Everyone have their RCA LIVING STEREO SACDs yet? Better grab 'em! Leontyne Price...

I have most of them already. Bought as they came out. And you're right, amazing stuff. Listening to them still has me scratching my head why at least the audiophile community didn't embrace SACD more????

 

They were pretty easy to find in Border's a few years ago but I don't see them in there anymore.

 

Where are these available for $6? I'd love to pick up more at that price, but - outside of Deepdiscount.com's sale (where they're $7), the cheapest seems to be at Amazon for $10.

 

I have most of these titles but listen to the red book CD layer mostly, because my SACD player is confined to my mid-fi home theatre system, which is 5.1. I was never sure whether lisetening to the SACD layer made that much difference. My DAC in my audio system upsamples to 24/192.

 

I listen to very little classical, but have one of these. Truly great record, music and sound. If it weren't for me hearing someone playing a (Classic) copy years ago, I probably would have never bought one.

 

Absolutely, but unfortunately we're at the point of praying they can do any more at all. Latest were in '06.

In my opinion, yes, I have a complete set of the old LS CDs sans opera titles... Degree and sorts of differences vary. My only gripe is the shrinking of the covers, attractively and tastefully done but a CD is tiny enough.

Where? Not that I have money for the dozens I don't have yet.

 

Thanks Steve. I have listened to your advise before and you were always right. I have 18 of them. Time to hunt the rest for cheap (if I can find them all).

 

Still available (some titles) at Twist and Shout in Denver and many Barnes & Noble bookstores. Some at Borders also. Lots on ebay.

 

The best of these are indeed amazing, but generally I find the orchestral pieces better than the operas. These recordings date from the early days of stereo, when RCA was using extreme left and right placement of the singers. That just never sounds natural to me. And some of the performances are really second rate. (especially the Leinsdorf conducted operas). As far as Leontyne Price, she could saturate an analogue tape and pin a VU meter better than anyone, but that doesn't necessarily make for a charming or convincing Madame Butterfly. So while I own plenty of these discs and am glad I do, I agree with Steve's suggestion that you should buy enthusiastically, but selectively. PS: I agree on the Fritz Reiner "Scheherezade" as simply amazing in every way.

 

Gaites Parisiene is extraordinary.

 

Fascinating, what a great little movie. I like how Elvis Presley was grouped with "unusual" music. Guess the term "rock'n'roll" wasn't mainstream in 1956. Also, open reel tapes were duped in reverse in order to save rewinding time? I didn't know that.

What a great layman's explanation of the lacquer master to vinyl record process. Positive, negative, positive, negative, positive. Thanks for the link!

 

Selectivity the watchword here...

Agree completely with the above posts - - selectivity is the keyword. One release in the series that is not very impressive (sonically only!) is Rubinstein playing both Chopin piano concertos. I have this on various LPs and CDs, and was hoping the SACD would finally 'do it' for me, but my semi-educated guess is that the hall it was recorded in was not conducive to this and/or the recording engineers just messed up... the actual performances (from '59 and '61 I think) however, are beautiful.

 

The Leontyne Price SACD is fabulous... great performance

I will NOT grab all Living Stereo's... a few are poor performances, other one's sound bad (IMO). I only have 25 Living Stereo SACDs... the best of the series....

 

Does anyone know how the vinyl classic records reissues of these compare to the SACD reissues+ Are they the same masterings? I own a few originals that I like very much but I do not own a SACD player.

 

Would you be prepared to make some recommendations, aside from Scheherazade?

Same question to Claus.

I realise it's a lot to ask - it must have taken a lot of time and effort to find out which were the good ones and which were the duds.

 

Acoustic Sounds sold these in sets as they came out; bought all as well as the Mercury Living Presence sets- figured it was an opportunity to have complete sets now rather than regret not picking them up after they went OOP. A great way to have a basic classical collection, especially of some landmark recordings (although not all are definitive).

BTW,it took me 3 years to complete the DCC gold series for some serious coin.

 

They are not. The Classic Records vinyl editions were unique masterings and will match neither the original LPs nor the SACDs. The SACDs also contain a layer that will play in standard CD players/drives.

 

I would also recommend Mercury Living Presence and Decca SACD series.

Great stuff

 

Thanks, they are extremely cheap comparde to the classic record reissues. However, they may be more costly in the long run when i bought some and start looking for a SACD player...

 

woops..

That I had all of these. Need to pick up 4 more.

Thanks!

 

Has anyone seriously compared the redbook CD layer to the SACD layer?

 

I'm sure many audiophiles would love to embrace SACD but we need many, many more Grimm A/DSD mastered SACD titles... BTW please look at the recent Stereophile poll

If you had to pick one primary format for your music, what would it be?
Submitted by Stereophile Staff, Nov 15 2009

1. SACD: 28%

2. Vinyl: 22%

3. Download: 21%

http://cgi.stereophile.com/cgi-bin/showvote.cgi?651

 

I'd add two more by Reiner and the CSO: Mussorgsky - "Pictures at an Exhibition" and the Debussy/Respighi disc. The latter will result in your owning two different recordings of "La Mer". Both should test your stereo system pretty well.

 

And also the Bartok "Concerto for Orchestra" for those willing to venture into 20th century classical (although it's pretty accessable).

 

I don't use these guys much. The 4 I need are on backorder. Do they usually come in soon with this vendor, or am I likely to wait forever? I see the ones I need in stock elsewhere...