I recently bought my first SACD player and so I am curious which classical SACDs you guys find to be the best sounding and feature great performances. I thank you in advance for your suggestions.
Practically the entire Living Stereo catalog. Everyone have their RCA LIVING STEREO SACDs yet? Better grab 'em! Leontyne Price...
George I grabbed a couple of Reiner's productions years ago. I have nothing for comparison but enjoyed em
He's a great conductor for sure! I plan to grab those Living Stereo SACDs in the used bins, for I see them often.
If you come across any other rec's keep this thread updated, I'm curious as well. I have a ton on old compact disc but nothing else on this format.
Will do. This one I already had. The performance is excellent and the sound has superb clarity and realism:
This one always brings a smile to my face. In fact, all of his Reference Recordings are awesome. Incredibly dynamic music.
The Living Stereo one’s are all great. Recently I got 3 great SACDs from BIS and The Minnesota Orchestra that contain all the Sibelius Symphonies. They are incredible.
Siegel-Schwall 3 Pieces For Blues Band on SHM SACD, Leibowitz, Rene - Royal Philharmonic Power Of The Orchestra on Analogue Productions SACD -- I've had this for many years but now it's listed as an upcoming release? Weird. Same catalog # too: Leibowitz Royal Philharmonic Orchestra-Moussorgsky The Power Of The Orchestra-Hybrid Stereo SACD|Acoustic Sounds Although it's not quite out yet this one is sure to be excellent: Grieg: Peer Gynt / Adam: Giselle [SHM-SACD] [Limited Release] Herbert Von Karajan (conductor) / Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra SACD
The Analogue Productions remasterings of the Living Stereo recordings are superior to those on Sony. The string sound is silkier and there is greater detail. Among my favorites are Rubinstein's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Scheherazade by Reiner and the Chicago Symphony, Stokowski Rhapsodies and The Reiner Sound. AP's Decca remasters are of similarly high quality. My favorite is Oistrakh playing Bruch's Scottish Fantasia.
I agree that shm-sacd's tend to have excellent sound and to capture some of the best performances. The drawback is they are quite expensive (on the order of $40 each as I recall). The best source is CDJapan. They can also go out of print quickly. Among my favorites are Clifford Curzon playing Mozart piano concertos 20 & 27, Rostropovich playing Dvorak's cello concerto, The Boston Symphony: Respighi's Ancient Airs and Dances, Berlin Philharmonic conducted by von Karajan: Adagio (baroque orchestral music), Berlin Philharmonic: tone poems by Sibelius, including my favorite The Swan of Tuonela, and the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Gunter Wand: Bruckner Symphony No. 4. If you like Tchaikovsky symphonies, the series by the Gurzenich Orchester Koln conducted by Dimitrij Kitajenko is excellent and inexpensive. Regarding Beethoven, I have a set on Bis of the complete symphonies by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Haitink, which, as I recall, was really cheap. By the way, SACD-net has been closed down and replaced by another site whose name escapes me at the moment. It's not as user-friendly as SACD-net was.
Congrats George! I do really enjoy the MFSL “Surround Series” from circa 2003 - 2004 that includes a handful of titles. Even though they are multichannel most SACD players will sum the output to stereo if you’re connected via RCA cables, so they can still be enjoyed on a modest stereo setup such as mine. Another vote for the RCA Living Stereo series. Also, they are overpriced at the moment but if you ever find this one at a good price, you won’t be disappointed: Bach* - E. Power Biggs - The Four "Great" Toccatas And Fugues - The Four Antiphonal Organs Of The Cathedral Of Freiburg Played Simultaneously By
Lately I've been much enjoying John Wilson's Copland series on Chandos. I think there's four discs in all.
One SACD that I would definitely NOT recommended is the Japan issued SACD version of the Bohm/Beethoven symphonies. It sounds exactly like the redbook CD issues that I own. I simply can't tell the difference (and I have a pretty revealing system).
Worth heading to HRAudio.net - High Resolution Audio (the old SACD-net mentioned above) and checking out the users' libraries. There are some really helpful reviews especially for newer releases. The Mercury Living Presence SACD series is uniformly superb. You really can't go wrong with those particularly as they were recorded in 3 Channel all those years ago. Personal favourite is Viktoria Mullova's pairing of Mendelssohn & Beethoven on Decca. It's OOP but a great SACD. I have always wanted to try out an Esoteric SACD but the prices terrify me.
I love this recording but I do have to say that the redbook CD from the Analogue Years box is almost as good. I was expecting there to be a much bigger difference.
A few of my favorites.... regarding performance and sound. I use these SACDs, when I check voices, instruments, dynamics, soundstage. Atrium Musicae de Madrid - La Spagna (BIS) Britten - Britten's Orchestra (Reference Recordings) Copland - Billy The Kid (Sony/BMG Living Stereo) Dvorak - Symphony No. 9 (Stereo Sound) Respighi - Belfagor, Belkis, Church Windows (Exton) Shostakovich - Symphonies Nos. 1 & 15 (Mariinsky) Tchaikovsky - Violin Concerto (PentaTone) Thomson - The Plow That Broke The Plains (Vanguard Classics) Various - Cantate Domino (Proprius) Various - La Folia (Alia Vox) Villa-Lobos - Little Train Of The Caipiria (Vanguard Classics) Vivaldi - La Stravaganza (Channel Classics)
I second this 100%. I love the Analogue Productions Living Stereo SACDs, in a way they have ruined the Sony BMG SACDs for me, I think they sound that much better. Yes they are more expensive and have shorter playing times as they only replicate the original albums, but to me they are worth it. I agree that the string sound is nicer, and there is greater detail and balance to my ears. I almost find the BMG discs to sound dull and muddy in comparison. I know others may prefer the old discs or don't hear a big difference, but my ears greatly prefer the AP discs. One of my favorites is the Heifetz and Reiner Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. It is only 29 and a half minutes but I don't care because the performance and sound are so good. I really hope Analogue Productions come through with the second set of Living Stereo SACDs they announced, but Im not holding my breath. Their SACD releases seem to have slowed to basically nothing this year.