is it me or sacd.


or is it my marantz sa-14. got dylan's "bringing it all back home" on sacd for christmas. asked for it specially due to rave reviews. couldn't believe the sound or more precisely the lack of - no bass, no foundation it seems to me. on vinyl bought 30 years ago/played on everything from a dual 1009 tt with idler wheel w/dual cartridge (old fart, i know) to present vpi mk2 /sme 5/van den hul ddt (not state of the art i know) - amongst the vinyl rush, rumble, wow & cartridge chatter bob has a throat, lungs, a body, not just adenoids - and the sssibilance is gone. harmonica sings, not screams, spits & sizzles. guitars are not just wires vibrating in emptiness but strings stretched taut over resonant wood boxes. sound emanates from a room, not a void. had same reaction to rolling stones reissues on sacd. ditto for sam cooke at the copa ("most realisric recording of a human voice ever" sez hp in the absolute(?) sound). might be me. my system. or sacd. or is it just the laphroig? (rant's end)
flacre
I was a little surprised about the comments made about "Bringing It All Back Home" since I have had this SACD of a while and didn't notice this problem. I must admit that I usually listened to it in the truck.

I got the disc out and listened to it again taking notes at the same time.

My observation: both Subterranean Homesick Blues and Outlaw Blues sounded tinny. There was no real bass and even the resonance of the guitar body seemed thin.

She Belongs To Me was better. Instruments had more natural timbres including a bit better bass.

Love Minus Zero sounded very good. Better than any of the tracks up to that point.

On The Road Again through It's All Over Now Baby Blue all sounded good.

I do think as a whole the recording is low on bass, but I wonder how much if it has to do with the mikes, and technology employed on original recording. There isn't anyone playing bass or drums.

I went to the record rack thinking I had a copy of the LP, but somehow I missed that one, so I cannot speak to the LP v SACD comparisons.

I don't think that it is a lot worse than many older recordings.
I didn't take notes, didn't compare to vinyl, but love the Dylan SACD of Bringing it all back home.
Thanks to all for the comments & moral support. I agree with many of your comments, especially Nrchy who I think nails the sound quality variance on "Bringing It All Back Home" to a T.

And I hope I didn't offend anyone with my rant.

I agree the issue may well be the mastering & not the technology. However, what I still don't get is how some guy in 1964 with stone age equipment gets an apparently more natural (dare I say "realistic") sound than today's silicon fueled mastering suites.

If it's the amp (Unison Smart 845s)(and there's no reason it can't be the amp) why does my much abused 40 year old vinyl sound OK?

Oddly enough, a lot of current redbook CD releases sound great to me as well. I especially liked the sound quality on "Bob Dylan Live 1966 - The Royal Albert Hall Concert". Maybe I'm not picking good sounding SACDs. But what frustrates me is that I think the technology has a lot of potential (I do have some good sounding SACDs), but it's not going to become established unless it can be consistently heard to deliver the improved sound quality that's too often just promised. I'm a big Dylan fan and I was really looking forward to replacing my aging vinyl with the new SACD's. Now I'm not so sure. Do any of you have any other Dylan SACDs you would reccomend? Thanks.
I have found on many discs that they default to the surround mode and have no bass when played back in two channel mode. If playing back in surround unless you have good analog bass management or firewire digital, then there is no bass management. It is also important to make sure if you are playing discs in two channel that your player be set for two channel stereo mixdown in it's setup menu.