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Living Stereo SACD's are a comin

While at work today (My office is located at a mastering studio) a big box arrived. I watched as the studio manager unpacked it. It contained a treasure the likes of which I have never seen. Dozens of ORIGINAL master tapes from the original LIVING STEREO recordings. I held in my hands THE Master tapes from the Living Stereo Reiner/Chicago Strauss Also Sprach Zarathustra and Ravel Daphnis. These weren’t the safeties, they are THE Masters. As you can probably tell I am in awe.

BMG (I think it’s BMG) has decided to release SACD versions of these recordings. It will be new DSD mastering (not redoing the existing PCM masters). How they are done will depend on the master tapes. I am pretty sure that they will not be 5.1

I have nothing to do with this project. I just happen to be there. You can bet your ass I will sit in on some of the sessions and get to listen to the master tapes. Damn sometimes it’s good to be me.

I just thought that some of the classical music lovers would like to know that SACD’s of these great classic recordings are in the works.
hispeedbusa
sogood51
2,157 posts
 
I read that these would be 3 channel across the front as multichannel, great news!!!

Dave
irishdog
88 posts
 
This is great news! I just hope there won't be as many delays as with the Mercury Living Presence project. The latest release date on those (and it is not fixed) is July 13.
tfkaudio
591 posts
 
Well, they are here. And there's good news, and there's... more good news. I went to Tower records today to pick up a couple of them, and there were only about 5 left! I asked the guy working the classical section where they all were, and he said there was a run on these discs like he hasn't seen in a long time. Very good news for all of us who hope SACD survives. At $9.99, you gotta be crazy to not grab 'em up. Luckily, they had one copy left of Fritz Reiner and the CSO's Bartok Concerto for Orchestra. That's the one I wanted most.
eldartford
4,262 posts
 
I ordered several. It will be interesting to compare the 3-channel mix, which we never had before, with the stereo.
kr4's avatar
kr4
3,689 posts
 
They are excellent. However, not all are 3channel because not all the master tapes were made in 3channel. Also, there are MCH releases that have 2channel-only tracks on the MCH portion and so-labelled 2channel-only releases with bonus MCH (3channel) tracks.

Full details in my November column in Stereophile.

Kal
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