Post by stvnharr June 24, 2012 (31 of 104)
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Jeff,
Qualiton, the BIS importer, does not have this one yet which is why it's not showing up on amazon. Buy from overseas or wait.
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Post by bissie June 25, 2012 (32 of 104)
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stvnharr said:
Jeff,
Qualiton, the BIS importer, does not have this one yet which is why it's not showing up on amazon. Buy from overseas or wait.
Well, they do, but only very recently. I was wrong before, but for sure the eagle has landed now a couple of days ago.
Robert
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Post by jeff3948 June 28, 2012 (33 of 104)
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stvnharr said:
Jeff,
Qualiton, the BIS importer, does not have this one yet which is why it's not showing up on amazon. Buy from overseas or wait.
bissie said:
Well, they do, but only very recently. I was wrong before, but for sure the eagle has landed now a couple of days ago.
Robert
Thanks guys,
Since buying from the UK or Germany means paying twice the price due to high shipping, I'll wait until they get it on Amazon in the USA, which should be soon according to Robert's information.
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Post by seth June 28, 2012 (34 of 104)
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jeff3948 said:
Thanks guys,
Since buying from the UK or Germany means paying twice the price due to high shipping, I'll wait until they get it on Amazon in the USA, which should be soon according to Robert's information.
A lot of UK retailers sell BIS discs for significantly less than Amazon. Even with the shipping it still comes out cheaper.
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Post by Jonty June 28, 2012 (35 of 104)
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This won't available in the UK until the end of July. Release date 30/7/'12
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Post by seth June 28, 2012 (36 of 104)
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Jonty said:
This won't available in the UK until the end of July. Release date 30/7/'12
Which means the Amazon US release date is likely September.
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Post by Chris June 28, 2012 (37 of 104)
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seth said:
Which means the Amazon US release date is likely September.
I got mine nearly two weeks ago while it was still on special offer as 24/96 masterfiles at eClassical for 11 dollars and 09 cents.
I have already listened to it about ten times.
Absolutely brilliant Gershwin,from Norway of all places.Who would have guessed?
My Living Stereo Gershwin SACD, although, it has a clear,very stable,very coherent soundstage,recorded with only three mics as it were,unfortunately sounds very dated in comparison.
And strangely enough not quite as "Jazzy" as the BIS release.
I rarely listen to the Living Stereos these days. Most of the music has become available in modern clearly better recordings and often better performances too.
I still have a soft spot for some the Opera recordings though,and still enjoy both La Traviata and Boheme from the Living stereo SACD releases.
Back to Gershwin and the stunnning pianist.Wow,to be able to play the piano as Kempf does,wouldn't that be wonderful?
Alas,much too late in my case,I'll stick to conducting,nobody but me notices when I miss a beat or two anyway.
I can't help blushing a bit,when I read my own review here years ago of Mahler's 4th by Reiner.As an historic document,interesting yes.
But with Channel Classics SUPERB Mahler 4 for comparison, today I would give it 3 for SQ at the most. Interpretation 3,5-4.
How would I rate BIS's Gershwin from Norway?
4,5 stars for sound and 5 for interpretation and sheer "joie de vivre" imho.
In other words, very good stuff worth waiting for,for those who obviously have to,for various reasons.
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Post by zeus June 28, 2012 (38 of 104)
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Chris said:
But with Channel Classics SUPERB Mahler 4 for comparison, today I would give it 3 for SQ at the most.
Investing in a decent SA-CD player wouldn't hurt.
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Post by Chris June 29, 2012 (39 of 104)
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zeus said:
Investing in a decent SA-CD player wouldn't hurt.
Hello Zeus,
hmm..are you suggesting that Mahler's 4th from the 50s is a technically better recording than Channel Classic's modern State of the Art DSD recording?
Or do you just think I have a crappy old SACD player?
Don't worry I am not being offended and I am not going to bite and scratch in defence. I am not not one of those here who defend something just because I happen to own it or can't afford anything better.
But I trust my ears too much to be easily fooled by Golden Faceplates and heavy weight players.
Regarding my old SCD-2,believe me I have compared quite a few SACD Players to my old one and yes I have heard better ones.But the differences have been marginal in most cases and imo not really worth the very much bigger difference in price always involved in such cases.
