Hi, Cheapskate -- I have about 100 SACD's. 15 or so Jazz and the rest classical, from Bach to Bartok. Overall, I think the hype is excessive. Only a dozen or so, at MOST, outperform my best redbook CD's. Still, the fact that a few actually sound closer to live performances (a bit smoother, more spacious) than the best of my regular CD's suggests the technology has potential. You know the story, though, and it doesn't look like the SACD will survive its marketing blunders, other than as a partially successful experiment. I would recommend any of the RCA remakes (most of them are Reiner and the Chicago) as starting places, because they are 5 bucks cheaper than most of the other labels, and every bit as good. I also had good luck with Naxos (but they have given up on SACD -- still, there are quite a few already released discs out there in the $12 range). The Penatone Classics are outstanding (especially the 3-volume set of the Complete Handel Organ Concertos with Jaap Schroder), many of which are Phillips reissues. There is a Mozart #38 and #31, with Krips and the Concertgebouw, that is as good as anything you will hear, if you love Mozart as I do. Also, the Boulez Mahler 3rd on Deutsche-Grammophon is superb, if you want a version that is more lean and muscular than lush. I didn't like the Tilson-Thomas Mahler cycle that was so hyped up by EVERYONE, preferring many older ones I have on LP and redbook. All of the Miles Davis remakes on Sony are superb, as are all the old Szell and Walter recordings on Sony. Be forewarned, however, that a few of these original single-layer SACD's put out by Sony will no longer track in my Sony SACD-1 OR 777-ES: they worked when I bought 'em, but now just come up "NO DISC" (also, "Kind of Blue" no longer works). It's too bad, because these are quite fine. If you buy any of these, make sure you tell the clerk you're coming after his head if they don't track properly, even if it takes a few years for the problems to surface, as it did with me. Cheers, Clifton.

Ooops, I forgot to mention Alia Vox with Jordi Savall. They are ALL superb, and I have more than a dozen of 'em. Clifton.

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Clifton Said :
Be forewarned, however, that a few of these original single-layer SACD's put out by Sony will no longer track in my Sony SACD-1 OR 777-ES: they worked when I bought 'em, but now just come up "NO DISC"

I suspect that it is a player problem ( a laser fading away) rather than a disc problem ?

Best.... try the SACDs on a new SACD player, and see if they play...

I have about 20 SACDs ( of which 5 are single layer SACDs ) , and have Never had a problem playing them on my Denon 2900 Universal player.

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Cheapskate,

Do I have you confused with another or do I recall correctly you stating in a previous post that you would never pay more than $1,500.00 for ANY audio component?

RG

I've had to eat the word "never" on numerous occasions. I'm never going to use that word again. Doh!

Clifton if I understand you comments, you have a Sony, but it's not tracking correctly?!? I just got my SCD-777ES back from Richard Kern @ Audiomods about three months ago. He replaced the superclock, and all the caps with black gates. I have not had a single issue with the CDP since I got it back. The mods are a lot cheaper than buying a new CDP too.
audiomod.com See if he can help you!

Hi, Ampnut -- I have been too lazy to get out and try the offending discs in another player. You are absolutely correct, of course, about the need to do this before drawing further conclusions. The reason I think it may have something to do with the discs is the problem is restricted to the old single-layer discs that were released first by Sony when the CDP-1 became the first SACD player on the market. The later issues (on labels other than Sony) seem to work okay -- I have never had a problem with the multi-layer discs. But I'll do as you suggest anyway. Thanks for the "heads-up"...Clifton

Hi, Nrchy. Thanks for the tip. I'm on it. Cheers, Clifton.

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I don't know who it was who set the $1500 limit, but it wasn't I.

I think he believes you are Sam Tellig, who probably adhered to a $1500 limit (on components for review at the time) in the Audio Cheapskate column.

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Cheapskate wrote: I don't know who it was who set the $1500 limit, but it wasn't I.

