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SACD to FLAC = album lost quality ???
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It all depends on the details of how to ripped the CD and what kind of SACD player you have.
If you compare the sound of an SACD played on a conventional CD player to the FLAC then the two are absolutely identical.
THere are also ways to rip the HD content and make a (say) 192K sample per second by 24 bit audio file. Did you do this?
Like I said, the answer is "It depends"
As far as I'm aware, (which isn't as far as I know standard audio) there isn't a direct ripper for SACD to a data-stream. FLAC supports 96/24 playback, but I couldn't find a ripper.
You could hook the digital outputs form the SACD player up to some hi-res recording system and word-clock it to ensure sample accuracy, then record it at 192/24, but then what do you do with it?
iTunes won't play those recordings I don't think.
Most lossless codecs deal with 44.1/16 streams and seek to preserve the waveform integrity, mainly because this is the highest mass-consumer format we have. There may be some 3rd party stuff out there, but I doubt there's anything that'll rip it.
There are also the AV audio hi-res formats Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, both of which will play back 96/24 in lossless formats, but again they aren't rippers.
In answer to your original question, given a data stream extractor working at or better than the encoded frequency of the original, a hi-res lossless rip would yield a file that could produce a waveform identical to the original. That's the whole point of lossless.
You could hook the digital outputs form the SACD player up to some hi-res recording system and word-clock it to ensure sample accuracy, then record it at 192/24, but then what do you do with it?
iTunes won't play those recordings I don't think.
Most lossless codecs deal with 44.1/16 streams and seek to preserve the waveform integrity, mainly because this is the highest mass-consumer format we have. There may be some 3rd party stuff out there, but I doubt there's anything that'll rip it.
There are also the AV audio hi-res formats Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, both of which will play back 96/24 in lossless formats, but again they aren't rippers.
In answer to your original question, given a data stream extractor working at or better than the encoded frequency of the original, a hi-res lossless rip would yield a file that could produce a waveform identical to the original. That's the whole point of lossless.
I'm pretty sure that FLAC could not preserve the integrity of an SACD signal since it's designed to preserve PCM signals. You'd have a PCM approximation of a DSD signal. There is no way to rip the DSD data off an SACD unfortunately, and as far as I'm aware, word-clock wouldn't work because the digital data on an SACD is 1-bit/2.8224 MHz, and no consumer soundcards can deal with that.
I've found on wikipedia a reference to DST http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Stream_Transfer . Apparently it's lossless compression for DSD data.
You can rip it a few different ways. Like you said, use an analog link from the SACD player to a high end A/D converter then record the S/PDIF output from the converter. And yes S/PDIF can go much higher then 44.1K and 16-bits.
But some SACD players have SPDIF outputs. This can be captured on the Mac and saved to FLAC, WAV or whatever. Most of the USB and FW audio interfaces have spdif input
Sony has some sacd players with "i-link" outputs. This is the same interface used by mini DV cameras. "i-link" is Sony's word for Firewire.
Most SACDs are dual layer. If you rip it (or listen to it) in a standard player then you are NOT playing SACD. You are playing/ripping the conventional Red Book CD layer. I'd be willing to bet the 90% of the people who think they are listening to SACD are in fact playing back the red book layer.
Analog it is then! 192/24 off an electronically balanced pre-amp, into Protools or SaDIE with a decent D-A output.
I was assuming a pro interface, but you may be right I certainly haven't put any time into examining SACD ripping.
I think you'd win that bet, I'm not sure most people are aware f the second layer tbh.
I'm leaning towards the thought that Hi-res delivery is best left to the hardware system it was designed for currently.
