Queen’s “The Game.” I was hooked from that moment on. Unfortunately I found out about that format towards the end of its distribution period and I was somewhat limited in selection. I ended up buying DVD-AUDIO discs from artists I didn’t like just so I could experience the 5.1 surround sound. I have 55 DVD-AUDIO discs and the last ones I purchased were Snakes and Arrows, Moving Pictures and 2112 from RUSH. It’s an amazing format that has no equal. My most expensive purchase was Signals. I paid over $333 for that disc but I love it. Vinyl is making a decent comeback so maybe.........just maybe the same will happen with DVD-AUDIO. Once you hear that format there’s no going back, it’s that good.

Nice video and funky sounds in this one. I dig it!

I have loved DVD-Audio since it came out. My first disc was ELP - Brain Salad Surgery. To this day I still make my own DVD-Audio discs from quadraphonic records and tapes. It is truly a great format. I even bought my first Acura because it would play DVD-A back in 2004. It's unfortunate that the music industry didn't push harder for this format.

When Tower Records were around I bought 4 of those discs Santana Abraxas, Steely Dan Goucho, Band on the run and Venus and Mars Wings. There still the best sounding cds I own. Thx!

I love all three formats, SACD, DVD-Audio & Blu-Ray Pure Audio. At the end of the day its the music that counts. For me a good surround mix truly brings out the music that is sometimes hidden in the stereo mix. Pink Floyds "The Dark Side Of The Moon" sounds outstanding.

Excellent video, improved my understanding, I didn’t know that dvd-a was hi res!

I'm so glad I never got rid of my DVD-A player. Got it since the format came out and a bunch of disc's.

Excellent lingo

I've used this program (DVD-Audio Solo Std )for years, burning more than 10K DVD with music. It's awesome. Problem is that after 4.4 no more updates and no more much-needed files.

I have the UDP-203 which can play SACD, DVD-Audio, and BD Audio. I have a few discs in each format. Regrettably I don't have any releases in more than one format so I can't compare them. I have to disagree that stereo is the ultimate for any of these formats though. To me the main point of these formats is to get multichannel audio. You'll hear the difference in multichannel a lot more than you will hear a difference between CD and a high-res digital format in stereo.

Great video! These discs were hard to find back in the day. I own a few like ELP Brain Salad Surgery and YES Fragile. Those days another format was available: The DTS AUDIO. I own a couple of STING albums Nothing Like The Sun and Ten Summer Tales, ALAN PARSONS’s On Air, PORCUPINE TREE Deadwing and In Absentia. Sadly not all DVD players can play this DVD’s I’ve used a DVD AUDIO player and my PS3 console. The audio is just amazing, the 5.1 mix is great but the stereo mix is what really shines! So sad this format died. Thanks for the great video!

you're right, the DVDA of Elis & Tom is awesome. Just fantastic...

Gave one away, mistakenly. Rebought another.. now we're ready to archive and catalog macros. Thnx

You are absolutely right about DVD audio. In my regard it is simply the best. Superior to anything including vinyl. But the problem is that the majority of people don't care about sound quality and are content to settle for less quality in audio. It's been that way since the beginning of Hi-Fi . Maybe you are already aware but the first hi-fi recordings were produced by the Bell telephone company on 78 rpm's in 1934-35. You can hear a sample of what they sounded like on you tube. They have a Paul Whitman and a Benny Goodman recording amongst others that you can listen to. The sound is pretty impressive for the period and shows in my opinion, the excellent quality of the electric microphones of that era. But again, this superior means of recording and reproducing music failed to become widely embraced because of cost to the public. Tsk. Tsk. Very sad. Check it out, and keep up the good work and your interesting videos!

I have had DVD-Audio since they were originally releases. Many are reference quality Albums in my collection. Eagles Hotel California DVD-Audio is the best one so far (192Khz-24bit). Also these can be ripped (stereo only) in full resolution for listening elsewhere as opposed to SACD that you can't do nothing with off disc.

I always thought that the biggest advantage of DVD-Audio was just the 5.1 channel sound. I was wrong. Thanks for the great explanation!

the Byork and talking heads dual disc are fantastic

I almost forgot dvd audio ever existed. Why did it not catch on? I think most people actually were actually quite happy with the cd as it was. It would also play in any dvd player, no special equipment required. The reason some were not happy with the cd quality, to my opinion it is the poor quality due to the poor mastering i.e. the loudness war. If they were to put the same master (downsampled) of those great sounding dvd-a discs onto a cd, it would sound great as well. I agree with other people in the comments that the copy protection was also a reason that a lot of people did not care for the newer audio formats. But I think the manufacturers had no choice, without copy protection the record companies would not release the albums onto the new format. Anyway, as a digital audio fan, I still like to watch your channel. Nice work, keep it up.

