Cool!

Exlabdriver,

i just listened to 2 organ recordings in quick succession:
1: Biggs' The Four Great Toccatas & Fugues and
2: Cameron Carpenter's Revolutionary

I listened only to Toccata and Fugue in d-minor.

Biggs' recording plays well at Ref. Level -6 dB and
Carpenter's recording at Ref. Level -3 dB.

I find the playing styles are very different, but i like Carpenter much more.
The acoustics are very different between the two; and i like that of Biggs' venue more. it's more airy with better acoustics and the noise level is lower too.
With the Biggs recording we can hear the church more, and with the Carpenter recording, we hear less of the church and more of the organ.
Playing Biggs's cd with Neural, it gives a wide sound stage and excellent acoustics; but Neural is no surround, even if i find it gives quite often the best surround with stereo recordings, compared to DPL IIx movie or music. i haven't tried DTS Neo:6 yet.

The biggest technical difference between the two recordings is the Biggs recording that does not seem to play the very low frequencies, as if they had been filtered out for the CD.
not once did i feel or hear deep tones.
when one has heard Cameron's recording, the other recording seems like the whole basement is missing.
Compared to Biggs' recording, the Cameron is like a giant beast that can eat you up in no time. Biggs' sounds a bit mousy.

on the other hand, i can hear some noise on Carpenter's recording coming from the right side and i think it could be the Rotary sub's fan doing that.

Overall, the Carpenter recording is a clear winner for me.
maybe the SACD has those low frequencies that the CD lacks...but for the price, it's not worth it.

JB:

Thanks for the reviews. The Biggs recordings were done many years ago with the technology of the time - certainly not digital.

Again, from what I've read, the SACD is much more dynamic than the CD; however, I too am not going to pay $300 for one, ha!!

TAM

Check your public library system. I found some SACDs online and had them trasnfered to my local library to borrow and try out when I had my old SACD playing PS3.

What was funny was that one time I went to pick one up and the lirabrian warned me that that it had been returned last time with a note saying it was broken & unplayable. It worked fine for me but wasn't a hybrid so I suspect some people were borrowing them unaware they were not regular CDs.

Then the librabrian shook her hair loose in slow motion and turned out to be surprisingly hot and...... Oh wait. That just happened in my head.

LOL, Murph!

He's got it bad,
he's got it bad,
he's got it bad,

Teacher, librarian, close enough, right?

Right now I'm addicted to this video from Metric. Partly because I'm crushing on Emily Haines, partly because it's a great single camera shot with each band member rotating through each instrument (cool idea), and partly because it's a catchy pop/electro/rock song with great hooks.

Yeah, I like that one. It's been a while since I've seen it. Thanks for reminding me it exists!

Once again, a fantasy about a short-skirted lead singer is ruined by a horde of running kids with angel wings.

I mean, it's so common it's predictable at this point.

Listening to one of the British Invasion stations on live365, great selection of music there.