Paavo Berglund's Sibelius on Hybrid Stereo SACD

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luketsu

Active Member
Joined
Jan 23, 2016
Messages
68
Hello everybody!

You might be interested on this: http://hraudio.net/showmusic.php?title=12385. My favourite Sibelius symphony cycle on SACD - at last! The recordings have been remastered in 96 kHz / 24 bit and furthermore to DSD using original analogue tapes as a source. Unfortunately although most of these took advantages of 4-channel surround sound mix the present SACD reissue includes DSD stereo and CD Audio layers only.

Any comments?
 
Unfortunately, this is part of the Tower Records Definition Series of SACDs which are exclusive to Tower Japan, and since Tower do not ship outside of Japan, the only solution is to use a reseller, either Buyee/Tenso or you could try and ask CDJapan to stock it through their reselling service.

The price (¥9,504/US $85/£64), along with its limited availability, is going to make imports even more scarce, so if you're at all interested, you'll more than likely have to buy yourself a copy.

EDIT: I see the Berglund set has apparently been imported by Amazon.com, too, but their current lack of information is a bit strange, so I would not pay for it from them, especially given their outrageous $143 price. ImportCDs claims to have it backordered for less than $80 currently, which is a steal, so I would give it a try.

Happily, I can confirm that I bought one of these releases from Buyee, and I think they are really well done, even the packaging is very nice, as the multi-disc set is comprised of sturdy jewel-case-style (i.e. with disc hubs) digipacks in a sturdy slipcase. For example, here is an "exploded" packshot of what the Berglund release looks like:

21_1102_03.jpg

You can see more information on the Berglund release in the Tower Japan news article translated to English here.
 
I got this set on RBCD for $14 new a few years back, and have enjoyed it. However, given all the wonderful cycles out there in high-res, I can't imagine this is competitive except for die-hards of this cycle. You can get the Colin Davis cycle on SACD and Blu-ray in one box for $20 new (a no-brainer imo), or the Maazel cycle for $40 new on CD and BD in stereo only.
 
Is the Sibelius cycle a Stereo only set? I have the impression that the other SACDs listed on the Tower page may be Stereo only.
 
Is the Sibelius cycle a Stereo only set? I have the impression that the other SACDs listed on the Tower page may be Stereo only.

As far as I can tell, all of these releases are stereo (or if necessary, mono) only, including the Sibelius set.
 
As far as I can tell, all of these releases are stereo (or if necessary, mono) only, including the Sibelius set.

Hi,

Sorry, not SACD but I have (inherited form my mom actually) the complete set, IIRC at least 7 vinyl LP's, and not all of that was mastered in SQ. Almost all of it, all the major symphonies for sure, but not the Karelia suite and some of the other recordings where Paavo Berglund was conducting the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in the early 1970's. That set was the initial reason I decided I had to get an SQ decoder in the first place.

I am very recent to SQ and got an Involve Audio Surround Master SQ decoder that I have used with both my modern 5.1 system and a vintage (B&O) 4.0 amp. I was also trying to find a thread I had read earlier (I had been lurking for years) about SQ working from any source. That is if the audio is SQ mastered it will work in SQ regardless if the signal is coming form vinyl, FM broadcast, reel-to-reel tape, cassette, CD, SACD, DVD or DVD-A or something else. So my first tests showed that pretty much all 1970's recordings from CBS, Columbia, Epic etc. that were mastered in SQ back ion the day also work in SQ from the 1980´s and 1990´s regular CD's I have. That's great! I don't have to buy all of them again. ;)

Cheers!
 
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