I’d REALLY like to try dvd-a for myself.. Never found a disc or heard any.. But it does fascinate me... I’ll be back if I eventually got around to it... 😀

I have some Steven Wilson remix DVD-As that accompany the CDs (eg. Yes, XTC) and couldn't think how to access the DVD-A just to listen to via my Sony DVD player (if it's the right type, which I didn't even know about until your video). This should hopefully get me round to actually doing something about it! Great video, as always!

the downward spiral and with teeth are both great DVDA releases

My opinion is, people did not and still don't want to loose the possibility to copy, like "we" do with the CDDAs. It's always a question of the ability to copy, because after all CDDAs have a very good audio quality. Let them try to make SACDs or whatever physical audio media without protection, them we can see people accept the change for the new format.

GreAt detail info.

Back around 2010, I played with recording an audio-only DVD at home with a set-top recorder. Sourced from CDs, and simply running only a stereo audio connection between the receiver and device, I got what could be said is "good" results... even if all that appeared on the screen was a blank field of blue. Why did I do this? Simple: Because of my interest in long-running recordings formats. This started with open-reel and was piqued in my teens with a glance at an ad that read "Record 8-hours of CD music on one video cassette"... back in the mid-80s. This eventually led me to try the same with DVDs, since the machine I had was capable of recording 8-hours of video to a single disc. It wasn't until after all of this I finally learned of PCM Recording, and the encoding device the ad spoke of... but it was a wonderful learning experience.😊

in a swedish online store, there are several dvd audio with King Crimson. so I'm talking about discs that are not used

i recorded the beatles at home dvdhd audio i was very happy with the sound

As far as physical formats are concerned, I made a decision early on when DVD-Audio and SACD were doing battle to support the latter. It seemed to me at the time that not enough thought had gone into the DVD-A format: there were numerous resolutions involved - you mentioned needing a screen to find the right one for the specific disc you want to play. I also felt that, as both Sony and Philips had been responsible for the CD format, they could be counted on to produce something better when they produced the SACD and I love the format. Sadly, however, there have been times when I feel that insufficient care has gone into remastering certain albums for SACD and the Genesis boxes are one such example. I download a lot of hi-rez files now and many of them are 24/96 and 24/192 so I suppose they're really the file equivalent of DVD-A. The best of them are indeed excellent. Incidentally, Acoustic Sounds is currently in the process of bringing out all the Steely Dan albums on both vinyl and SACD. Analogue Productions does a superb job with its SACDs for Acoustic Sounds.

My CD stereo system can play CD and DVD. It's all in one machine and it uses the same disc drive. You can hook up AV with it if you want a picture but it's great for DVD audio because it functions as a CD when using different settings on the system. You can play DVD Video on just the speakers with no display output but you may need to navigate blindly (I do this when listening to concert DVDs or maybe a soundtrack). I own the JVC UX-P550

Very interesting! Thanks for good info as always.

Quasi-interesting trivia: the lossless compression scheme in DVD-Audio, MLP, was also the basis for Dolby TrueHD.

Frank Sinatra at the Sands from 1966 is a stunning DVD Audio Disc. Frank is backed by the Count Basie Band..My god, it's as though you're right in the room with them

I found my Alice Cooper billion dollar babies dvd audio today, apparently it's worth around $100? Mental!

Phenomenal overview of DVD-Audio. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. I have that Steely Dan disc. But I should have grabbed them all when they were in shops. My Oppo 83 plays them and SACD, but I'm considering a better unit.

I own a few of these but never got a player. Of the discs I own, they play in a dvd video player and sound great so never saw or heard a need for a true DVD-Audio player. I also got into DTS audio cd's which are my personal favorite in the digital audio world. Of course vinyl is my all time favorite!

My Acura TL could play these disks and I have more than a few. Unfortunately, when Acura moved to the TLX they quietly did away with DVD-A support. I now have a dozen or so of these discs with no way to play them. The sound system in the TL playing a DVD-A was very impressive. Fleetwood Mac Rumours and Steely Dan Gaucho were my faves.

Great article- you have some great discs there. Good titles are getting quite expensive on Amazon. I do have a DVD audio player though. Keep up the good work now.

I have a Carly Simon "No Secrets" DVD-A disc. Sounds super. Something interesting- on the first song, the second verse uses the same melody as the first verse. This was not the version that was used on the LP/cd so there must have been some very last minute changes before mass production started. The song is "The Right Thing To Do". "Let's Close Now".......

