CW, you are on to something here. Take Carole King's Tapestry as an example. Her voice was not recorded too well to begin with. On the album and CD that was audible. On the SACD, well, it becomes sort of the new characteristic of the record I wish I'd never heard. Take New World Symphony (Dvorzak) by New York Philharmonic, conducted by Bernstein... There IS more detail I can hear in the SACD version, but the tape hissssssssssssssss never seems to end througout the disc. Somehow, it is more engaging musically but the hisssssssssssss puts a damper on it. This seems to be the case with many of the re-releases Sony has done. I bought Meatloaf's Bat out of Hell... I never liked it sonically on vinyl or CD, cause I always felt it was missing something. Well let me tell you, it misses something on SACD too. Still a cool album, but still misses something sonically.
On a brighter note, Mozart's Piano Concierto No. 20, also on Sony, in my opinion just is plain great. It has also got it's issues, but the performance on SACD is just so much more engaging! De piano IS THERE!! My favorite disc right this minute is Dave Bruebeck's 40th Anniversary Tour of the UK, a Telarc live recording in DSD. It is open, dynamic, full and has one of the lowest noise floors I have heard yet on SACD. The dynamics, IMO a trademark of Telarc discs, the nice balanced soundstage and the musicality are amazing. As this is a disc that will play in normal and SACD machines, it makes for a good test and comparison disc when checking out new stuff.
Look, stuff that was poorly recorded will always sound bad. I am just hoping that telarc and co will push SACD to the limit and make the best of it. It has potential.
Niels.
On a brighter note, Mozart's Piano Concierto No. 20, also on Sony, in my opinion just is plain great. It has also got it's issues, but the performance on SACD is just so much more engaging! De piano IS THERE!! My favorite disc right this minute is Dave Bruebeck's 40th Anniversary Tour of the UK, a Telarc live recording in DSD. It is open, dynamic, full and has one of the lowest noise floors I have heard yet on SACD. The dynamics, IMO a trademark of Telarc discs, the nice balanced soundstage and the musicality are amazing. As this is a disc that will play in normal and SACD machines, it makes for a good test and comparison disc when checking out new stuff.
Look, stuff that was poorly recorded will always sound bad. I am just hoping that telarc and co will push SACD to the limit and make the best of it. It has potential.
Niels.