 |
| March 1, 2003  Radical
Sounds: Seeing Double
In the early days of stereo LPs,
companies were forced to produce double inventory: both a mono and a stereo edition of
each recording. Adding to this confusion, some recordings were still mono only. It was all
too confusing to both the consumer and the shop owner, who had to carry both versions or
lose sales.
There was a reason for this seeming madness of transition. Though vinyl stereo records were the same size as mono ones, their groove patterns were different and could not be tracked by a mono cartridge. Stereo cartridges, on the other hand, could play mono vinyl. Producers hoped that people would quickly change over their hardware and that a single version of each disc could be produced, either stereo or mono, depending on the program. And that is what happened. There seems to be no apparent reason for double inventory in the transition from CD to SACD. A Hybrid SACD is backward compatible. Its CD layer will play on all existing CD players, and thus presumably on all DVD players as well, while its other layer will give multichannel or stereo high-resolution sound on players equipped with SACD playback capability. ABKCO marketed its Rolling Stones reissues without exaggerating the SACD feature too much. My local Wal-Mart has them filed in the CD section, where they sell to both customers with CD players and those with SACD players. Yet companies like Telarc are going to the extra expense to make separate versions of their titles: a CD that will play on any player and a Hybrid SACD, which duplicates that same CD layer and adds the SACD. Sony is worse. Many of its releases are not hybrid at all. A lot of them are SACD stereo only, without a CD layer. These can only be played on a SACD-equipped player, which most people do not yet have. This kind of marketing just does not make sense. A Hybrid SACD will play on anything, and contains the best of either world. The packaging only needs to be designed once; the store only has to inventory one version, and everyone is better off. This is one thing the DVD-Audio camp has over SACD: All of its recordings are playable on any DVD player. SACD producers should catch on that hybrid discs are the only way to go, as long as the majority of players will not play SACD. Otherwise, they are going to lose sales, frustrate consumers, and stand in the way of their own progress. The Jorma Kaukonen release listed below will only play on an SACD player. Not thinking, and loving the music, I grabbed it and loaded it in my Alpine 12-CD changer for the car. On a trip to Winchester on a bright, sunny, winter day, I tried to call it up. No go. It had no CD layer. And I have no regular CD of it! So, I will never be able to listen to this program in my car, unless I want to buy a CD version (fat chance) or wait until someday when I upgrade to a not-yet-available SACD changer. This is not good marketing, especially when there is a good solution: the Hybrid SACD. These three made it worthwhile this month: Jorma Kaukonen: Blue Country Heart
Donald Fagen: The Nightfly
Schumann: Piano Concerto in A Minor/Dvorak: Piano
Concerto in G Minor
...Rad Bennett
Ultra Audio is part of the SoundStage! Network. |
After playing with
Jefferson Starship and Hot Tuna, Kaukonen has returned to his roots. He says in the brief
note accompanying this SACD that when he started playing, "old-timey" music
captured his heart. Last year, he went to Nashville and -- along with Sam Bush, Jerry
Douglas, Byron House, and Béla Fleck -- set out to bring his musical journey full circle.
I think he has done that admirably well. This set simply sounds like great acoustic
musicians chilling out together, playing some good music while enjoying every minute. The
songs are all blues tinged, when not outright blues. Tracks include "Blue Railroad
Train," "Those Gambler’s Blues" (my own personal favorite), "Tom
Cat Blues," and "Prohibition Blues." The high-resolution recording captures
all the guitar, mandolin, dobro, bass, and banjo picking with bull's-eye accuracy, and
without the artificial microphone "twang" often involved when recording this
sort of ensemble. The 5.1 version, in which the subwoofer channel is seldom used, or
missed, puts a little too much sound to the rear for my taste, but all one has do as a
solution is to switch over to the equally well recorded high-resolution stereo tracks. Blue
Country Heart was nominated for a Grammy in the "Best Folk Album" category,
but did not win. 
Steely Dan, composed of Donald Fagen and
Walter Brecker, defined jazz-oriented pop music in the 1970s, making it acceptable to an
audience of varying ages. In 1982, Fagen struck out on his own to write, produce, and
perform this album. Since a lot of the Steely Dan studio players were employed, it sounds
as much like a Steely Dan album as all the others. It was one of the first digital CDs
released and became a favored demo disc in showrooms throughout the United States. For its
day, the recording was state of the art: exacting, and precise yet never devoid of warmth
and humanity. Elliot Scheiner’s 5.1 mix treats the original recording with care. Only
at a few points did I feel that the sounds in the rear speakers were distracting; at most
times the sound simply cradled me in a warm envelope that made me part of the proceedings.
Fagen’s voice is mixed into all three front channels. Melodic passages are kept up
front, while instruments in the rear are involved with support and underpinning: chords,
rhythm accents, and that sort of thing. Bass is routed to the LFE channel but is also
present in the rears, just as in Scheiner’s earlier Steely Dan DVD-A, Two Against
Nature. You really need full-range speakers all around to do the 5.1 tracks on this
disc justice. In case you do not have that kind of arrangement, the disc provides stereo
tracks, and not as an afterthought. They are just as clean and clear as the multichannel
mixes. The presence on both stereo and multichannel tracks is pretty mind-blowing. You can
hear every subtlety of the drum tracks clearly. The CD, which was always outstanding in
this respect, sounds a bit muffled after hearing this advanced-resolution DVD. Since it is
a DVD, by the way, there is a full-motion video of "New Frontier" (with Dolby
Digital 5.1 tracks), and the listener can display the text for each song as it is being
played. Overall, this is a classic given its due. 
It takes guts to release a
recording of two of the most popular pieces in the piano concerto repertory played by
relative unknowns, but Channel Classics has courageously done just that, achieving
marvelous results. Pianist Paolo Giacometti has already made a large number of recordings
for this label, encompassing solo piano repertory and, in partnership with Peter
Wispelway, works for cello and piano. His playing is very articulate, lyrical, and
charming. Ably backed by the Arnheim musicians, he brings a delicacy, grace, and intimacy
to both the Schumann and Dvorak concertos that seem in short supply in more heroic
readings. I am not going to dump my Serkin and Richter recordings, but this one offers new
insight into works that have become performance-predictable. The high-resolution sound is
very discreet and singularly well balanced. The overall perspective suggests 16th row
center, with the orchestra spread logically behind the piano. The only jarring sound is
that of the timpani, which seem unnaturally brittle at times, though one might attribute
this effect in part to the way they are played. There is just enough from the surrounds to
suggest a medium-sized, reasonably reverberant hall. The rears never call attention to
themselves. One does not notice they are there until they are removed and the sound
collapses into the front wall. The stereo mix is excellent, for those who still regard
surround with suspicion or are not capable of playing multichannel at this time. 