I have been recording DVD music for years. I can stuff an entire collection on them with great sound using Express Burn MP3. Except for FLAC, I use the Iplex 0.3, it can do FLAC at 24/96. ;) I also use ImgBurn to acheive FLAC.

Hmmm.....the other day I bought a collection that included a bunch of these DVD-A discs. All mostly great classic rock titles, Rumours, Night at the Opera, etc. Since I don't know much about any of these formats I put them all up on eBay right away. This morning I was moving some gear around that isn't being used at the moment and noticed that my Pioneer 5.1 has some of these logos on it I see on these discs like DTS, Neural Surround and Dolby Digital. I also see I actually have a disc player with these logos as well. Now I'm kinda sorry I didn't hold on to these long enough to investigate this format. Oh well.

One of the reasons why I love my 2015 Genesis sedan is that it's one of a handful of cars that can play DVD Audio. It has a 5.1 discrete audio system. I'll be sad when I trade in the car, new cars don't even have an optical drive anymore

I really want to get some DVD-A discs. I hace several SACD and are great, and my machine is available to read both fornats. I agree with you that a DVD audio or also a SACD that is recorded fron an sterero source, the best is to buy a stereo disc, but.... the best I ever read is the multichannel SACD, it’s when I really find a real incredible advantage against the simple CD version. Play and listen a multi channel audio in a good gear, when it has been recorded and mastered in that way,... it’s glory!

Yes, I just like to put the disc in and press the play button. I don't like having to have a TV connected so that I can listen to music. That's the only point I don't fancy about Bluray and DVD audio.

I download from HD tracks. Then burn them to DVD. Listen to them through my Blu ray player which is a Sony. Plays all formats including SACD. My pre amp and amplifiers are capable of 192khz 24 bit. Sound great.

Best way to transfer your analog LP/Reel to Reel to digital is burn them to DVD-R with a program called Audio DVD Maker. They sound much better in 24/96 than 16/44. They will play in a standard DVD player.

Then it was also the case that not all DVD players could play the DVD Audio format. That there would be a DVD Audio logo on the DVD player? . Although in some there could be a sound track in PCM 24 or if it was PCM 20 bit

I love how he says audio

QUERY ... I think I can play a DVD with 96/24 audio (e.g. from a Jethro Tull box set) on my PC ... and set audio output on PC to "see" my external usb DAC ... I have used VLC Player / Windows 10 to do the business / adjust audio player etc. I am getting sound out of the DAC ... but not convinced it is actually HiRes ... Is my "theory" wrong? Should it work? Do I just persist in adjusting settings until I get the "right" combination to get HiRes actually into my headphones? ... or is there better software to use? Also ... If I get an external USB bluray player for the PC, can I set it up in a similar way (with suitable bluray player software) to also send HiRes to external USB DAC ... if so, then I think, I can get all benefit of HiRes from DVD and / or BluRay without breaking the bank or driving my wife nuts. Qoboz via PC to DAC all works 100% perfect. Any insights would be great .... Calum, Aberdeen, Scotland.

The problem I see with this is the price of the media. I just found a decent deal on a nice Marantz player, but then when I checked the prices of discs. Well forget it. Anything decent is at least $30 shipped. The player itself isn't even $200. So basically for $500. I can get a player, and about 10 discs, if I'm lucky. That's way too much for me personally. I'll stick to my cheap/free files from the internet, and my records thank you very much. I'd rather put that $500 towards a new class D amp, speakers, or a new DAC etc. Thank you though. Great video. ✌️

I love digital

It was probably around that time that people were talking about MP3 instead. People downloaded music And by far, often for free. it also went badly for other formats Mini disc and DCC. People used the computer

I have lots of these discs. Bought into the format early on and use several different players. Currently the Sony 800 multi format player as general use but higher quality is from an Esoteric. Like your collection of discs shown but how many do you have? Best format for me. Close to analog tape master with stability and resolution unequalled by SACD unless you spend huge for a dCs system. Thanks for your efforts in raising the awareness of this great format, there’s occasionally some releases as extra discs with CD. Best surround demo disc for me is Linkin Park track 5. Hammers all channels and makes the room alive with dynamics. Cheers from Oz

Have a general question on AVR and stereo receivers. Which one is good for music and why. ? Hope you can shed some light on this topic

I am so disappointed. The abandonment of DVD-Audio left me bewildered. I have some lovely equipment including Dahlquist DQ-10 loudspeakers. I bought a high end DVD-Audio player at the advent of this format. Now, the transport (or something) in the player no longer works and I can't find anyone to repair it... I feel like I'm being railroaded into the absurd market of MP-3. No art. No liner notes. Nothing to hold, and sampling rates wide enough to drive a bus through!

