Does it make sense to buy SACD of old recordings?

You could try searching the reviews at: http://sa-cd.net/

Tboooe writes:

My initial thought is SACD will not make a difference since these old recordings are of such poor quality anyway that SACD would just reveal more of the bad recordings

Many of those old recordings are great recordings, but I'm not convinced that the greatest of those by the artists you mention have made it to SACD.

I have around 900 SACDs. The only Ella on SACD I have (and I think is extant) is "Ella and Louis" on Verve - not her best work. And the one Sarah Vaughan I have is also on Verve and doesn't sound that great.

Still, there are plenty of other good SACDs - Bill Evans, Art Pepper, Louis Armstrong, Chet Baker, Ray Brown, Brubeck, Miles, Benny Carter ....

Regards,

I agree with Metralla. I have about 100 SACDs. I believe they are generally an improvement over redbook, but that is variable. I like "Ella and Louis" on Verve, but also like Sam Cook, Diana Krall, Patricia Barber, Norah Jones, Ray Charles duet album, Nat King Cole, Natalie Cole. I also like the ones mentioned above including Ray Brown, Bill Evans, Miles, and Brubeck. And there is alot of well recorded classical music reissued on SACD... some much better than the old, in my opinion. Elusivedisc.com has much of what's available, but you can't preview.
John

I suspect it depends on what source was available at the time of recording. If the performance was capured in much higher fidelity than the distribution medium, e.g. standard mass produced CD or vinyl -- send hate mail elsewhere, then DSD remastering seems to be of great benefit.

db

Definately look for reviews on the sound quality. I have Dave Broubek's Time Out and it sounds amazing.

But I've been burned by buying older recordings that were just tranferred over to SACD and sound terrible.