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MULTI-CH SACD'S on 2CH SOUND STRANGE?

I HAVE A 2CH SACD PLAYER. SOMETIMES SACD's sound pretty good, but in several cases, usually with orchestral pieces, for some reason the melody carried by the string section gets drowned out by the horns/brass instruments. the effect is unnerving, like i am hearing the background or supportive musical lines as the dominant voice and the theme as the supportive or background voice. i have tried switching the phase, and even going to the redbook layer (if there is one). Naturally these are Hybrid Multichannel Discs that can be played on a conventional, 2CH SACD, and 6CH SACD. I have even updated the firmware on my SACD player (EMM Labs) but to no avail. Am i the only one who has this problem? Funny thing is, the redbook cd's i have always thought sounded great still sound that way, and small ensembles/chamber music on SACD sound amazing. but it would seem i am getting some of the other channels mixed up with the main-front-L&R channels.
WHAT is wrong with this picture? Thanks for your feedback.
french_fries
stereo5's avatar
stereo5
6,280 posts
 
I notice the same thing. My Esoteric player is 2 channel only as well and I have observed the same thing when playing multichannel sacd's on my 2 channel player. Rock sacd's can be even worse. I much prefer the Sony Mastersound Redbook cd of Pink Floyd "Wish you were here" as opposed to the sacd Acoustic Sounds version in multi channel.
zd542
5,339 posts
 
The SACD's you are referring to were probably not recorded in multichannel originally. Its likely that whoever engineered stereo versions to multichannel did a very poor job. They probably don't understand audio very well and approached the job with a theatre mentality. That could easily explain the results you are getting.
kr4's avatar
kr4
3,655 posts
 
I doubt it has anything to do with multichannel mastering since both French_fries and Stereo5 are listening on 2 channel players. Their machines should not ever access the multichannel tracks.
french_fries OP
815 posts
 
well here's a specific example to demonstrate my point-
HARMONIA MUNDI- BACH BRANDENBURG CONCERTOS 2 DISC SET.
HYBRID MULTICHANNEL SACD (compatible with all cd players).
i already had a great redbook copy on Archiv which sounds great, but
i wanted to see if i could get an even better recording. while i am not out by $30 it is still aggravating that i have still ANOTHER CD (along with a couple of dozen others) that sound weird instead of outstanding. Is this some kind of a hoax or what? i looked through the Archiv but this topic was discussed way back a number of years ago, before my CDP was even marketed.
i am going to call EMM on monday but i would suggest that anyone reading this be forwarned about which SACD's you might want to pass over this passover...
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