I'm not a classical music aficionado, but I own several Tacet surround discs, including the DVDA of Bach's six Brandenburg Concertos and the SACD of Beethoven's 7th & 8th Symphonies. I won't comment on the performance of these pieces because I'm not an expert, but I will say that I enjoy them both very much. An expert might say, "They took that passage too quickly...", but I'm not that guy.
As far as surround presentation of classical music goes, if you want something beyond the "instruments in the front, ambience in the back" aesthetic of most classical surround recordings, you simply
cannot go wrong with Tacet recordings. That being said, you won't get the level of "discreteness" that you get from, for example, the L.A.G.Q.; these are ensemble recordings, so there is ALWAYS bleed from other channels. So you can shove your face in front of the right rear speaker, for example, and hear a lot of what's going on in the front speakers, but when that trumpet comes in it's gonna blow your head off. It is a lot like - well, pretty much exactly like, I would imagine - standing in the middle of the room when the recordings were made.
After seeing blue.monk's request for opinions, I revisited the two aforementioned discs before writing this post. Specifically, I listened to the 2nd Brandenburg concerto and Beethoven's 7th symphony. If I am critical, regarding the 2nd Brandenburg, I will say that at times the piccolo trumpets in the right rear are a little harsh, and the oboes in the left rear are a little harsh. That being said, as a surround fan, sometimes something
overwhelming in the rears is better than something
underwhelming (i.e., ambience).
All that being said, nothing describes these discs better, in my opinion, than the first two pages of liner notes, which I've posted below:
Personally, I like the fact that Tacet uses the six Brandenburg concertos as demos of different surround arrangements. This alone is a pretty cool feature!
Let me finish by saying that I don't have a preference for DVDA, vs. SACD, vs. Bluray. If I had to choose, I'd choose Bluray because it appears to have a more promising future. The fact that I have the DVDA of the Brandenburg concertos and the SACD of Beethoven's 7th & 8th has more to do with the deal I found on eBay rather than a preference for one format over another.
Okay, one more thing: I'm not a wealthy person by any stretch of the imagination, and I don't have expensive gear, but these discs make my listening room sound like I'm the richest man alive.