With so many pcm hi res downloads sounding clearly better than the SACDs of the same works ,I have indeed been looking for one that would restore the order as I said in my short evaluation of the OPPO here.
But the fact is still,that on most well recorded DSD or analogue recorded material my old modded SCD-2 still does a very good job once it decides to accept the discs.
That may change once I get a DSD capable DAC and will be able to listen to DSD recorded material the same way I can now do with pcm material.
Having heard both 24/96 and DXD and "DSD raw" in the studio compared to live I have reason to suspect that what was reported from "THE Show" in the USA here recently was not only hype but possibly a simple report of maybe inconvenient facts when a DSD download obviously beat the crap out of a 20k Meitner SACD player.
To me, with the other references I have, that if anything,is certainly food for thought.
I recently had the "multi awwarded" OPPO BDP95 on loan for four days and it was certainly no better than the modded player I have.
On the contrary I was suprised to hear that it was actually less resolving than my old SACD player.If it had been better I would have kept it.
But to me it had a very upfront etched dryish, "digital" signature that might impress those those who mainly listen to Rock and POP.
One of the most disappointing things with the OPPO I had for audition was that it lacked "air". You know the thing that those early analogue recordings first released on SACD are so full of. The OPPO on the other hand, glossed over or even missed important low level details of timbre and tonality and was especially lacking in ability to resolve the actual acoustic venue and chords decaying slowly into silence. With the one I have, I clearly hear those to me very important cues, when and where they have been captured by the recording.
Maybe the modded and audiophile special versions from Ayre,Primare and and others manage to bring in the air again in their OPPO versions.
Because at least to me, the "air" captured is undoubtedly one of the truly great things about many of the Living Stereos.
But let me explain why I am not that impressed by the Living Stereos for primarlily technical reasons,any longer
Apart from the assets, like simple miking and plenty of air, I also clearly hear and I am less impressed by all the tape overload distortions,the tape hiss and the compression and the generally limited dynamic range compared to modern hi res recordings.
Mahler's 4th is imo a clear example of how much distortion there actually is on those old tapes provided one has a player that doesn't gloss things over.
And BIS's recent Gershwin recording is yet another example of not only how much better a modern hi res digital recording captures a piano than the wobbly old tape machines of the fifties could,but also of how realistically BIS captures a full dynamic range. Some here obviously don't like it too real ,but to me it is an important ingredient in making a hi res recording.
Anyway if you can recommend some better SACD players than the imo hyped OPPO, I am all ears.
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Post by Arnaldo June 29, 2012 (40 of 104)
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Chris said:
... With so many pcm hi res downloads sounding clearly better than the SACDs of the same works
... Having heard both 24/96 and DXD and "DSD raw" in the studio compared to live I have reason to suspect that what was reported from "THE Show" in the USA here recently was not only hype but possibly a simple report of maybe inconvenient facts when a DSD download obviously beat the crap out of a 20k Meitner SACD player.
For the 100th time, and probably not the last, considering the target audience...
Post by Arnaldo (/showthread/87257/87377/y#87377)
"Whether the music is being played back from a download or SACD is totally irrelevant as long as it's truly the same digital data. Reading bits downloaded to a hard-drive or imprinted on an optical disc is not going to change the sound of any of those bits. As long as the information stored is identical, the only factors bound to make a difference are the quality of the DAC and analog circuitry."
Post by Arnaldo (/showthread/85315/87785/y#87785)
"Identical digital music files will either sound the same, or simply not sound at all, i.e., dropouts. What "everyone heard" as you put it, is just the quality of different DACs and audio circuitry at play, whether from SACD players or stand-alone processors."
Post by tailspn (/showthread/85315/87787/y#87787)
"My experience with a Sonoma of playing original edit masters, or ripped .dff files from a SACD, A/B against one another, or A/B against the same SACD playing simultaneously agrees with your statement. They're identical sounding using the same DAC. The demo being referred to had so many variables, and the quality of the equipment so high, I believe it was the individual manufactures interpretation of correct "voicing" of their products that caused the very obvious sonic difference."
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