First before responding to your question Stefan let me thank you for checking for the SACD :) If you are dissapointed about Aznavour's SACDs, I for my part, do not feel the same. I must say that I do not listen to my SACDs in Multichannel but only in Stereo (and of course in mono for some older albums), usually with good headphones, as I feel that with my limited equipment it is the only way for me to really appreciate the benefits of SACDs. Therefore, I can not comment on the Multichannel part. Regarding the SACD "Stereo" layers, as it is the case with other older recordings, the improvements are not stellar but still fairly noticeable. The Aznavour SACDs are in my opinion fairly superior to the 1995-1996 CD releases (which were not bad at all). They are more detailed, sharper, with extended frequency range. To me they are worth the extra $$$ especially because I expect to get a better system and then fully appreciate the capabilities of these SACDs.
What I do not get is that the "Hier Encore" album, for instance, did not have a SACD treatment, it is a major omission in my opinion, as I clearly put it in Aznavour's top three albums. "Plus Bleu" (this one does not make sens), "Autobiographie", and possibly "De t'avoir aimee..." could have been lower priorities. Another strange thing is that no live album got released in SACD. Finally, it seems that only one batch of have been produce and that they have been alrealdy discontinued: when you go through the decision and the troubles of remastering in SACD why not make them available for morethan a year? But who knows what happened, maybe the initial plan was to realease more albums in SACD, but then they dropped the project. At least, 10 of them exist (or I should say existed), with four of them I consider masterpieces ("Il faut savoir", "Qui ?", "J'me voyais deja", and "La boheme") that is better than nothing... Nevertheless I will try to contact EMI/Capitol to encourage them finish what they started, it is clear to me that they might not share my enthousiasm ;)
Have a good day.
ps 1: the "Il faut savoir" stereo SACD layer has a few problems (patches of stereo on normally mono tracks) on a few tracks. The Red Book layer did not seem affected. I returned the SACD and got a new one but the same problems were there. Although I was surprise of this glitch, it has been the only problem I got so far with the 9 out 10 Aznavour SACDs I got.
ps 2: if you are looking for vintage Aznavour concerts, I highly recommend the "Charles Aznavour : Concerts 68/72/78/80 Live - Édition 2 DVD" (ASIN: B00006IWN0). I ordered it from Amazon France, it is a PAL format but from 1 to 6 so it worked on my PC. I am very satisfied with this double DVD: 5 concerts from 1968 to 1980 at the Olympia + longue interview in French. The picture quality and the sound quality are far from premium, BUT the 1968 performance is worth the price alone. Most importantly Aznavour's voice and performance are up there...let's avoid the way he was dressed or a few orchestrations though ;)
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