A report from the front lines; more and more Tower Records Stores are adding a special rack for high Rez Digital, and it' finally come to my lowly Tower store in Dublin, CA, in the good old East SF Bay. This rack includes a mix of DTS surround disks (not many), DVD-A disks (even fewer!) and about 35-50 SACD titles, mostly Sony, a few from other labels such as Virgin Records. Prices are fairly typical for SACD, $24.99.
I picked up a few this Saturday, including the new SACD release of Abraxis. Wow. Really clean and pristine sounding at "quiet" listening levels. Crank it up, and it's orgasmic- the closest you'll ever hear to a direction connection to the master tape in your own home. "Singing Winds, Cyring Beasts" is one of those cuts ThomasW used to describe as "surreal, psychedelic" due to imaging and the way the percussion sounds float in the air when played back over some AR gear on Magneplanar Tympani III's (now, *that* dates us pretty well, doesn't it?), well, that's hear in spades, and without a $6000 turntable and $850 MC cartridge.
Long live SACD!
Regards,
Jon
Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....
I picked up a few this Saturday, including the new SACD release of Abraxis. Wow. Really clean and pristine sounding at "quiet" listening levels. Crank it up, and it's orgasmic- the closest you'll ever hear to a direction connection to the master tape in your own home. "Singing Winds, Cyring Beasts" is one of those cuts ThomasW used to describe as "surreal, psychedelic" due to imaging and the way the percussion sounds float in the air when played back over some AR gear on Magneplanar Tympani III's (now, *that* dates us pretty well, doesn't it?), well, that's hear in spades, and without a $6000 turntable and $850 MC cartridge.
Long live SACD!
Regards,
Jon
Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....