My apologies Cheapskate, seems it was "TEvo" who in post # 4559 on 2/12/06 stated:

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I never buy any "high end" audio component without at least a 3-day or longer home demo. Unless it's experienced within the context of my room, my equipment, my music- and heck, even my mood - I am not willing to part with my hard earned cash.

I rely on magazine reviews like Stereophile and forums like this one to give me ideas and "leads" on components that are within my price range (ceiling of $1500USD per component).

RG

Hi, Cheapskate,
The quite recent Kaplan Mahler 2nd (DGG)is also a stunner sonically. And Boulez' "Das Lied von der Erde" is spectacular (DGG), although if you are fortunate enough to have the Walter/Columbia on vinyl, you may prefer it -- to my ears, it's a close call and I am glad to have both. The Karajan Beethoven 9th (also DGG) gets a bit strident and I seldom listen to it. This is like "Hamlet" -- all performances seem flawed to me. My favorite is the Reiner RCA I bought on vinyl in 1975 (don't know when it was actually released, but it is warm and spacious, and Reiner doesn't go after the Finale like a mosquito after a hippo, as many do)...why do they have to break the speed limit? --The score markings are fast enough without careening over the cliff. The Telarc Shostakovich 5th/Tchaikovsy Romeo and Juliet, and Tchaikovsky 4th/Stravinsky Rite of Spring (Maazel and the Cleveland) are both outstanding. Last night I listened to a CPO issue of Vivaldi's 4 Seasons that is BEAUTIFULLY recorded -- one of the best SACD's I have ever heard, sonically AND artisically. It is an arrangement that adds woodwinds, which adds excitement without tricking things up -- Frederico Guglielmo leads L'Arte dell'Arco in an "original instruments" version, and it never gets screechy -- very fast and exciting (reminds you of Biondi) but not rushed AND with meat on the sonic bones -- not dried out to a thin screech like many original instrument performances. If you can stand another 4 seasons, this would be one to get (CPO 777 037-2). All of these SACD's (except the Beethoven 9th) seem to me to represent the best of what that technology can offer, and the readings are all very involving. Of the ones I mentioned yesterday, you should definitely have the Szell Schubert 9th and anything by Jordi Savall, if you like early Spanish/Andalusian/Moroccan music (plus his "La Folia" disc and his reading of Bach's Art of the Fugue and the orchestral suites). Pig out. You're gonna love it. Some of these, by the way, are also on Redbook, but the ones I have mentioned seem just a bit more spacious and grain-free on SACD. Cheers, Clifton.

You limit is too low..Why bother even reading StereoPhile, they review a piece of wire for as much. Have you adj for inflation? $15K will almost get you real speakers today...

Clifton;

I too have the SCD777ES, and of late it has started doing what you desribe; it says "TOC READING" about 10 times, and then 'NO DISC'. Only on mine it is the standard CD format that it happens on...hmmm. When I pick up the disc and reload it, the unit reads it almost every time, however. I only have one disc I know of for sure that it simply refuses to play, and my old Yamaha 5-disc player has no problem with it....
Fortunately, when I retired and sold my former primary home, I had one in each house, so now I have a spare SCD777ES in the box in the garage, in case this one dies.
Can these things BE repaired? Does anyone know who works on them, if needed?

In the April 2006 Recommended Components, I count 15 sets of speakers RECOMMENDED in Class C alone for $1000 or less!
So where do you get this crap about "you can almost get good speakers for $15,000"???
And I can assure you that the Vandersteen 3A, which I am using, is an excellent full-range Class A speaker system for under $3000.
You are too silly to believe; your problem is that you apparently can't read at all....

I think audiomod works on the Sony players, but I'm not sure if they can help with laser problems.

As for our socially challenged amigo, think Struther Martin in Cool Hand Luke. "Some men you just can't reach; and that's the way He wants it...and what he wants, he gets."

