Abraxas (Sl) [Super Audio CD - DSD]

Santana | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 13, 2001)
• Please Note: Requires SACD-compatible hardware
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Super Audio CD - DSD
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B00005A8GY
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #201,074 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Singing Winds, Crying Beasts

2. Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen

3. Oye Como Va

4. Incident at Neshabur

5. Se Acabo

6. Mother's Daughter

7. Samba Pa Ti

8. Hope You're Feeling Better

9. Nicoya

10. Se a Cabo [Live][#][*]

11. Toussaint L'Overture [Live][#][*]

12. Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen [Live][#][*]

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Sounds Like The CD, August 8, 2003

By 

Richard Fay (Rio Vista, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Abraxas (Sl) (Audio CD)

I had the CD, and thought that the SACD would be incredible, but alas, I've A/B's them and damn if I can tell the difference, and my equipment is quite good.

Be forwarned, if you do have the CD version, don't buy this SACD. You already have what you'd be paying extra for.

24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 5 star album, 1 star for going back to digital PCM master, April 16, 2003

By 

Jason P. Gold (Long Beach, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Abraxas (Sl) (Audio CD)

I have this album on SACD, vinyl, DTS and CD. This SACD sounds identical to the regular CD. The other SACDs and DVD-Audio discs I own absolutely blow the CD and vinyl versions out of the water. To me, it sounds like they went back to the 24 bit/44.1k PCM master used to make the CD rather than to the original analog tapes. No matter how good the SACD format can sound, it cannot produce sound better than the source material. Garbage in, garbage out!

The DTS version is also not worth purchasing as they forgot the bass. Santana's music is very dense, with tons of percussion and Santana's amazing guitar. He is one of the Guitar Gods! No one can get into the meaning of a note the way he can. The bass is needed to balance and ground the music and gives it a primal feel. It is sorely missed on the DTS version.

This is probably Santana's best album. The music is 5 star all the way. It, and the public, deserve better. Buy the CD, save the extra 5 to 10 bucks and be happy until it is done properly.

To the reviewer who says "the SACD version blows away the CD version only if you have the right equipment," I have a near audiophile HT theater system consisting of a Yamaha C-750 DVD-A/SACD player, a Harman/Kardon Signature 2.0/2.1 pre/amp coupled to HK Citation 13 main speakers (the larger precursors to Shahinian Accoustic' ARC speakers) with a Velo sub. (Since writing this, I "upgraded" my speakers and sub to Infinity Kappa 9s with a dual 12" Infinity sub and Kapp 7.1 surrounds with no change of opinion.) To me, with the right equipment, the SACD still sounds identical to the CD.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Poor quality SACD, December 21, 2002

By 

jamescroak (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Abraxas (Sl) (Audio CD)

This album contains some of the finest work of Santana, unfortunately this Super-Audio CD does not sound like a Super-Audio CD, it sounds like an older compressed and clipped format, barely a Redbook CD. Obviously it was not transfered from the original tapes because it contains none of the space and hyper-resolution one expects of a SACD. If you already own the standard CD of this fine music, don't bother switching because the sound engineers wholly failed at their job on this one.