Home Hi-Rez Highway

New high resolution SACD releases, players and technology.

Re: I'll Have To Get It Just To See If I Agree

After starting this thread, I went out and picked up a couple of the Sam Cooks, which seem to be among the LAST sacd's hanging around the CD racks in the local BB and Coconuts. These were among the first sacd's released, I think, and the initial reactions were less than enthusiastic. Perhaps the expectation level at that stage was a bit unrealistic for pop recordings of Cook's vintage. Anyway, I became curious about them, especially since they are no long in production, as far as I know (perhaps someone can correct me here).

I have "Live at the Copa," "Keep Moving On," and "Ain't that Good News."

I have not had time to give them a thorough and careful audition. But I have to say, I am impressed with the quality of these recordings.

No, they are not as good as the better Groovenotes or Cheskys or DMPs etc. But they are surprisingly good. They DO sound a bit creaky and congested here and there, as pop recordings of this era often do. And they are NOT in the class of, say, Verve's "Ella and Louis," a very fine vintage recording. But they have surprising depth and staging on some tracks.

I think they are well worth owning. The music is, well, infectious and nostalgic. And Cook's voice and style, like Nat Cole's, never dims.

But I don't think you will rush to any of these records to show off your system's capabilities. That is to say, they are not demo quality, in my opinion. But then, with so many pop recordings, then as now, making an heirloom recording probably was not priority, unlike the high seriousness which often prevailed with many vintage classical recordings, where the record producers felt an obligation to capture Van Cliburn, say, or in the instance of some jazz recordings, where it was clearly felt that what was being recorded was important.

Now I have only given the Cook's a kind of first pass, even skipping here and there. But, I am surprised that someone could count any one of these as a "top three" sacd recording. If I change my mind over the coming days, I report back.




This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  VH Audio  


Follow Ups Full Thread
Follow Ups


You can not post to an archived thread.