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intereact!Norah Jones
Retail Price (not our price): $18.98
Release Date: 2003-06-10
Manufacturer: Blue Note Records
Format: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Track List
Now here, for your listening pleasure, the tracks...
| Disc 1 |
Editorial Reviews (supplied by Amazon.com):
1) Amazon.com
Norah Jones Photos (by Danny Clinch)More from Norah JonesNot Too LateFeels Like HomeThe Little Willies
Customer Reviews (supplied by Amazon.com):
Average Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5
1) Simply outstanding [Rating: 5 out of 5]
I've listened to this in standard stereo CD, SACD stereo and SACD multi channel. SACD stereo sounds much better with this. She's sitting there right in front of me. I love the music and they did a superb job on the 2 channel SACD. Out of about 30 or so SACD's (and 400 CD's) I have this is one of my favs.2) The multi-channel mix is awful. [Rating: 3 out of 5]
As noted in another review, the multi-channel is absolutely awful. It's as if the bass is eq'd out of the mix. Honestly, it's completely unlistenable in my opinion. Thankfully the two channel SACD mix is fine. For that reason, I'm still glad that I bought it because I enjoy this album quite a bit.3) Cd Music [Rating: 5 out of 5]
I was really looking forward to this cd, but unfortunatally I didnt receive it.4) This version should be pulled. [Rating: 3 out of 5]
One of the requirements of SACD releases, as set forth by Sony and Phillips, is that there be at least an SACD (DSD) stereo layer. The surround DSD and hybrid Red Book PCM CD compatible layers are optional. As the previous reviewer mentioned, the stereo DSD layer on this release was taken from the Red Book 16/44.1 PCM master used to make the CD layer. So Blue Note skirted a basic requirement of the format they were releasing on by deceptively scamming consumers into thinking they were getting a true SACD. As far as anyone knows, however, the surround SACD layer was taken directly from the 2 inch multitrack and sampled to DSD, then remixed and mastered to the SACD surround layer. I haven't heard anything to the contrary. As it stands right now, I agree with Fremer that Blue Note should simply apologize, pull the current release, rerelease a proper SACD, and give past purchasers a free exchange. I listened to the surround layer at my parents house in Oregon and was pleased at the music and sound quality. I do think it is overall a bit emotionally monotonal and placid though, as the recent SNL (or was it Mad TV) spoof parodied. But I think people who buy it are looking for that. Still enjoyable.Let me clear up some of the misconceptions floating around:Keep your universal DVD player set up internally for 5.1 channel with all channels on at fixed volume (usually max output), set to large, and your reciever/preamps on Surround Direct Analog with no digital conversion...then pray that you have a DVD player and reciever that doesn't do anything else funky. All of the older Denon universal units really messed with the sound. If you're still not getting good bass, then you need full range speakers. Never ever have speakers turned off or set to small in your DVD player when listening to SACD's. In fact, you shouldn't even do this with stereo CDs, since you'll mess up the dynamic range that the outputs are working at. Most universal players use the original Sony DSD chip, which has a little port that connects to the DAC. Contrary to popular belief, SACD is not converted to DVD-Audio (PCM as opposed to the PWM of DSD) when it goes into that little port. That just sends the analog signal to the filter stage to lop off the high frequency noise. The only conversion that will ever occur is if you try and do bass management, which will kick the Sony converter chip into what's called Wide-DSD...a euphamism for a form of very high frequency PCM, also called Narrow PCM. It's still PCM, it's just that Sony doesn't like to call it that. So, keep everything On, Large, and Fixed in the player and Pure Analog Direct after it gets out and you'll probably be fine. Do volume changes in the reciever in the analog domain.I also wouldn't trust the new players that convert everything to SACD internally to do bass management. It's another form of Wide-DSD. Why? Because you can't do computations with a 1-Bit format. You can't mix in SACD or produce in that format until you either convert it to analog or PCM. You can only record/master live to each descrete 1-Bit DSD channel, then you're stuck with it as is. All the SACD recording consoles are actually this psuedo-DVD-Audio format internally, though they likely sound quite good. To get true DSD through and through you either record/produce to analog tape, or you mix live, which is probably why Telarc likes the format so much.PCM has good points and bad. PWM has good points and bad, too. They're both very low noise, but PCM tends to sound a bit artificial and lacking in that organic body of analog. PWM is hella organic and analog-like (probably due to its psuedo-analog 1-bit nature), but embeds subtle quantization noise within the signal permanently, often leaving it sounding not quite as transparent and Oh-My-God-clear and pristine as DVD-Audio at 192khz. Some engineers claim that the high frequencies are inferior in transient response to even normal Red Book CD, but transients are so difficult to measure, Red Book so rife with other problems, and DSD does so well in all the other departments (including other characteristics of its highs) that I find it to be a non-issue. At least you get SACD on all the channels in 5.1, definitely as good or better than 24/96. The last thing you want is conversion back and forth between the two formats internally; then you get the worst of both worlds. Remember that DSD was invented for archival purposes to permanently store the Columbia Records inventory. The archival format's actually twice the bitrate of consumer SACD, so it likely sounds as lovely as is claimed.5) Poor Example of SACD [Rating: 2 out of 5]
My rating of 2 stars applies to the SACD version of this record and not the CD. I consider the CD to be a 5 star recording. After carefully listening to both the two channel SACD mix and the CD stereo versions I could not discern an audible difference. I enjoyed the 5.1 mix and found the rear surround to be tasteful and subtle, not at all distracting, but, again, no significant improvement in detail except that created by spreading the sound around to five channels. A recent article on the "Stereophile" website suggests that the SACD mix in fact shares the same 16 bit lineage as the CD, which would explain why the two channel mix and the CD mix sound identical. Norah's label has cheated its customers with this one and should go back and do an actual DSD mix and replace these "CDs" for free or give us our money back. There is no reason to purchase this SACD in addition to or in lieu of the CD unless you are interested in listening to a standard resolution 5.1 mix.