A few years back, ABKCO re released the ENTIRE catalog of the Rolling Stones on SACD. If not for the mundane realities of bills to pay, I would have gone off and promptly purchased the lot of them, but alas, I cannot afford to do that. Instead I made a select few purchases of SACDs. For the Greatest Hits, I started with two SACDs, Big Hits (High Tides and Green Grass) and Through the Past Darkly (Big Hits Vol. 2). It's a good and inexpensive way to get all your favorite songs of the Rolling Stones in the highest fidelity possible.
What is SACD? Super Audio Compact Disc is a proprietary high fidelity format developed by Sony that allows for a better sounding album than compact disc can dream of. Because of major marketing mistakes, it never really took off, but if you are one of the few who owns an SACD player, you will hear a difference in fidelity from the original CD and SACD. The Stones released their catalog in Stereo Hybrid SACDs, which means that each is mixed in its original stereo, and each has a CD layer that can be played on any CD player.
Who are the Rolling Stones? I usually start my review of any artists SACD with background on SACD and the artist. However, honestly, if you don't know who The Rolling Stones are, please go back to the Amish church, you are needed at a barn raising.
Tracks
The album of course slams in with THE Rolling Stones song (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction in full mono. Yup, this track is in mono, just as it was originally recorded, albeit with a bit more power and clarity as the CD, and certainly more than your dog eared LP. The Last Time 's slamming guitars hit hard on this SACD making the early Stones sound as raw as they did when they hit the airways in the late 60s. when I'm watchin my tv and that man comes on and tells me how white my shirts should be!
Each note from the acoustic guitar that starts As Tears go By can be heard resonating alongside Jagger's voice. When the strings come in, they too are distinct.
Clean crisp guitar notes start Time is on my Side and you can hear every note bend. Each instrument is clear as Jagger sings you'll come runnin back.
It's all over now. Wow the bass in the intro to this song seems to have greater depth than I ever remember. because I used to love her, but it's all over now. On Tell Me Jagger sounds a bit like he is singing in a barrel, but Abco wrestles every bit of music out of this song from the original analog masters from strumming guitars to tambourines.
I love the guitar intro to 19th Nervous Breakdown, they just rush in along with the driving bass line. Before I had the SACD I never really heard the bass line behind the guitars, but a deeper clarity is on this remaster. I swear I can hear the distortion on the guitar amps!
A little bit of hiss underlies Heart of Stone but I am sure they did the best with it that they could. The song has a harsh raw sound to it that my old LP never quite conveyed.
Charlie Watt's heavy drums start off Get Off of My Cloud soon joined by frantic guitars and Jaggers screaming vocals I live on the apartment on the 99th floor of my block. Not Fade Away shows off Brian Jones harmonica skills.
Good Times, Bad Times brings us more harmonica, and bluesy guitars and the deep range of Jaggers vocals.
This greatest hits SACD closes with Play with Fire. Again, this softer song does suffer some underlying hiss, but overall, Jagger's voice sounds nice and clear, you can hear the harpischord that gives the song an interesting effect. now she gets her kicks in Stepney, not in Knightsbridge anymore, so don't play with me, cause you're playin with fire.
The fidelity here certainly isn't up to par with more recent SACDs, lets face it, these are the Rolling Stones early hits, and the original analog masters weren't that great. However, this SACD does deliver the raw intensity that was the early Rolling Stones better than any CD release or the original LPs ever did.
For those without SACD players, this is a dual disc, meaning it has a CD layer. The CD layer also sounded great!
Test Equipment The main setup I use is Polk Audio Monitor 70 speakers with a Yamaha 5280 Receiver as a pre amp processor and a Rotel RB 991 200/ch amplifier. For the SACD layer I used a Pioneer Elite 47A Universal DVD player, and for the CD layer I used a Meridian 506.24 CD player.
Summary To get the best possible sound out of the early Rolling Stones ABKCO's SACD release of Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass) does everything it can to deliver the raw "in your face" sound that was the Stones! I can't quite go to five stars for this only because the analog masters weren't all that they could have been, so there was only so much that could be done, but this stereo SACD (with some songs in the original mono recording) is certainly above average and merits four stars.
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