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especially a reviewer whose biases clash with mine. Sam Tellig is great at finding affordable high end products, but for some reason has it in for SACD because they didn't release enough Opera for him and Naxos didn't release their entire catalog on SACD. If you remember these were his demands to join the SACD revolution. My guess is if Naxos does someday come back to SACD and release their entire catalog of SACD, then Sam Tellig will be one of SACDs biggest 2 channel supporters, don't forget he hates multichannel. Actually the only thing McIntosch wasted with Sam was marketing time and the shipping charges both ways, since they get the product back. Personally I would not have sent an SACD player to be reviewed by Sam Telig but perhaps they wanted a challenge? Remember nothing is better than praise coming from an unlikely source. A quote from Sam Tellig's review:
"I asked Jim why the MCD 500 bothers with SACD, given the format's tenuous hold in the marketplace. Telarc, the erstwhile champion of the high-resolution disc format, has ceased in=house recording-and, apparently. given up on new SACD releases. Who will prop up SACD now and save the day for Kal Rubinson? ... The drive we chose for the MCD500 allows SACD playback" Jim explained "so there was no reason to exclude it." Note: Does anyone besides me have doubts that this is what Jim Ludocovini of McIntosh actually said? And if he did say those words were many more important words excluded to get the meaning Sam wanted? Jim goes onto explain the reason it is stereo instead of multichannel, Asian and European customers want 2 channel and multichannel would increase the cost drastically. I agree that Asians mostly are into 2 channel stereo as home and apartments are generally much smaller and really don't have the needed extra space. Although I have seen photos of the insides of multilevel mansions in China some with as many as five floors and elevators that make the many of the mansions in Beverly Hills look small. But based on the posters at sa-cd.net I would think most European SACD owners listen in multichannel. I would even hazard to guess multichannel SACD may even be more popular in Europe than in the USA. I buy the cost argument though, as using more expensive parts especially in the signal path the cost of parts would be three times as much for multichannel as stereo. And since parts costs (usually not always) account for about 10% of the selling price that would cause the retail price to jump substantially. Some more quotes from Sam, looks like a while since he checked out sa-cd.net for new SACD releases plus a very nasty accusation that I believe is false,
"As for Chamber music releases on SACD, there are nearly none and - almost no Opera. And you thought SACD was for Classical fans" "SACD: Born 1999 Died 2009? I didn't know, I didn't particularly care. I did discover, much to my surprise I have about 500 SACDs-most of them sonically spectacular and musically worthless. Still, it's nice to have a machine to play them . The CD layers of SACD discs almost invariably sound like sh*t. Deliberate?"
Anyone having trouble with the fact that he accidentally has 500 SACDs, I know many Classical SACDs are single inventory and he might have some of those. In a near decade of being in and out of SACD, I myself have only purchased about maybe 500 SACDs total, and only about 300 unique titles as I have purchased a few more than one. And I search out SACDs, Sam does not. The listening tests were kinda skimpy, Sam spends half the review trying to figure out who makes the transport, he never does just speculates a lot. I guess he thought this part was supposed to be funny. He has we was very impressed with both the build quality and the sound quality, He says "The player excels at the resolution of both CDs and SACDs, and has very low noise." He doesn't describe SACD playback but lists some positive attributes to its CD playback. Although he does mention the bombastic Kunzel Telarc recordings and who Kunzel trained under during his half page diatribe against SACD, but he doesn't say he actually played any of his recordings during the review. Personally if I wanted my new SACD player reviewed I would not be sending it to Sam Tellig. Happy Listening,
Teresa
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