Living Stereo SACD Releases

If you are floored by these, you will be even more so with the Mercury Living Presence SACD's.

While I agree that the RCAs are quite good (I haven't compared them with the Classic re-issues yet), I echo Gaudio eek's post. I played the Morning Noon and Night in Vienna cut from the Mercury Suppe/Auber Overtures SACD for the NJ Audio Society meeting at my home on Sunday and actually got a big round of applause at the end of the piece. The edginess and stridency on big climaxes of the CD are gone, and you're left with music, and a lot of fun as well. Worth getting the whole set, even at a higher price than the RCAs.

Let's keep the hype about these recordings under control! These were, in their time, state of the art recordings, but that was about fifty years ago. Folks should know that they will hear tape/tube hiss and/or AC rumble on many of the discs (all I have to date). I would not discourage people from buying these historic discs, but if they want an audiophile demo disc they will be disappointed.

Yeah, Eldartford, but the magic of tubes used throughout the entire recording chain, classic vintage microphones, and a simple 2 or 3 channel mix creates an experience just not found on today's recordings.

Although I have not taken the plunge into SACD, the DCC Gold CD (standard redbook) of "THE SUMMIT" (Frank, Deano, and Sammy) has a magical quality that is quite unique when compared to the later solid state, multi-tracked, compressed/limited, and otherwise electronically manipulated recording chain. The original recording tapes were made in 1962, and still stand the test of time!

Fatparrot...Sorry to tell you, but compression and peak limiting can and was implemented with tube equipment. It is almost manditory when cutting an LP. You are right that early multitrack mixing was not the greatest idea, but it made the recording session a lot easier for the technicians and musicians. "Get it down on tape, several times, and we'll fix it later". The multitrack approach is much better when implemrented with modern digital recording tracks, where timing is exact and proper phase relationships can be maintained.

Unfortunately not all the master tapes "stand the test of time"...in some cases they have turned to dust and 7.5ips copies of the original 30ips masters, made several decades ago, were used to make the SACDs.

I repeat, these are interesting discs, but don't expect an audiophile's dream.