Good & Bad quality recordings of SACD's?


Greetings All,
Have any of you with SACD players noticed both the GOOD recording quality and the POOR recording quality of some SACD's? When they are well done, they are wonderful! When not, they SUCK pretty bad and are a real disappointment. I'm just now getting into SACD and I'm sure there are many others headed that way too. If you've had the same observation about GOOD & BAD, would you tell me/us about both please? Here's my example - the Sony SACD sampler that comes with the player: Willie Nelson-"Stardust" is the best sounding cut on the disc...and I'm not a big C&W fan. It just sounds like he's THERE in the room. The rest of the cuts are so-so and I would not buy ANY of the SACD's that they are from. I have REGULAR CD's that sound MUCH better then the other SACD cuts on the sample. Example - Patricia Barber - "Nightclub".
Your comments & personal observations are appreciated.
Happy listening!
myraj

Showing 2 responses by madisonears

You guys are waaaay off base regarding the sampler disc, and SACD in general. I don't know what your CD system is like, but mine is pretty good: CAL Icon as transport to an Assemblage 3.1 DAC. Most cuts on the sampler, especially the older or acoustic recordings with simple recording set-ups, are far superior to CD counterparts in their tonal qualities and dimensional information. I don't think the music is juiced at all, and I am not one of the ignorant or innocent. I don't believe you can say that CD of Blonde on Blonde sounds anything like the SACD version. And the Miles Davis cut is so far beyond CD version in every respect. It is not juiced at all, but simply more realistic.
Sorry, goners, I forgot to mention my SACD is Sony 9000ES CD/SACD/DVD combo. I was comparing CD's through the CAL/3.1DAC to SACD's on the Sony.

I do not dispute that there are some crummy recordings getting made into SACD's, but when it's done properly with a good recording, the CD does not even come close to what you can hear from SACD. I am now using Siltech FTM-4 IC's from Sony to the preamp, and the sense of space and three dimensionality, the presence of some voices and instruments in the room is freaky, dudes. I have been lucky to not get any of the stinker SACD's yet, but I'm sure they're out there, lurking, waiting to snag and waste my money and time. From what I've heard so far, the best SACD's feature simple recording set-ups of voices and acoustic instruments with little electronic processing. Electronic stuff with lots of production nonsense and gimmicks does not come across as well. Unfortunately, some of the vintage recordings Sony has chosen to reissue were bad to begin with, and SACD will probably not do much for them, maybe even make them sound worse. I listened to Blonde on Blonde again tonight, which has never sounded good. Remastered on SACD, it sounds almost like real music. I eagerly await more triumphs like that, and I believe they will outnumber the failures.