3 Channel Stereo SACDs

[bmoura]

One of the interesting options available on a Super Audio CD is the ability to provide an album with the original 3 Channel Stereo recording on the Multichannel SACD track.

This was used during the early days of SACD in the RCA Living Stereo and Mercury Living Presence SACD Reissue Series discs of Classical Recordings.
(See my HFR articles on this at http://www.highfidelityreview.com/10-rca-living-stereo-sacds-coming-in-september.html and http://www.highfidelityreview.com/m...channel-sacds-due-in-september-in-europe.html)

More recently, the staff at Analogue Productions has started releasing 3 Channel Stereo SACDs of Pop, Jazz and Folk Music albums.
With these albums, top mastering engineers like Kevin Gray and Steve Hoffman take the original 3 Channel Master Tapes and make them available to the listener for the first time.

Here's a list of these 3 Channel SACDs that are worth considering for your SACD collection.
Not a full Surround Sound approach to the music, but a definite enhancement over 2 Channel Stereo.....

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Jazz and Folk Music - 3 Channel Stereo SACDs

• Sam Cooke - Night Beat (Analogue Productions CAPP 2709 SA)
• Miles Davis - 7 Steps to Heaven (Analogue Productions CAPJ 8851 SA)
• Miles Davis - Someday My Prince Will Come (Analogue Productions CAPJ 8456 SA)
• Oscar Peterson - We Get Requests (Analogue Productions VRJ 8606 SA)
• The Weavers - Reunion at Carnegie Hall 1963 (Analogue Productions CAPF 005 SA)

Nat King Cole - 3 Channel Stereo SACDs

• Nat King Cole - Just One of Those Things (Analogue Productions CAPP 903 SA)
• Nat King Cole - Love Is The Thing (Analogue Productions CAPP 824 SA)
• Nat King Cole - The Nat King Cole Story (Analogue Productions CAPP 1613 SA)
• Nat King Cole - St. Louis Blues (Analogue Productions CAPP 993 SA)
• Nat King Cole - The Very Thought Of You (Analogue Productions CAPP 1084 SA)
• Nat King Cole - Where Did Everyone Go? (Analogue Productions CAPP 1859 SA)

 

[ChristopherLees]

dave brubeck time out sacd if you turn off the rear channels

 

[steelydave]

Great job, Brian - I hope you'll keep this list updated. It would be nice to see more non-classical 3 channel SACDs out there!

 

[0tto]

nice to see mr. Hoffman started to acknowledge surround (albeit slightly castrated).
perhaps till the end of this millenia he will become proponent of 5.1

 

[bmoura]

Great job, Brian - I hope you'll keep this list updated. It would be nice to see more non-classical 3 channel SACDs out there!

Thanks, I'll keep an eye out for more.

The next group of 3 Channel Stereo SACDs I'm aware of arrive in October - remasters of the RCA Living Stereo Classical series from Analogue Productions.

I agree on the Non-Classical Living Stereo catalog. If Analogue could get the rights to some of those (http://livingstereo.alongthehall.com/discography6.html) for SACD reissue that would be cool.

The recent Elvis Living Stereo SACDs in 2 Channel SACD from Analogue Productions (Elvis '57, Elvis is Back, 24 Karat Golden Hits) were a notable exception.
http://store.acousticsounds.com/d/84860/Elvis_Presley-24_Karat_Hits-Hybrid_Stereo_SACD
http://store.acousticsounds.com/d/85858/Elvis_Presley-Stereo_57_Essential_Elvis_Volume_2-Hybrid_SACD
http://store.acousticsounds.com/d/84861/Elvis_Presley-Elvis_Is_Back-Hybrid_Stereo_SACD

 

[EMB]

Although I think it *might* have been possible to do ELVIS IS BACK! in 3-channel, not so for '57--that's twin track or something like it--nor 24 KARAT, which has some mono, and would have been a mess equivalent to the 5.1 Elvis that was issued (though far better remastered, to be sure).

The logical 3-channel or 5.1 for Elvis would obviously be his live recordings, or some later albums done with more tracks, like FROM ELVIS IN MEMPHIS or just about any of the '70s studio recordings. Before that, though, not really a lot of benefit to be derived from further separation.

The Nat Cole discs are not only highly regarded but, like the DCC discs, already becoming rather expensive, since Steven's rep precedes him. Fine and talented fellow whom I've known for about a dozen years now, and knew of since around 1982, when his name started popping up on MCA reissues.

