Various Artists

Various Artists – Tutti! – An Orchestral Sampler (2008)
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 01:11:33 minutes | 982 MB
Genre: Classical | Publisher (label): Reference Recordings – RR-906SACD

TUTTI! is Italian for “all together now,” as in the sound of a full orchestra playing in perfect ensemble. TUTTI! is also the new full-length sampler of RR’s recent classical orchestral releases — PLUS a special BONUS track available nowhere else! Artists include Eiji Oue and the Minnesota Orchestra, Nicholas McGegan and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Jose Serebrier and the Czech State Philharmonic, Eugene Istomin, Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony, Jerry Junkin and the Dallas Wind Symphony,and the Turtle Creek Chorale.

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Various Artists – Audiophile Reference IV (2005)
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 01:15:44 minutes | 3.04 GB
Genre: Jazz | Publisher (label): First Impression Music – SACD 029

There is no doubt that FIM, First Impression Music, is first and foremost an audiophile label. Its president and producer, Winston Ma, is a dedicated audiophile for whom sound is everything. Fortunately, he is also a music lover and recognizes good music. Therefore, the contents of his discs must not only sound good, they must be worth an enjoyable listen.

The Audiophile Reference IV disc is a Super 24-Bit hybrid SACD, meaning the folks at FIM have done it up in one of the premier processing modes around, and because it’s a hybrid disc, you can play it on an SACD player or on regular CD player. As the album’s title implies, it contains bits and pieces of audiophile material, much of it taken from FIM’s catalogue of XRCD material, the kind of stuff that dyed-in-the-wool audiophiles sit around and listen to when they’re not talking over the top of the music. I’m not really keen on these kinds of compilations because there is never enough of any one thing to interest me, but when we get the kind of sonic results heard here, it’s hard not to want to see what new delights are around the next corner. Kind of like popcorn; you can’t just eat one.

There are sixteen tracks on the disc, comprising over seventy-five minutes of music. Selections include everything from classical to jazz to folk, but thankfully no hard rock or rap. Among the highlights for me were Saint-Saens’s lovely “The Swan” from his Carnival of the Animals; a composite group of tunes and noises on “Olde London”; a traditional Chinese set of variations called “Yang City”; excerpts from Handel’s Messiah; and Pachelbel’s Canon in D done by a percussion ensemble. Well, everyone else has done it on every other kind of instrument, so why not percussion.

The sound in each of the numbers is outstanding, particularly in terms of timbre and clarity. At times, I felt that maybe a piece was a bit too forward or too aggressive, but after a moment’s listening I usually found it sounded, in fact, just right. The only direct comparison I was able to make was with the live recording “High Life,” featuring Swedish sax player Arne Domnerus; it’s a selection FIM remastered from the celebrated Proprius disc Jazz at the Pawnshop. Comparing the FIM version with an original, first-generation pressing of the Proprius disc, I found the Proprius sounding maybe a bit brighter, the FIM sounding deeper, smoother, and more naturally balanced. That they did not sound more alike, though, was probably my biggest surprise; I hadn’t expected such a difference. In any case, the FIM was mighty good and sounded remarkably real.

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Various Artists – 2L The Nordic Sound – Audiophile Reference Recordings (2009)
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 / 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 1:18:02 minutes | 4.19 GB
Genre: Classical | Publisher (label): 2L 2L-RR1-SACD

2L’s 2-disc set includes materials over which audiophiles could sit & argue for hours, if not longer. Each disc contains the same 19 musical selections taken from their growing, broad selection of recordings ranging from Mozart & Vivaldi to Schoenberg, Carter & beyond. The goal, presumably, is to make an argument for the superiority of surround sound not just for movies, but for music as well. Disc 1 is a hybrid SACD with 3 separate audio tracks: DSD Stereo, DSD 5.1 channel surround, & standard redbook. The 2nd disc is a Blu-ray disc again presenting 3 audio formats: 5.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio, 5.1 channel 24bit Linear PCM, & 2ch 24bit Linear PCM. Two discs, 19 tracks, & 6 different audio formats to choose from; what’s an audiophile to do? There can be little question that 3 surround options, whether on Blu-ray or SACD, offer a far more pleasing listening experience; the level of detail & realism offered in these formats vastly exceeds the 2ch tracks. But even between the surround options, there are differences. There are some tracks, such as the excerpts from Britten’s “Simple” Symphony & Bartуk’s Sonata for Solo Violin, where the SACD surround track offers a much cleaner, more detailed accounting. However, the sense of truly being in the centre of a live performance of Islandmoen’s Requiem or Haydn’s Op. 76/5, String Quartet that is achieved on the Blu-ray with DTS-HD cannot be improved upon. The decision, then, comes down to the preference of individual listeners. Maybe even more than that, however, is the practicality of using Blu-ray as an audio-only format. Sure, there’s a sharp-looking menu that listeners can use to navigate the disc, but that still seems like a bit of a waste of Blu-ray’s vast storage capacity. DVD-A was a format that was even less popular/accepted than SACD, so it will be interesting to see if Blu-ray Audio catches on.

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