【Is SHM-CD Really High Quality?】
Part 1 ｜Part 2｜Part 3｜Platinum SHM-CD
As a summary of having purchased and listened to a number of SHM-CDs beyond the tests described earlier, I am sorry to say that one should not expect SHM-CD to deliver the kind of overwhelming sonic superiority that SACD offers. Which is to say, a domestic SHM-SACD, being single-layer, is the ultimate in sound quality — that much seems safe to say. This is because single-layer SACDs are generally held to have a sonic advantage over hybrid discs when played back as SACD. Though here again, once you get into whether even SACDs sound better on import pressings and so on — I’d rather not be branded any further as unpatriotic, so I’ll leave it there.
To put it from another angle: even among ordinary CDs of the same album, when the data differs due to remastering or a different master, the sonic difference tends to feel far greater than the difference between SHM and a standard CD carrying identical data.
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Standard SHM-CDs belong to the same family as the Arton CDs, APO discs, and Gold CDs released in years past. I am a dedicated — if somewhat closeted — collector of Gold CDs and their gleaming limited editions, and as mentioned earlier, I do think the Arton pressings had a distinctive sonic character quite unlike ordinary polycarbonate discs. There was also a material called Zeonex from Zeon Corporation of Japan — Zeonex was apparently supposed to sound even better than Arton — or so I seem to recall reading in Audio Accessory or SoundRecpal around that time. So it is not that I dislike this sort of approach, even when it gets dismissed as audiophile occultism — but whether SHM-CD has the same gravitational pull as those earlier premium discs…that still feels a little uncertain, for now.
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To be blunt: CD sales have been slowly declining for the past decade or more amid the economic slump, with digital streaming piling on further pressure, and on top of that, the widespread availability of cheap imported discs online has eaten into domestic sales — so adding the value proposition of SHM-CD to premium domestic releases, and differentiating them from low-priced imports, was presumably one of the honest motivations behind all this. Whether that sort of marketing strategy is a good thing or a bad thing I honestly cannot say… I was considering writing a rather negative piece along those lines, but then I noticed that SHM-SACD titles have quietly been appearing in growing numbers recently. Hang on — hadn’t Universal Music withdrawn from SACD altogether? Could it be that they’ve found a new path forward through SHM-SACD, and are planning to continue releasing new and back-catalogue titles going forward?!
Looking at the current situation — which I must admit I find rather quietly encouraging — I think I will try to see things generously: perhaps the intermediate approach of SHM-CD is actually necessary in order to sustain SHM-SACD as Japan’s finest-sounding series, and to keep as many titles as possible coming for as long as possible.
Finally — having listened to these recordings over and over again — I am reluctant to admit it, but Maurizio Pollini really is extraordinarily good. And not merely in a technical or mechanical sense — musically too, genuinely so. I very nearly found myself completely won over. There is something about him that is brilliant yet unsettling. Unsettling yet brilliant… which rather reminds me of Takako-senpai’s singing!!
【Is SHM-CD Really High Quality?】
Part 1 ｜Part 2｜Part 3｜Platinum SHM-CD
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