A friend brought last night a bunch of new Harmonia Mundi SACDs and we were terribly disappointed. Please note that we didn’t listen complete disks(all of them labelled as Multi-Ch), but sampled quite a lot of each and the general impression is that someone who wasn’t sure what the surround sound is all about was playing with his mixer, but didn’t know what to do with it (I’m sure you all gathered by now that we prefer our SACDs in MC). We were so looking forward to HM SACDs, knowing how good their red book (especially those labelled as USA Production) CDs are well produced. The titles we sampled (and WON’T be buying) are Hildegard von Bingen: 11,000 Virgins - Anonymous 4 and Missa Mexicana - The Harp Consort. Both of them sounds just like good stereo, nothing more. Missa Mexicana is more focused on CD layer, when you switch to SACD MC it’s pretty much awful. Which is a shame, as that music provides such opportunities with all its noises and sounds for really good surround effects. 11,000 Virgins being a church music has no space around it, let alone any boldness or spirituality. 2 SACDs we decided to keep are Mozart: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik - English Concert/Manze which is much better recorded with surround sound in mind, but back channels are still too shy for our taste; and Bach: Christmas Cantatas from Leipzig - Herreweghe – the same verdict on the recording. The performances are great, and that is the main reason for keeping them. Once again, please keep in mind that this is a purely a personal dislike based on our addiction to surround sound. We’d recommend ‘try-before-you-buy’ approach.
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