Hi, Commsysman,
E-mail RKern70055@aol.com. His web site is audiomod.com. Also, many forum members at Audioasylum.com have had similar problems -- some flash "NO DISC" on every occasion, while others are selective. Mr. Kern says it is the age of the unit, and it needs new transport motors and laser pickups. He does the job for $560, with Sony parts. This sounds reasonable, since my Meridian 508-24 cost $600 for a similar operation a couple years ago. Mr. Kern has up to 4 grand worth of mods he does, including Black Gate Caps, new boards, replacing op amps, etc., etc., but I'm always a bit suspicious about trying to get more out of a machine than was designed into it. Yet, he has an outstanding reputation, and many folks swear by his work. I will probably have the laser-motors work done, because it sounds like a valve-job on your car: you can drive it for a while, but sooner or later the work has to be done. And, let's face it, $600 won't get you much in a new SACD player. I already have a couple grand in the software (100+ titles), and I'm damned if I'll put up $5,000 or so (I'm thinking of the new Ayre) for a new one just to see IT fail in a few years. Cheers, Clifton.

Yeah, DUP lives on his own planet. Your Vandys sound just as good as his Wurlitzers (I've heard 'em both -- a lot!) at 1/6 the cost. I think you are correct about the $1,000 - $2,000 range being the sweet spot in today's speakers -- so MUCH technology has trickled down from the cost-no-object, cutting edge gear into the meat-and-potatoes designs that have to perform with real-world ancillaries in real-world listening rooms. I went the cost-no-object route a year ago and was disappointed (100+ grand). My lower-cost system (about 18 grand for EVERYTHING) sounds better on MORE MUSIC (isn't that the point?) than the big bucks system, even though the latter sounded superb on a few hand-picked, "demo-quality" discs, in a huge room, playing very loud. I think, once you reach a certain price point (say, around 20 grand for the whole system), if you go slowly and are very selective, all the extra 100 g's get you is louder and more obnoxious on the border-line quality software that makes up such a huge percentage of what we love to listen to. Happy tunes, Clifton.

huh? If you think a pair of $1000 ckt city boxes sound like a pair of WHISPERS, you don't need a stereo, you need an ear checkup? When most people have limited hearing, of course it sounds the same. yet my hearing isn't as good as some, since I can not hear wall outlets or wire crystal compositions. Nor PTFE versus PVC. I can easily hear teh difference between magnificent Legacy FOCUS and INCREDIBLE Legacy WHISPERS....Just like the difference between AVA Omegastar EX ckts, Ultra Hybrid EC ckts over other stuff.

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I can easily hear teh difference between magnificent Legacy FOCUS and INCREDIBLE Legacy WHISPERS....Just like the difference between AVA Omegastar EX ckts, Ultra Hybrid EC ckts over other stuff.

Hey DUP, just a simple question here: Since you can hear differences that other people can't, why can't other listeners hear differences that you don't -- especially when they are talking about components you haven't actually listened to?

