Having bought The Allman Brothers Band Eat a Peach on both SACD (The 2004 release, not the MFSL release) and 24-bit/96khz FLAC from HDTracks, been wanting to do a good head to head comparison of them. Getting the DSF files off the SACD and onto my Activo CT10 and Sony NW-A55 portables along side the FLACs, I figured now I can do that with some better means (rather than having to listen to the disc on one machine then the FLACs on another.)

So I got the DSF files and FLAC files on the aforementioned players and listened to the them through my Sony MDR-7506 headphones.

Flipping back and forth between my favorite tracks "Ain't Wastin' Time No More," "Blue Sky," "Melissa" and "One Way Out" on both devices, thankfully the volume levels are almost the same so that makes things a bit easier. I can say the SACD files definitely had a bit more detail to them. Rhythm guitars stood out more and cymbals had some more pop to them. This was surprising since I've been listening to the FLAC version on my portables and thought they were amazing. Didn't think the songs could sound any better, but the SACD was just a notch better.