Not exactly. There is a very audible difference between the SACD layers and the Red Book layers on Living Stereo releases, and the SACD layers are much superior. I know for a fact that the CD layers were done in the same studio (Sound Mirror) with almost the same equipments/method (I actually saw the master tapes, the reel-to-reel machine, and even the Siltech cables they used) with the exception of ADCs. So the difference was mostly a result of the differences in encoding methods. When the source material is good, a modern day DSD transfer will be able to reveal all the glories that a 44.1/16 PCM transfer can not.
Maybe but consider this; I have some sacd's and cd's of the same recording (released on the same time!) The sacd's cd-layer sound less than the cd!! Same recording!! (and good labels too! BIS for example)
But you might be right; dsd-tranfer from old analog recordings can be very nice; but they are still what the are; old recordings. Very very good for its time. (I have some too; Ravel's Daphne and Cloe, Bolero, Lanza, Heifetz and some more)
But you might be right; dsd-tranfer from old analog recordings can be very nice; but they are still what the are; old recordings. Very very good for its time. (I have some too; Ravel's Daphne and Cloe, Bolero, Lanza, Heifetz and some more)
Wow, that's trouble-some. I always have respect for BIS. I know that Norah Jone's SACD was transferred from the same 44.4/16 master tape that her CD was made from (therefore the SACD layer is actually inferior to that of CD due to the extra process), but I doubt that BIS shares the same shady practice.
Yes, old recordings are not comparable to the most recent ones, though I have to say that the Living Stereo ones were as miraculous as it could be.
Yeah. I mean, with any form of media, there are always the good, the bad, and the ugly. My disagreement was that many DSD-transferred old recordings are worth the investment, and in fact many well-recorded old recordings can only be fully appreciated sonically on a SACD.
Some of the very best sounding SACDs I own are reissues of early stereo analog recordings from the RCA Living Stereo Classical library, oddly some of the worst are ones from Mercury Living Presence which is very strange because the LP reissues are very good. (I guess they were not well remastered for SACD release - or horrors they were taken from 16 bit PCM remasters, not direct to DSD.)
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