The Seventh Taylor
Joined: 17 Aug 2007 Posts: 401
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Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 11:54 pm Post subject: Joe Jackson 'Body and Soul' on SACD |
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No, Joe Jackson's 'Body and Soul' album has not been released on SACD; not even announced. I know A&M Records don't release SACDs anymore (they have, for instance all albums by The Police) but I couldn't help wondering if it would be a good candidate for release on SACD.
I got triggered by the recent announcement of the identically styled 'Sonny Rollins Vol. 2' (on hybrid mono SACD by Analogue Productions).
It's been ages since I last played Body & Soul (it must have been one of my earliest CDs, bought well over 20 years ago) but I remembered something about its audiophile recording approach. I recalled (incorrectly) something about a direct-to-two-track recording.
I've checked the booklet and it tells about the artist's and producer's dissatisfaction with the "contrived sound of too many modern recordings" and the sterile atmosphere of many modern recording studios. This album then was recorded in an ancient Masonic Lodge in New York City, often used by neighbouring Vanguard Studios for classical recordings. The story goes on about the use of a pair of vintage Neumann M-50 microphones 15 feet in the air, the whole band being close-miked and the hall sound carefully controlled. All sounds fabulous so far.
But here's the catch: To "faithfully reproduce the hall ambience with no tape hiss" they employed a 3M 32-track digital recording system. In 1983 or '82. So now I wonder: How good can it really be? Is there any depth in there that SACD can reproduce that RBCD cannot? What resolution was used then? Red Book? 48kHz? 88.2 kHz perhaps? And what bit depth -- anything beyond 16 bits? |
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