The HDAD of the 1967 soundtrack of CASINO ROYALE is awful on its regular 96/24 side, but the DVD-Audio 2-channel stereo-only 192/24 side is amazing! I still have some great DVD-audios and some titles never were reissued on SA-CD or Blu-ray Audio. That AMERICA album is solid too. Catch the solo album by Toad The Wet Sprocket's lead singer Glen Phillips ABULUM in the format too.

Elis and Tom was remastered, but the transcription is superb! The same you hear from Caetano Veloso (Muito Mais)

Speaking of Bohemian Rhapsody. Has anybody noticed the weak center channel on the Blu-Ray versus the full center channel of the DVD? Freddie's voice on the Blu-Ray sounds very weak. What happened on the Blu-Ray?

How do you compare the DVD audio vs. the online music download that also specifies 24/96 or 24/192? Are the digital downloads as good as the physical discs?

Yea!

So, please enlighten me one thing that tickles me here. You said that by passing the master sound to the DVD-Audio there was almost no remastering, equalization and conversions proved to be excellent. Right? So why not do the same with CDs?

Love 192khz 24 bit dvd still sounds better than sacd or cd

Hi, do you know any DVD-audio burner?

Unfortunately, it is the case that mofi and analog productions. only sells vinyl records and SACD What I have seen. However, mofi sold regular CDs in the 90s. I have one of them but it doesn't sound like a CD usually sounds. the sound is warm. I think the sound is good

I found the DVDA and SACD biggest drawback to be the human interface. A screen monitor showing the music tracts plus a remote control was necessary to play the disc. DVDAs were not capable of playing on their own after inserting into a player. Some SACS could be inserted into player and would automatically play, but after they came out with the CD & SACD hybrid disc (combined on one side at different layers) only the cd version would automatically play. I enjoyed the audio from the DVDA better than the SACD. DVDA allowed 3-4 independent high quality audio channels so you could place yourself in the middle of the music with a different instrument coming from it’s own speaker. This was incredible while listening to a small Jazz group. Another disturbing aspect was the speaker’s location setup was very different than the Home Theater setup, and nobody wanted to reposition the speakers.

Why do some remasters sound way off? For instance, Blizzard of Oz. Sounds like it is re-recorded. Tori Amos as well.

I love the DVD-A format for a few reasons: a) The quality goes up to 24 Bits @ 192k samples per second! b) I can make my own disks! c) My Oppo BD105 has excellent performance. I will transcribe my vinyl records to high resolution files using Sony Sound Forge; process them using iZotope and burn them to disk.

DVD audio should have been kept alive but DVD's should have been inserted into the players together with the protector covers, (boxes) just like we used to do with 3.5 inch disquettes. That would be correct engineering.

The problem with DVD-A is you needed i-Link for 192/24 if you wanted all digital connection this turned me off NOW we have HDMI with 8 channel PCM ability amazing to go back & try out DVD-A

HAVE TO MAKE MY FUTURE TRACK WITH THIS BUT THE STREAMING WEBSITE AND DEVICE WILL BE CHEAPER THEN ITUNES! MUSIC IS FOR FEELING NOT FOR BUSINESS..

The only Steely Dan releases on DVD Audio are Gaucho, Two Against Nature and Everything Must Go.

Had record companies handled this correctly we’d all have music in surround sound instead of a new digital format like crappy sounding mo3 files. Btw we went through this same format war in the early seventies when Quad was big. There were quad turntables, quarter tape players in the car and quad FM.

I kind of agree with you. If I´m going to listen to a Stereo file, I want LPCM, no Dolby or DTS (If it's not I can force it to PCM with my PS3) BUT, if is a 5.1 mix I need to use Dolby or DTS (I prefer DTS when available), sadly my 5.1 system is old and only can play 5.1 using these codecs, no 5.1 LPCM, which I know is the better option. But yeah, I have a DVD video compilation of various MTV unplugged, its coded in Dolby stereo and it's really really bad quality. The quality goes through the sky when force to PCM!

Nice as always :-)

Can you do a video how to create dvd audio using DVD Audio Tool in linux?

Madonna The Immaculate Collection sounds enhanced with Q sound on my cd. I don't know what that means.

The mastering is probably better on the dvd-a than the SACD you are referring too. There are many instances where the SACD is better. All boils down to the tape source and mastering.