Hi, Wes -- I think there may be some inadequacy issues here. Often, folks overplay one side of an argument in order to fill a hole inside that they don't want exposed. If my ears are lead, I'm okay with it. I won't be getting any new ones soon, so I'll just have to get by with the ones I'm wearing. That is why I really can't push too hard to sell my own preferences, beyond just stating what they are. This thing about who has the "best" hearing and/or taste is always going to crop up in discussions among music lovers, but those in full control of their faculties usually know when to stop selling. I was thinking about starting a thread centering, somehow, on how we all came to this hobby. JA's "As We See It" in the recent January issue begs a question of this sort, as he was ruminating the issue of "marginalization" while attending a live concert. I doubt if too many out there are as old as I am, but people of my generation often assume that EVERYONE comes to this pursuit (more than a hobby, for me...) as we did -- from hearing live music. In reality, we may be a disappearing minority. When folks of roughly my age were young, our first musical excitement came when we attended live concerts (or dances -- do you realize that young folks now dance to RECORDED music??!! Imagine!!). We worked backwards from live into the den or listening room. We all had a subjective sonic ideal based on what we first encountered in the concert or dance hall. Each foray into a venue peopled by real, breathing musicians, playing real instruments, brought back a heightened awareness of just how inadequately radios and the first "component" systems reproduced music. Nowadays, many audiophiles may NOT have started in this way. It could have been movies, or disco clubs, or a friend's CD-based system, or simply "the radio" -- or even (gasp) earphones stuck into IPods. We may be knee-deep into a generation that has never and WILL never attend a recital, symphony concert, or jazz club. So what becomes of the "reference"? What if it becomes electronic-to-electronic-to electronic, rather than live-to electronic-to live? What does this do to one's argument over which "sound" is somehow "best"? The latter years of my teaching career made me increasingly aware that we are in an age of relativity, that we increasingly live a derivative existence where "the basis" is lost (don't get me started on the FINANCIAL implications of this sea-change). Like Huysman's Des Esseintes ( A Rebours), we deliberately choose not to leave the train station, preferring to return home for the derivative version of the trip. When a reviewer compares Thiels to Vandersteens, is he REALLY going through them both to a basis, a memory of live sound, or is he establishing preferences based on an electronically-peopled universe? Happy listening, Clifton.

Clifton:

You perfectly illustrate why I love the Forums. I make a cheeky comment and you answer it with a wonderful piece of writing (and thinking) that even references Huysmans. The last thing I'll probably see as I drift into sleep tonight is that gilded, bejeweled tortoise crawling through my day.

Thanks for the image -- and the response.

Thanks, Clay (and Wes) -- I guess I will. If I can figure where to start and how to frame it. I'll think of somethin'. Age? Boy, have I got a deal! How about we don't tell, either of us? DUP would be all over us for not turnin' up our Stromberg-Carlsons. I only heard Reiner in person once -- how lucky you are to have enjoyed entire seasons! It wasn't even in his own bailiwick. I heard him (and Szell with the Cleveland) at a guest orchestra series at the old, cavernous DAR in Washington. Szell did, among other wonders, the Mozart "Jupiter" and I had never imagined 80 or so musicians could literally play with one voice. Reiner played Strauss (Zarathustra) and Debussy (Iberia) -- the impression I walked away with was one of infinite power, controlled but still all the way to the edge. Clifton.

My God. The tortoise. Yes, but I only see them in Red Weather. Guess I'd better stay sober tonight, or an army of them will be crawling through my head. Cheers, Clifton.

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I heard him (and Szell with the Cleveland) at a guest orchestra series at the old, cavernous DAR in Washington. Szell did, among other wonders, the Mozart "Jupiter" and I had never imagined 80 or so musicians could literally play with one voice. Reiner played Strauss (Zarathustra) and Debussy (Iberia) -- the impression I walked away with was one of infinite power, controlled but still all the way to the edge.

I think I must be just the slightest bit younger than you, Clifton. I never got to hear Reiner or Szell, but I was a Szell freak -- mostly, I suspect, because all of those Epic records of Cleveland only cost $2.99, so that's how I learned the basic repertoire. When I could afford "new" recordings, I wondered why the playing seemed so sloppy. Man, Cleveland was so tight under Szell!

I grew up in the hinterlands of Virginia, so I only heard "real" orchestras when they played University Hall in Charlottesville, which had the acoustics you'd expect from a basketball court. As a result, I always thought of Constitution Hall as intimate when I came to DC. I saw Pentagle there once from the fifth row and thought I'd died and gone to heaven -- especially when everybody except Jacqui McShee and John Renbourn sat out on "Lord Franklin." It may be my memory playing me false, but I think they turned off the amplification for that one. Goosebump city.

