I got my Brother in Arms SACD today. Some of you are not going to want to hear this...

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I have to say that I'm happy with it for the price, but not ecstatic given my hopes based on earlier reviews.
If this were stereo only, I would say that this SACD really wasn't necessary. The CD and stereo SACD layers are very close. Neither sounds that good - there is so much studio processing that, even if you could easily discern a difference between the two versions, you would be hard pressed to tell which is more accurate to the original synthetic intentions. Was I expecting SACD to reveal the subtle spacial cues of a 30ft drum kit? Was I expecting the bass to "bloom" as it would in a real room? Was I expecting to hear something akin to an actual soundstage instead of a flat wall of sound? Well, no. So I wasn't too disappointed. But there are more disappointments.
BIA is terribly compressed, even on the SACD layer. This may be the "hottest" SACD I have. For an idea of how hot, most of the classical orchestral recordings I listen to on my system sound best at around a -4 setting on my preamp. Some of the Telarcs don't fully reveal all their subtle details until I crank up to a 0dB setting. With BIA, a setting higher than -16 quickly becomes iritating and congested. The drums in particular are painful to listen to at high volume. That snare could make your ears bleed. Is this partly due to the low-res PCM source recording? I'm guessing yes. But it's also due to the way they were recorded, and no remastering to SACD will ever correct that.
I'm going to blame the low-res PCM source material for another fault. Throughout, very little low-level detail comes across in the recording. Just as one example, listen to the "organ" at the beginning of "Walk of Life". Is it a Hammond B2 or a synthesizer? Judging by the unconvincingly dull portrayal of the distinctive Hammond clicks at the attack of the chords, it sounds synthetic. But who can tell for sure? Transparency? This thing is as opaque as they come. It's got 16/44.1 PCM written all over it! Only Knopfler's voice sounds very marginally smoother on the SACD layer. Is it a genuine benefit of the DSD transfer or a clever use of equalization? Hard to tell.
I must say that the surround sound version is entertaining ear candy though. I generally appreciate the music of Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits, and about half the songs on this disc are fairly decent. And since I don't have this recording in any other form, I'd say it was $16.95 well spent. But, if you don't plan on listening in multichannel and already have the remastered CD, you may not find the purchase of this disc to be money well spent.

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Topic - I got my Brother in Arms SACD today. Some of you are not going to want to hear this... - Dalton 01:46:40 06/05/05 (8)

Doesn't match up with my experience at all - racerguy 08:38:15 06/05/05 (2)

Ditto. (nt) - JCS 06:29:55 06/06/05 (1)

Re: Ditto. (nt) - Ozzie 15:10:32 06/09/05 (0)

Agree completely.. we're talking about it here.. - SamS 07:10:00 06/05/05 (0)

Re: I got my Brother in Arms SACD today. Some of you are not going to want to hear this... - Khorn 06:34:27 06/05/05 (0)

Re: I got my Brother in Arms SACD today. Some of you are not going to want to hear this... - sgb 05:27:14 06/05/05 (0)

did you listen to it in m-ch? - Christine Tham 03:26:41 06/05/05 (1)

Yes, the multichannel version does open things up a little more. - Dalton 10:32:05 06/05/05 (0)

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