Introduction

As I was saying in the first instalment of this column, what ends up in this space is subject to what happens on the market out there. This time, something quite significant has happened: one of the “contenders” has scored a huge marketing operation, finally succeeding in entering the mainstream shelves in record stores, and abandoning for a while those dedicated to specialty products, gaining one of the main positions in those shelves. It was the format that everybody – except for its proponents – were deeming as stillborn at its inception, to score, SACD, and the marketing operation is named The Dark Side of The Moon.
I think three among my four readers have already had enough of this reissue, but, if they want to follow me, they will have to enjoy my take on it, since I have decided to take advantage of this space to voice my opinion.
To tell the truth, this is not the first time SACD has succeeded in gaining a place on mainstream shelves: last year, ABKCO have reissued all of their Rolling Stones back catalogue on hybrid SACDs.
The market awareness, though, wasn’t nearly the same, as there is no mention on the covers that the average consumer is buying a hybrid, and only the digipack versions, which are quite difficult to find down here, are actually hybrids. And then, you must consider how “big” the record is: there is no doubt that The Dark Side of the Moon can sell much more than any ABKCO/Decca Rolling Stones title, and maybe it can sell alone more than all of them together.

The object

I quite don’t know why, EMI have decided to redo the artwork. The old black cover would have been fine enough to me.
The reissue shows the usual prism triangle on blue instead of black, and a luxury booklet, which includes the full lyrics and thirty pictures, photographs and reproductions.
These portray the members of the group, the covers and the labels of the previous issues of the record (including the USSR original edition) and some memorabilia (a poster for a Wish You Were Here era concert, the triangle on a Latin American bar sign).
The SACD/CD label is similar to the new cover in color. It’s a nice outcome, but I think that some die-hard will not agree – big time. A round sticker, slapped on the standard (it’s not a rounded corner one as it is now usual for hybrid SACDs) jewel-box, states that this is an SACD/CD, with 5.1 and stereo high resolution tracks, compatible with normal CD players; the same is written on the back cover.

The record

I have to admit I have never been a great fan of this record. In my teens, I have been an ardent Floyd fan for some time, but even then I preferred other records to this one (namely, the first one, Meddle and Atom Heart Mother). Then I became the acoustical music Taliban (with a preference for Western classical music) that I am still nowadays.
So what I am saying doesn’t worry me the least: the comparison I did between the SACD reissue and my vinyl copy (a second Italian pressing) can’t, in my opinion, give a significant taste of the abilities of SACD (or maybe it can, but in a marginal way).
The reason is that this is a strongly manipulated recording, even willingly distorted in some passages, and overdubbed to death through systems that today appear somewhat crude.
The Dark Side is one of the first instances (anticipated, in this, by some of the late Beatles records) in which recording techniques and sound quality are parts of an artistic unit which includes the musical content.
You can’t evaluate it in the same way you would do with a recording of real instruments in a real environment – you can only extrapolate.
This is why I think this marketing operation (which is, I think, to ascribe to Sony/Philips and not to EMI, in view of this latter’s lukewarm attention to the new digital formats) is an attempt to make the average consumer aware of the fact that there is something better than CD around, and not a proof of SACD’s superiority, which will come later.

Yes, but…

“Enough of this stuff”, you will be saying, “how do you think it sounds?” I think everybody who has even a slight interest in new digital formats will have their personal opinion, by now (as the record, thirty years after its first issue, has again reached the top positions in the charts). As I was saying before, now you can read mine.
It’s fair to say that my vinyl reproduction system is undoubtedly superior to my SACD player (Scheu Premier with 42cm platter, VPI JMW12 tonearm, currently equipped with my Ortofon SPU Royal N, DACT CT100 phono preamp with choke-regulated PSU against a plain vanilla Sony SCD-777ES) but it’s also fair to say that my vinyl copy is past its prime.
The strange thing is that I had to listen hard in order to explain the differences, also because of the strange characteristics of my vinyl copy. In fact, its side B is more dynamic, faster on transients and even a little bit more natural sounding (if this can be said of this recording) than side A. Because of this, SACD is the winner on side A tracks almost on every subjective parameter, if you exclude a sense of palpability on voices and a slightly broader soundstage. The stereo SACD has a deeper stage, more body on bass, and a high frequency extension getting better and better, compared to vinyl, as the cartridge travels to the inner grooves. For instance, the clocks at the beginning of Time are more detailed and better discriminated on SACD. It might be that, if I had chosen a more rock-friendly cartridge, the gap on bass frequencies reproduction would have been narrower.
On side B, the vinyl version pulls up its act: it is more real sounding at the beginning of Money, the sax is more similar to a real instrument, and, surprise surprise, macro- and micro-dynamics are better reproduced. It’s almost as if SACD levels were “normalized” in the mastering phase to get a “sweeter” sound. I have to admit, though, that SACD is more stable in sound quality, as it doesn’t get worse towards the last tracks – I think my vinyl copy has been mistracked a couple of times too much. Another point in favor of the SACD reissue is the reproduction of the choir in Us And Them, which is cleaner and less distorted, while still being a little bit saturated. I am not convinced, on SACD, by the fact that it seems that a kind of “modernization” of the sound was engineered in the reissue: cymbals are accentuated and they sometimes seem not to be in time, coming that little bit before the rest of the message.
I didn’t have the chance to listen to the multichannel track, which, according to some reports, is the real revolution here.

Bonus: Police

This is the second instance of “SACD goes mainstream” of these days – to be correct, the first one. Issued as a limited edition for the 25 years of the (long gone) group, all of the Police records have been presented in hybrid (for the European market) digipack, and have reached the normal CD shelves in brick’n’mortar stores.
These records have never been particularly good sounding ones, the first two being the worst (the third one is just a bad record). Outlandos D’Amour, compared to my cheap German pressing, is nicely improved. A clever equalization job has been performed to restore a credible tonal balance on this recording, which, on vinyl, is too high-frequency heavy; this, if you add a resolution which is far from state of the art, makes for out-of-control sibilants and splashy cymbals. On SACD it still isn’t an audiophile demonstration recording, but it’s much more enjoyable.
The last two studio records were somewhat better (my vinyl copies are a first Italian pressing for Ghost In The Machine and a first Dutch pressing for Synchronicity). Here, the winner is the vinyl, in particular in Ghost In The Machine, even if by a narrow margin: it’s denser, more natural sounding, and it gives a better idea of a group playing together instead of three separate single players. Still, I can see someone preferring the SACDs, as sibilants are better controlled, in particular on Synchronicity, the one which sounds more similar to Sting’s solo records, notoriously heavy on “sssssses”. Again, I have a perception of a slight emphasis in the temporal domain on cymbals on SACDs; I can’t help but think that this wouldn’t happen with a different SACD player.

Coming soon…

…on these pages: Peter Gabriel’s SACD back catalogue, in stores while you read this writing.