Hi, Wes -- yes, I think I have just about everything Szell did on Epic. There is a CD release of his Tchaikovsky 5th (Sony Essential Classics, SB2K 63281), a "Take 2" (2 CD's) that includes an 1812 and "Marche Slave" on the 2nd CD that probably won't interest you. But, my God, the Tchaikovsky 5th (and Zino Francescatti Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto -- this one with Schippers and the New York Phil -- EASILY the most breathless and exciting I know of THAT one) is transcendant. If you are a Szell fan and don't have his Tchaikovsky 5th, you MUST have it! I also have the LP of the 5th in its cheapo vinyl avatar (Odyssey, Y30670) -- if you can't find it, let me know where I can mail these and you can burn 'em -- but you gotta send 'em back!! I also have Szell's complete Beethoven Symphonies (Epic M7X 30281), if you wanna borrow those. I heard the LA Phil 2 weeks ago, with guest conductor David Robertson and French pianist Pierre-Laurant Aimard doing the Brahms 1st Piano Concerto at Disney Hall. Stunning. BUT. When I got home, I whipped out my Szell/Fleisher version...oh, what an orchestra he built. There was just no comparison, even on that old raspy Columbia/Epic sound. I sit back in wonder every time I hear those old recordings and shake my head in amazement at the perfection of it all. I also have the 1st and last of his Schubert 9th recordings (Epic and Angel), so feel free. What a legacy. Let me know if you want to burn any of them you might not have. I heard my first concert at a basketball fieldhouse in the sticks, too, as I just posted elsewhere on the "General Rants and Raves" index. This might be a more interesting topic (i.e. which gym housed YOUR first sonic epiphany?) than "Where did you first get laid?" I THINK, for me, it was the back seat of my dad's Packard ... but that may be just a fantasy -- it all happened so fast, you know? Happy tunes, Clifton

Reading your Szell musings got me curious. I took a walk today and found pretty clean Epic Stereorama BC 1002 LP at the thrift store for $1.99 and will check it out.

Tchaikovsky
Capriccio Italien, op.45
28th Feb. & 14th Mar. 1958 at Severance Hall, and 1st Mar. 1958 at Auditorium at Masonic Temple, Cleveland

Borodin
from opera 'Prince Igor' ; Polovetsian Dances
1st Mar. 1958 (& 28th Feb. & 14th Mar.?), Auditorium at Masonic Temple (& Severance Hall?), Cleveland

Rimsky-Korsakov
Capriccio Espagnol, op.34
28th Feb. & 14th Mar. 1958 at Severance Hall, and 1st Mar. 1958 at Auditorium at Masonic Temple, Cleveland

Moussorgsky
Introduction from opera 'Khovantchina', 'Dawn on the Moscow River'
28th Feb. & 14th Mar. 1958, Severance Hall, Cleveland

Hi, Jeff -- I think you'll like it. I have this LP. I bought it new in 1969 (I believe... I remember going on a big-time shopping spree when I returned from Viet-Nam -- alive and with ears still attached -- and I think this was one of them). Like almost all the Epics, the sound is somewhat dry and a bit tipped-up in the upper midrange, but this disc really shows off Szell's control AND ability to communicate emotion through the music. The Moussorgsky is gorgeous, eh? If you have the capability to burn LP's into bits and pits, you are welcome to borrow some of my other Szell records, although I realize this DOES sort of negate the reason for having LP's. Yet, I have talked to some people who claim that home-archived CD's sound better than some of the commercially-reissued ones. I wouldn't know, since I don't have a digital recorder. Cheers, Clifton.

Clifton - Thanks for the very generous offer, but, my PC/CDR are far from my audio room and I don't have a particularly good soundcard anyhow. My headphone rig is near the PC, but, even that isn't hooked up to the computer (I use a dedicated CD transport.)

I haven't had a chance to get to Side 2 yet, so no thoughts on the Moussorgsky. The Borodin does remind me of some TV commercials for Classical LP sets that used to air when I was a kid that had a moustachioed guy that mentioned the Polovetsian Dances.

It's great that you returned from Vietnam unscathed. As a kid, I used to check the newspapers daily to make sure my brother Tim's draft number didn't come up - it was low: 10. Fortunately, he never got called.