I wish I didn't have to pay up the nose for DVD-A. I have the Rumours Fleetwood Mac.

Unfortunately, there were too many who were more interested in MP3s in the early 2000s

Is it possible that you could consider tha analyse of the LD audio ?

Thanks a lot for your informative videos. But i want to share my experience with you, and your audience; I have the the Metallica Black Album DVD-Audio, 2001 release, it has 5.1 multichannel tracks, as well as 2.0 Hi-res 24/192 tracks, and since im using my Panasonic AKX Stereo with 2 big speakers, and my headphones, i only listen to the 2.0 hi-res tracks, as listening to 5.1 tracks using two channels only devices will let most of the signal to get lost, and therefore losing how the music should be listened to. Now, the problem that the 2.0 hi-res tracks in that Metallica DVD-Audio are some what compressed and lack the dynamic range that i love for rock music, in the other hand i have the Japanese 2010 CD release of the same album with 16/44.1 standard CD sampling/frequency, which has better Dynamic range, so i prefer listening to it over the DVD-A 24/192 release. The point that i want to show here, that in 99.9% of the cases 16/44.1 and 24/192 produce the same exact sound when using the normal consumer devices and the most important factor to consider about any record is how the record was mastered by the technical audio engineers before transforming it to the commercial media, regardless about the media itself whether it is CD, Vinyl, DVD-A, SACD, or lossless files download. Note that Hi-res audio requires special/professional and very expensive equipments, speakers, and cables to fully utilize the hi-res sampling and frequency, without these equipments the hi-res sampling and frequency produce the same exact sound like the CD 16/44.1 standard. Im happy to hear your opinion about my explanation ;) Thanks,

How much is the highest frequency response for this blu ray audio disc or DVD audio discs? Are they cut off to 20 kHz? Are they better than analog or not ?

A pity SONY ruined his own invention (I mean the SACD format) just because of strong copy protection, discouraging other companies and, more important, consumers to adopt an excellent audio format. And another pity, as you point out, DVD Audio was mostly oriented to multichannel applications instead a great stereo music support. A good bunch of bad decisions.

Do you know if any sites, or forums that have a list of disc players that do DVD audio at 24/192 ?

The same was with MiniDisc, FLAC is future but companies do not like flac.

Mini-DVD-Audio would have been great as a portable format. A single disc would be equivalent to 2 CDs.

Digalog?

Does Recording a streaming audio ex: amazon music using any DAW like Audacity in 24bit/96khz improve the quality of the sound??.

Hum... Is this version of Tom & Elis contain the dialogs between the control room and Tom and Elis? If yes, as far I can remember, this mastering was too hot, too loud, overemphasis on the lower end.

I think to me DVD Audio wins when it comes to accessibility, especially artist like me who are small and indie, I can just make my own DVD Audio 96-192khz/24bit and sell it physically and press it just like a normal DVD. while SACD requires you to find a pressing company that does it, and also there's not that much authoring software exits

Hi, if you love multi-channel as I do, check out the German artist, Schiller. His last 3 albums were all released in Dolby Atmos Surround. His live Blu-Ray concerts are also awesome. His latest album is called "Epic". you will not be disappointed

What's your view on Blu Ray audio?

I just cant believe you didnt mention Foobar+ good ol´ Winamp´s .FLAC capabilities to lossless conserve DVDA quality (32Bit 192KHz+multichannels) and serves for way more handy and contemporary online distributions. ...+ FLAC can also lossless handle SACD, losslessly rip vinyl to digital perpetuation and ...whatever ?

Is it better than DSD?

Just go for DSD

U know u can make them at 24/96 at home using audio dvd creator but I’m going nuts cause I’m sick and tired of 4.7 g blank dvdrs I want to rip burn to 25 g Blu-ray

All those Digital complexes . Best album for me : YELLO , zebra & ICE - T home invasion . To of the most rearist albums out there . Its not the players its the recordings . I have no idea if these discs are playable I have not used CDs for some years now . Thats about it for CDs on my end

Stupid copy protection ruined all three audiophile formats from SACD and DVD Audio then to Blu-Ray Audio. Anyway I'm bidding for one of the universal player from Pioneer,DV-S757A I hope I can get it cheap because the cheap ones are hard to come by.

DVD-A is dead. The format got delayed for far too long in the 90s because they spent forever working on the copy protection. By the time DVD-A was ready to go, it was far too late.

Rafferty!!!!

You are misinformed. The sound issues initially experienced with CD is unrelated and was solved within the year.

You've slipped back into bad habits with your framing!