Post by shicorp January 6, 2006 (1 of 4)
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Hello,
I have bought EMI France's comprehensive box set of the albums of Charles Aznavour titled "L'integrale". Now I have noticed, that many albums of the singer are in mono (even those recorded in the mid-1960s) and wondered about this. The SACD database says, that the corresponding SACD re-issues have multi-channel sound. Now, I am feeling some kind of fooled, having spent that much money on a box set and seeing, that it is worth nothing. Is this an error in the database or have the albums been electronically enhanced for the SACD release?
Among the albums I am referring to are "Il Faut Savoir" and "Qui?". Quite depressing to have "For Me, Formidable" only in mono.
Has anybody else ever noticed this problem. Any help would be very appreciated.
Best regards,
Stefan Huber
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Post by mdt January 6, 2006 (2 of 4)
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shicorp said:
Hello,
I have bought EMI France's comprehensive box set of the albums of Charles Aznavour titled "L'integrale". Now I have noticed, that many albums of the singer are in mono (even those recorded in the mid-1960s) and wondered about this. The SACD database says, that the corresponding SACD re-issues have multi-channel sound. Now, I am feeling some kind of fooled, having spent that much money on a box set and seeing, that it is worth nothing. Is this an error in the database or have the albums been electronically enhanced for the SACD release?
Among the albums I am referring to are "Il Faut Savoir" and "Qui?". Quite depressing to have "For Me, Formidable" only in mono.
Has anybody else ever noticed this problem. Any help would be very appreciated.
Best regards,
Stefan Huber
I dont know about the mentioned set, but i am enjoying some great jazz-sacds i have in mono very much. SA-CD is also about high resolution not just about mch. If a mono recording is of good quality it will definitely benefit from SA-CD in that it will sound more natural, relaxed and emotionaly expressiv than the equivilant RBCD version.I prefer original mono to artificial stereo or mch. anytime, i even prefer it to the early ping-pong stereo which is as un-natural as can be. Besides that, allready in the RBCD era there were audiophile remasters, e.g. gold-CDs, that were sold at far more than the standard CD price, even if mono. SA-CD remasters of vintage recordings, who are of even better quality than those audiophile Cds, are sold at standard RBCD price or even at mid-price.
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Post by shicorp January 11, 2006 (3 of 4)
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mdt said:
I dont know about the mentioned set, but i am enjoying some great jazz-sacds i have in mono very much. SA-CD is also about high resolution not just about mch. If a mono recording is of good quality it will definitely benefit from SA-CD in that it will sound more natural, relaxed and emotionaly expressiv than the equivilant RBCD version.I prefer original mono to artificial stereo or mch. anytime, i even prefer it to the early ping-pong stereo which is as un-natural as can be. Besides that, allready in the RBCD era there were audiophile remasters, e.g. gold-CDs, that were sold at far more than the standard CD price, even if mono. SA-CD remasters of vintage recordings, who are of even better quality than those audiophile Cds, are sold at standard RBCD price or even at mid-price.
Hello mdt,
many thanks for your reply. I totally agree with your opinion.
I have now finally picked up one of these Aznavour "mono" SACDs and definitely can say, that they are not worth their money! The multichannel and stereo sound does not benefit from a secret tape stock (that was not available for the former CD re-isues) as I originally thought, but from upmixing. I thought, that these methods were part of the stone age of commercial records (think of the early stereo LPs created of mono masters) and that we were long over it, although they were still used during the early CD era and are even present on some bootlegs today. I guess, it makes no sense to created a 20bit/96k disk of a faulty stereo master. I, for myself, would have prefered a remastered version of the original mono master, which is present on the hybrid part of this disk.
Hope this helps any people, who are considering to buy these SACDs. I will post a list of the according titles later (some of the later Aznavour albums were recorded in stereo and therefore may benefit from the SACD format!).
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Post by mdt January 11, 2006 (4 of 4)
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shicorp said:
Hello mdt,
many thanks for your reply. I totally agree with your opinion.
I have now finally picked up one of these Aznavour "mono" SACDs and definitely can say, that they are not worth their money! The multichannel and stereo sound does not benefit from a secret tape stock (that was not available for the former CD re-isues) as I originally thought, but from upmixing. I thought, that these methods were part of the stone age of commercial records (think of the early stereo LPs created of mono masters) and that we were long over it, although they were still used during the early CD era and are even present on some bootlegs today. I guess, it makes no sense to created a 20bit/96k disk of a faulty stereo master. I, for myself, would have prefered a remastered version of the original mono master, which is present on the hybrid part of this disk.
Hope this helps any people, who are considering to buy these SACDs. I will post a list of the according titles later (some of the later Aznavour albums were recorded in stereo and therefore may benefit from the SACD format!).
That's really to bad. I feel sorry for you but also for SA-CD as format. People buying this disc, who are not familiar with the different procedures in producing a disc (and that's the vast majority), and with the importance of each step involved starting from tape research over the choice of playback and mastering equipment and above all the care and time involved, will most certainly blame the disapointing result on SA-CD and not on the source or the mastering work.
Presenting mch as superior per se and therefore "improoving" any recording by a mch-mix without giving any further thought about it, is repeating the mistake made in RBCD introduction, when people were made to believe, that digital is perfect in any case and that they should look out for DDD recordings on RBCD, since they represented the highest quality level.
And now here we are again with stupid simplifying by the marketing dept.!
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