Rattle/BPO/EMI SACDs to be released

[John Kim]

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/search/index.asp?keyword=rattle+sacd&site=&target=SEARCH&type=sr


Total of 7 releases (reissues of previous productions in the SACD format) including,


Mahler Second, Fifth

Brahms Symphonies cycle

Holst Planets

Tchaikovsky Nutcracker

Stravinsky Rite of Spring

Scheonberg Orchestral pieces


Is it time to reeval!uate the Rattle/BPO recordings??

I sure hope so!

What will the sonic advantage of these SACDs? I mean, the original recordings were NOT made in DSD.

John,

[sperlsco]

What will the sonic advantage of these SACDs? I mean, the original recordings were NOT made in DSD.

John,

These are probably all hi-resolution PCM recordings, so the transfer to SACD would potentially make for an improvement over the limitation of CD.  For example, the M5 was released as a DVD-A (IIRC) with a higher-than-CD resolution of 24 bit/48Khz or something higher than 16/44.1.  I don't remember it improving the performance unfortunately.   

[waderice]

What will the sonic advantage of these SACDs? I mean, the original recordings were NOT made in DSD.

John,

In addition to what sperlsco said, these recordings would need not necessarily be recorded in DSD originally.  For example, several of the early Telarc digital recordings from the late '70's and early '80's as recorded on the early Stockham Soundstream digital system were originally recorded at 50 kHz (I believe that was the sampling rate), a higher bit rate than the consumer digital CD rate of 44.1 kHz.  To realize the full sonic advantage of the Stockham system, those recordings were remastered to the DSD system, which has a considerably higher sampling rate than the Stockham system did.  After the remaster, the recordings were reissued on SACD, which I don't need to tell you has a higher playback sampling rate than regular consumer CD.  The one shining example in the Telarc Stockham remaster series was Slatkin's M2, which sounds marvelous in its SACD reissue in addition to being a great performance.

Maybe the EMI recordings were remastered to DSD.  I'm unable to give any specifics on the digital recording system(s) used by EMI for the original studio recordings in this set; perhaps they used a higher sampling rate similar to the Stockham system.  Possibly someone else here can, such as James Meckley, who is a retired professional recording engineer.

Wade

[James Meckley]

I agree with Wade, and with Scott above. The high-resolution layer on the SA-CD is always DSD or DST (per the scarlet book standard). It can be made directly from a DSD master or—as seems to be the case here—from one of the higher-resolution PCM (pulse code modulation) systems (24/96, 24/192, etc.) via a straightforward conversion process. You can read quite a bit about this issue and related matters in this FAQ:

http://www.sa-cd.net/faq#audio1

James

[John Kim]

I very much like Rattle's way with M5th and the great playing by BPO. So, I will get the SACD.

John,