Search - Band :: Northern Lights: Southern Cross (Omr)

Northern Lighs and Feeling Crossed

Gilbert J. Mullen | Edmonton | 08/13/2010

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I was looking very much forward to hearing the Band on SACD. A few years ago I picked up Capitol's DVD Audio version of Big Pink and the sound on the disk was outstanding. I have a higher end system - Cambridge Audio 650 BC player that plays SACD, good Pioneer Amp and Revel speakers. This product is very well packaged. Nice Digipack, extra photos, inserts talking about the Gain 2 and Ultradisc Ultra High Resolution technologies used in the creation of the disk, limited edition serial number on the back. As I said, nice package.

Unfortunately the PR was vastly better than the sound on the disk. The disk is Stereo and quite faint - I had to crank up the volume quite a bit just to hear it. There are no long lost treasures that you'll hear for the first time as is often the case with other SACD reissues. My vinyl copy of this from the mid 70's sounds almost as good. There are so many examples of the marvelous things people can do with SACD - Roxy Music Avalon, Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon, Billy Joel The Stranger, Elton John's early albums, Willy Nelson Stardust. These guys didn't do any of that.

If you want to spend far more than you should on a very ordinary sounding disk - this is your chance. The packaging is the best part of this effort."