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

Mine, without the mispressing error, is as illustrated in the attached scan (no "RE 1" to be found anywhere).

Craig.

 

Still filling my cart!

Would these be a good source for my first Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 6 ?

Can anyone comment on the Living Stereo version?

 

Conducted by Charles Munch? Yes, a good choice; vigorous. As his usually are. I also like 5 & 6 as conducted by Christopher Hogwood. There are what, a million recordings each of those two symphonies, so it's really down to opinions there and getting a consensus on a single "best" is unlikely.

Did you check out Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique? That's one many folks find easy to get into when they're starting with classical. It's definitely not about subtlety nor intensive musical development but it is spectacular. The 1954 Munch version on Living Stereo CD/SACD is classic; not entirely the ideal recording sonically but more importantly, it works.

 

i already live in stereo

 

I just don't enjoy classical music like I used to, but I ordered 6 of my favorites for the day I get tired of the blues.

 

Anyone getting their orders filled? I grabbed 8 titles and they all show up as backordered.

 

Where did you order them?

 

I ordered a few from Deep Discount CD, and they've all been on backorder for several weeks

 

I got mine from Amazon, and yes the SACD version of Pathetique is screwed up - the worst crap I've ever heard - but for the price the redbook is good enough.

I didn't even know I had a SACD player until I saw the little symbol on my DVD player.

 

My Deep Discount order is all backordered. I ordered 4 titles from Amazon and they have all been shipped. If Deep Discount comes through with everything I'll have some dups which I can make available here via the classifieds for what I paid.

 

Get Carlos Kleiber for Beethoven's 5th and 7th on SACD. I don't know how available the single-layer Bruno Walter Pastoral is these days and the sound is flawed, but it's one of my favorite interpretations. Don't like Munch's interpretations of Beethoven, so I don't recommend that disc.

 

Deep Discount DVD, day before Thanksgiving (25 November for non-Yanks).

 

Ordered my last few stragglers (other than some of the opera titles, which I am holding off on) from Amazon last week, and they've all shipped by now. A couple of titles had to come back in stock. I'd personally go with Amazon for these over Deepdiscount, though I understand the desire to save a couple of bucks per title (back when these were discounted at DD).

 

Second those choices (although I only have the Walter 6th on Redbook). The Kleiber disc won't win any audiophile awards, but you will be so blown away be the performance you won't notice.

I also have a soft spot for the Walter 7th. It was listening to the second movement of that performance back when I was in high school that ignited my passion for classical music.

 

The Kleiber performance is great and really influential, especially the 5th, and it's my favorite, too. But, since this is a "sound" thread too, be forewarned that the DG sound of that era (late 70s, IIRC) was rather sterile, even on LP.

 

The SACD—while every bit as spotlit as the LP and CD—boasts incredible dynamic range. The extra bucks for the SACD really pays off. The Bruno Walter Pastoral [yes, I have a spot for Walter's seventh as well] sounds about as good as it's gonna get on this issue and the recording of the Fourth Symphony is also as good as it gets:

 

Wow, thanks for posting this list. I thought I had them all but apparently they snuck 5 more titles in that I didn't have. I ordered them this morning.

Btw, I've been having a bugger of a time figuring out how to deal with all my classical music on the Squeezebox. I finally decided to duplicate my files. I have separate files for each album and then a separate folder with subfolders for all of the composers. It's a bit of a waste of space but it seems to give me the most flexibility. Since my classical collection is currently only around 100gb I figure why sweat it. I have plenty of hard disc space.

It's hard to tell whether I prefer the SACD layer through my Denon 3910 or the redbook layer through the Transporter.

 

That's a great version, Bruno Walter's, I still have it. But as I said, you're not going to see a universal recommendation for Beethoven. There are so many recordings. For every one who dislikes a version you'll find plenty who will love it and visa versa.

 

+1

Indeed! My Redmond-modified CD player sounds so much better than my stock Marantz SA-14 that there's no contest on nearly all of my hybrid discs.

 

Tagging classical albums can be a real challenge. When I ripped my CDs, I just went with whatever info dBpoweramp pulled from online, so I ended up with some discs tagged by composer, some by performer and some by conductor. The end result was that I could never find anything. Fortunately, I discovered the Beginners Guide To Classical on the Slim Devices wiki. Armed with these suggestions, I bit the bullet and re-tagged most of my classical CDs, and now I can find just about everything with a minimum of effort.

 

Funny this thread comes up. I'm in the process of ripping my LS SACDs right now. I was thinking exactly as posted, I should get the ones I don't have yet...And they are CHEAP!!
Awesome performances and great sound.

 

What I decided to do was have a folder for each composer and a separate folder for each composition. Its a PITA because you may make 3 or 4 folders for one CD. In addition I have the conductor/orchestra in the title and the year the music was composed. This means I have to look up a lot of stuff.

 

I just got this one, unfortunately it isn't available in SACD. Too bad because I love this performance of Lieutenant Kije.

The CD booklet has a wonderful 2-page article about the RCA Living Stereo recording process. It includes photos of the 3-track recording console and the vintage Ampex tape machine.

 

Unfortunately there are quite a few great recordings in the original series that didn't make it to SACD.