1-28-13 The Doors re-masters
January 27th: Happy birthday, Nick Mason (of The Pink Floyd), born 1945. On 1/27/73 The Sweet “Blockbuster” 45 and Slade “Slayed?” LP were No. 1 in England; on 1/28/78 Fleetwood Mac “Rumours” LP was No. 1 in England; 1/28/89 XTC “Mayor of Simpleton” 45 charts at No. 44 in England; on 1/26/80 John Foxx ”Underpass” 45 charts at No. 31 in England. On 1/28/67 The Rolling Stones 45 “Ruby Tuesday” b/w “Let’s Spend The Night Together” charts at No. 3 in England. Happy birthday, Robert Wyatt! (Born 1945).
Here’s an expensive ‘aesthetic’ call; 6 x Doors albums that matter are being re-done as multi-channel SA-CD’s. Great! But…but…I already have them as multi-channel DVD-A’s! And the SA-CD’s cost about 3 times as much as the DVD-A’s cost.
I prefer SA-CD’s over DVD-A’s, too. Well, for one thing: you don’t have to wade through an on-screen menu with an SA-CD!
But, y’know, The Doors are a group that I like. I have real original LP’s of all of their initial releases; I’m working on finding all of the original 45’s, too – I’m not there yet. I already passed on a Japanese SA-CD of the debut album, at the time, I was thinking: I’ve got an original LP, a newly mastered CD and a DVD-A of this album. The Japanese SA-CD would’ve cost over $35. Not as issue, the price – but – at what point is it superfluous overkill?
For my digital Doors, I continue to keep the Paul A. Rothchild mastered CD’s; I got the “Perception” CD + DVD-A boxed set. My analogue Doors collection is ‘good’, well taken care of. I ought to be able to close the door on this one, eh? No, never bothered with Japanese paper sleeve CD’s, though I suppose I could try and find a set of ‘em.
Yes, I am committed to the SA-CD format, and I’m glad that Analogue Productions is stepping up and cranking them out. But, I’d rather they do titles that I don’t already have as multi-channel DVD-A’s!
And because all of ‘em are multi-channel, it’s not like I could have an issue with: It’s a multi-channel disc, so I can’t make a computer (or analogue) copy, if necessary. The “Perception” boxed set also came with newly mastered CD’s. And if I don’t like the sound of the newer mastering, I can go back to my original LP’s, which do sound amazing.
The Analogue Productions SA-CD boxed set of 6 is $279.99; $46 a disc? I’m used to SA-CD’s being $29.99, like all of the recent Mobile Fidelity titles (Bob Dylan & The Band “Basement Tapes”, anyone?).
Ronkanefiles's Blog 
They’re not priced for you, Ron. They’re for hedge fund managers who want to relive their “wild youth.”