ED

 

[bmoura]

The Nat Cole discs are not only highly regarded but, like the DCC discs, already becoming rather expensive, since Steven's rep precedes him. Fine and talented fellow whom I've known for about a dozen years now, and knew of since around 1982, when his name started popping up on MCA reissues.
ED

The Nat King Cole SACDs are still in print. So I'm not sure why they would be going up in price yet.

They are also available as Stereo DSD Downloads - with the 3 Channel Stereo DSD Downloads still to come.
That will be another way to pick them up.

I agree on the quality - I have The Nat King Cole Story done by Kevin Gray, Steve Hoffman and Gus Skinas.
Amazing job, light years ahead of the original album.

 

[EMB]

And I suppose if we get technical (if not literal), Miles' KIND OF BLUE and SKETCHES OF SPAIN and the Doors' 67 debut would also qualify as 3-channel discs, though not marketed as such (I don't count a bit of rear ambience as discrete enough to make them 5.1, even if it is inherent to the tapes).

ED

 

[bmoura]

And I suppose if we get technical (if not literal), Miles' KIND OF BLUE and SKETCHES OF SPAIN and the Doors' 67 debut would also qualify as 3-channel discs, though not marketed as such (I don't count a bit of rear ambience as discrete enough to make them 5.1, even if it is inherent to the tapes).

ED

The Doors is a 4 Channel recording with the rear channels intended for ambience only - much like many of the Chesky Multichannel SACDs.
The 3 Channel Stereo releases are different in that they were originally recorded with Left, Center and Right channels - which couldn't be released in that form until Multichannel formats like Surround SACD arrived.

 

[timbre4]

In the notes in the Perception box,The Doors first album DVD-A "surround" mix is characterized as a four channel tape presented in a 3.1 configuration.

Tracks from 1st album on The Best Of The Doors are terrific fun, everybody needs that one too.

 

[bmoura]

In the notes in the Perception box,The Doors first album DVD-A "surround" mix is characterized as a four channel tape presented in a 3.1 configuration.

Tracks from 1st album on The Best Of The Doors are terrific fun, everybody needs that one too.

Here's how The Doors SACD is described by Analogue Productions:
"The Doors was a 4-track recording. As such, the surround portion of this multichannel mix is intended to be room ambiance."

 

[fredblue]

In the notes in the Perception box,The Doors first album DVD-A "surround" mix is characterized as a four channel tape presented in a 3.1 configuration.

Tracks from 1st album on The Best Of The Doors are terrific fun, everybody needs that one too.

oh yes! the Doors' Best Of Quad is terrific! I know its commonplace (not to mention out there on the naughty old interwebs a-plenty.. ) but I wonder how well it would have done if it had been Rhino Quadio release Number 3... really shows what can be done with 4-channel source material in a 4-speaker Quad presentation.

 

[timbre4]

Here's how The Doors SACD is described by Analogue Productions:
"The Doors was a 4-track recording. As such, the surround portion of this multichannel mix is intended to be room ambiance."

Splitting hairs I suppose but that verbiage implies that one of the four channels was recorded ambiance which is imprecise. We ran out of things to say about having so few tracks to work with, so we made up some rosy prose.

 

[bmoura]

Splitting hairs I suppose but that verbiage implies that one of the four channels was recorded ambiance which is imprecise. We ran out of things to say about having so few tracks to work with, so we made up some rosy prose.

It's more the case that the albums recorded as R,C,L in the 1960's era are being reissued as 3 Channel Stereo. And that is what the music fans asking specifically for 3 Channel Stereo issues are looking for.
I don't think The Doors album was recorded with a hard center channel. On that one, I have always been told that the two rear channels were intended as ambient only. And that's what you get in that mix.

 

[timbre4]

Right, no center channel intended, just a 4 track rock band session. To free up a recording channel for overdubs, some historic decisions about printing a vocal with a specific effect on it. There would be no going back and changing once committed to tape by that track bounce.

Turned out great just provides limited choices afterwards. 8 track recording had to be such a relief.

 

[cupboy]

oh yes! the Doors' Best Of Quad is terrific! ...I wonder how well it would have done if it had been Rhino Quadio release Number 3... really shows what can be done with 4-channel source material in a 4-speaker Quad presentation.

Should have been release Number 1. And Analogue Productions needs to get this out on SACD. It would be a top seller.

 

[bmoura]

Should have been release Number 1. And Analogue Productions needs to get this out on SACD. It would be a top seller.

If they can get the rights to The Best of the Doors that's a possibility. You might want to drop them a note and suggest it.

 

[cupboy]

If they can get the rights to The Best of the Doors that's a possibility. You might want to drop them a note and suggest it.

I think I did that once. I'm just a pawn in the game of life. Maybe a gort would have more influence?