The Official RCA Living Stereo SACD Thread (1 Viewer)

[Lee Scoggins]

I'm not sure. Perhaps the web site of Sound Mirror (the transfer studio) might have some answers.

Maybe the 2 channel you are hearing in MC mode might have some room tone added in...maybe the label felt it looked like extra value to the consumers...?

I think its a minor issue in any event since they provide 3 channel sound were available.

 

[DanFe]

Some people are complaining of the La Mer and Escales portions of the Munch disc that is was incorrectly balanced and in playback sounds overly mellow and dull. Perhaps a recall is in order here?

 

[Lee Scoggins]

Why because some people have issues with the transfer?

No way! These sound good and I have been comparing them to my XRCDs and they are much improved in sonics.

 

[Marc Colella]

I just ordered 4 titles from this series of titles, which breaks my 2+ year SACD drought.

At $11.99 CAD at Amazon.ca, it was much too good to pass on.

Wish more SACDs are priced in this range, instead of the $27-$50 CAD prices I normally see.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

I think you will really like these Marc and the prices are decent for a change. I agree we need more in this range.

 

[Seth--L]

Agreed. As I've said before (and even been chided on other msg boards), it's ridiculous that labels are charging full price for recordings that have long been available as fine redbooks for mid and budget price.

 

[John Wes]

Ok...I've been having a heck of a time finding them online.....

I checked out the site listed by Lee then the one by Seth-L

Anway after a bit of clicking here, clicking there, I finally stumbled onto this...Through the Canadian site, then clicked on the US flag...

http://www.bmgclassics.com/index.jsp

Anyway, if you click on the More ... of the SACD's it brings you to say, here....

http://www.bmgclassics.com/albums/pr...id=82876613942

Click on the Buy Now and it takes you to Amazon's site...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...028788-0257745

Now this one I could find on their site through a search but none of the others.....Doing it this way, notice what's listed under it? All of them they have out so far.

Eureeeeka...

 

[Seth--L]

John,

Try this too:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...675182-5440900

 

[Sathyan]

There's a big advert (by Barnes and Noble booksellers) on the back cover of the current issue of Opera News for these recordings.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

I think Borders was having a 4 for the price of 3 deal recently as well. Check your local retailer.

 

[John Wes]

I was in my local Barnes and Noble as well as Borders today....

Nothing in stock. In fact the sales clerk at Barnes and Noble insisted he didn't have a single SACD in the store. When I ask him how long he had been working there, he said 3 years and was the manager.

I pointed out 6 or 7 duel layer SACD's before I left to check out Borders.....

I hate to buy online as I feel I should help the local economy....but that was 30 miles out of my way to check out...

 

[Marc Colella]

Still waiting for mine to ship from Amazon.ca.

If anyone has one from this series, what cases are used for these? Regular jewel cases, Super Jewel, digipack?

It won't make or break my purchase, just curious.

In fact, I may order another two or three.

 

[Phil A]

John, not every Borders is the same. The Borders about 2 miles from my house had nothing. I found one regular Living Stereo CD. I went to pick up the Sony 2000ES CD/SACD changer earlier today for the basement system and stopped by another Borders and found several copies of 3 of the titles.

Marc, I believe they are Super Jewel. I actually did not bring them home (so I can't look at them now). I dropped the discs and the player at a friends so he could break it in while I do some minor things in the basement over the next week and he is selling his CD player and thinking about the 9000ES. So I figured he would like some time with it and I already have a main system and a bedroom system if I need to listen. We listend to a little bit of the Rubinstein Chopin disc and it sounded great.

 

[Seth--L]

Ok. I'm a hypocrite.

After reading yet another glowing review for Leon Fleisher's new CD, I decided to finally get around to buying it. At both Tower and Amazon, the price wasn't enough to qualify for free shipping. So I said what the hell, for $11 I'll buy the Rubinstein/Chopin disc. All I've my Rubinstein recordings are on LP, it would be nice to be able to take something of his in the car. Tower had this item on "special order," so I went over to Amazon. The Rubinstein SACD + Fleisher CD still did not bring the total up enough to qualify for free shipping. So again, I said what the hell, and added the Bartok/Reiner SACD. I'm not a fan of the Concerto for Orchestra, but I was able to justify the purchase by getting the adagio from Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta. So that's the back story. The discs arrived this morning (the beauty of being in New York State is that Amazon ships almost all of their CDs from PA, and UPS delivers all UPS orders from PA to NY in 3 days - typical the order arrives in the AM of the 3rd day - so free shipping = free 3 day ground).

As for the SACDs:

Not much to say about the performances that hasn't been said a million times over the last 45 to 50 years.

I've listened to the SACD layer of the Rubinstein disc straight through once, only in 2 channel. Sound is extremely vivid and detailed. Tape hiss is hardly audible. You really have to crank to the volume up to unreasonably high levels to notice it.

I've sampled parts of the Bartok disc, again only the 2 channel SACD. Sound is quite good. Brass is full blooded without being bright; strings, especially violins are detailed. In a blind test no one would be able to guess that the Concerto was recorded in 1955. I do have a criticism. Some instruments are too confined to a single channel. For instance, some of the brass almost exclusively comes out of the right channel. There is no spill over into the phantom center or left channels. This doesn't undermine the recording, but sometimes sounds a bit odd.

I've seen some people on other boards rate the sound as "best ever on SACD" for a catalogue release. That's a bit of a stretch. While the sound is indeed excellent, I feel that some of Sony's work remains even better, such as the Bernstein/Copland SACD (recorded '59-61) and Szell/R. Strauss (recorded '57).

Packaging is nice. Original liner notes are included as well as technical information about the recordings and current SACD issues. It's really silly that BMG loudly advertises on the back side that the discs include "two complete LPs." Is it the 1980s all over again with labels printing on the cover "60+ minutes of music"?

At mid-price these disc are steal. Hopefully other labels will follow BMG's lead and drop prices of reissue SACDs to mid.


BTW, the Fleisher disc is extraordinary.

 

[Steve_AS]

Well, gosh, Lee, given your relentless cheerleading for the supposed superiority of SACD to every other audio format, is this opinion really a surprise?

I have the meticulously-transferred XRCD of the Bartok disc, and the meticulously-transferred new SACD, and I wouldn't dream of drawing conclusions about the relative sound quality of the two-channel mixes, without some sort of meticulous controls.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

That's going too far IMHO. Here is Positive Feedback's take:

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Iss...vingstereo.htm

 

[Steve_AS]

Lee , particularly in case, you're such a relentless SACD cheerleader that I'm afraid nothing less than a level-matched time-synched blind comparison would make your reports of 'much more definition' and 'much larger soundstage' credible to me. That's of course what I meant by *meticulous controls*. Your claim comes from a comparison that was by no means meticulously controlled, which also doesn't surprise me.

As it stands the claim tht the 2-channel transfer on thenew SACD would be *that much* audibly different from the XRCD seems far-fetched, unless it's a remix.