Best Living Stereo SACDs to start a collection

I have no classical music in my music collection but have read quite a bit about Living Stereo's SACDs. So I was wondering what many here think are Living Stereo's better recordings to have. I think I would like to stay away from the opera based titles but I'm open to that as well. What are the best places to buy these SACDs? Thanks in advance for any suggestions .

Bill

 

From what I've read, they're all good sonically. Plus, they're cheap, so I'm not sure you can go wrong with any of them. I have a handful of them, and they all sound good to me.

Amazon has them.

How many titles were released on SACD?

 

Have fun!

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=200306

 

Fifty-four of them...

 

Keith and Marcel,

Thanks for your thoughts. I just ordered the two titles linked below. I look forward to trying a new type of music .

Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue - Fiedler

Ravel: Bolero, La Valse, Rapsodie Espagnole - Munch

Bill

 

I am not sure I would make a blanket positive recommendation for all Living Stereo SACDs. Some are definitely better than others, depending on how and where the performances were originally recorded. If you enjoy Waltzes, buy this one ASAP:

http://www.amazon.com/Vienna-Hybrid-Johann-Junior-Strauss/dp/B000E1NWK0/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1315017875&sr=1-1

It's my favorite of the 30 or so Living Stereo SACDs I've heard.

 

Get onto SACD.net then list titles by 'top recommendations' then select 'classical' genre.
Try the first few Living Stereos listed and go from there, they are all exceptional. There are links from there to Amazon but I have also bought many at cheaper prices from Import CD. The reviews on SACD.net are also helpful, if you get hooked there are a lot of other well priced SACDs, a lot OOP but still readily available.
2 yrs ago I had only a couple of classical CDs, now have over 200 SACDs (include 35 Living Stereos). I tried a couple of opera but it doesn't do it for me.

 

The 'Pictures at an Exhibition' is one of the good ones.

 

Copeland Billy the Kid
The operas sound nice too
Julian Bream

 

Some of them are absolute milestones of classical music recordings for the ages:

Debussy: La Mer etc/Munch
Ravel: Bolero etc/Munch
Brahms/Tchaikovsky: Violin concerti/Heifetz
Tchaikovsky/Piano cto no 1/Cliburn
Rimsky Korsakov/Sheherazade/Reiner
Berlioz/Symphonie Fanatastique/Munch
Sibelius/Violin concerto/Heifetz
Bartok/Reiner
Mussorgsky/Pictures at an exhibition/Reiner
Strauss/Also Sparach Zarathustra/Reiner
Strauss/Don Quixote/Reiner
Ravel/Daphnis et Chloe/Munch
Saint-Saens, Franck/Rubinstein
Offenbach/Fiedler
Vienna/Reiner
Spain/Reiner

Proceed!

 

These are the titles that I have. Just a handful. They sound great, but I don't have other versions for comparison.

* Boston Symphony Orchestra/Munch Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D/Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E Minor

* Boston Symphony Orchestra/Munch Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3/Debussy: La Mer, Ibert: Escales

* Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Reiner Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra, Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, Hungarian Sketches

* Van Cliburn Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 / Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2

* Modest Mussorgsky (Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Fritz Reiner, Conductor) Pictures at an Exhibition/A Night on Bald Mountain

* Arthur Rubinstein Chopin: Ballades/Scherzos

 

These two are must haves IMO.

 

Based on Steve's comments in the other Living Stereo thread, I ordered the Leontyne Price disc from Amazon a little while ago. It was just $10.

 

You're very welcome.

Bill, I don't have the Gershwin yet, but I own the Ravel disc: it's terrific!
Welcome to the RCA Living Stereo SACD world! You're in for a treat

 

RiRiIII's list is a great one, get all of them.

 

Great list! I already owned quite a few titles and I've just ordered 3 more.

 

I only have a handful and I've tried to get what I thought would appeal to me the most. It's kinda hard when I don't know much about classical music. The ones I've gotten have already been mentioned but I'll give my recommendation as well. Somewhere on the forum Steve gives Billy The Kid a high recommendation.

 

Good price. I ordered it for $13 shipping included.

 

If you have a Frys in your area,I'd check there.I was recently at a Frys and they had a bunch of the Living stereo sacd titles for $9.99.

 

The Living Stereo CD (not SACD) 60 disc box is still available from Amazon for $137.00 with free shipping. For the price this is worth considering in place of the SACDs.

http://www.amazon.com/Living-Stereo...=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1315067547&sr=1-1

 

The 60 disc box set is great. I just spent some time listening to some of it on my friends new Polk Monitor 70/ Cambridge Audio 650 integrated with a 5 changer Yamaha cd player.

I have about 35 of the SACD's from the collection and if I could do it all over I would have bought the box set. Also the box set includes an awesome sampler.

 

I managed to buy this today in a charity shop for only £1.50 without even realising it was a SACD! The price sticker was obscuring the only visible SACD logo!

Perversely neither of my Pioneer universal players will play the SACD layer on hybrid discs. Weird.

 

Bill Frissell's 1992 CD Have a Little Faith covers Copeland's Bill the Kid. What a recording!

 

RiRiIII,

Thanks for posting that list ! I will use it as a guide when I order future titles.

Bill

 

David,

Good advice as this is how I picked the two titles I ordered. I looked for those with 5 stars and went with the ones from the Boston Symphony. Being from Boston I thought it was the right thing to do .

Bill