I saw these in the Japanese pre-order listings a while back. Will these be the same masterings that are coming out there?

The fact that only Pet Sounds includes a multichannel mix makes me think that APO worked from what had already been done for the DVD-A many years ago. There's almost no centre channel information in that one (it's technically 5.1 but sounds more like 4.1), so we'll have to see how this new SACD turns out. (The DVD-A sounds incredible, BTW. Spine-tingling.)

Multichannel mixes would have been welcome on all the albums for which multitracks exist, but ... again, I'm guessing that they didn't do much "new" work on these. I welcome the upgrades to hi-res, though.

Getting "Holland" in SACD is a no brainer for me. Since we have a new re-mastering engineer replacing Mark Linnet I am willing to look at the other titles as well. If the consensus is positive, I will then most likely upgrade "slowly" throughout 2015.

Rick A.

Mono Beach Boys' fan?

You should like all three of us.

Are we ever going to get the remaining Beach Boys albums remixed/remastered in a fiftieth anniversary fashion (Wild Honey, etc.)?

I would say No Dave now that another label has the rights for reissue.

Rick A..

I'm looking forward to a Sunflower SACD, but I'm happy with my CDs for everything else (beyond Pet Sounds where I also have the DVD)

The vocals on Pet Sounds DVD-A in 5.1 are what makes it special for me. The backing musicians seem like an afterthought in the mix. Brian had an incredible voice. His vocals on don't talk put your head on my shoulder are incredible.

The first 5 in this series are out now.

I debated getting the DVD-A back in the day, but ultimately declined.

Now we'll be getting a high-res Blu-ray version and I'm glad I waited.

Chris, from an audio perspective there is little - no difference between dvd-a & blu. The difference will largely be in the mastering.

To clarify, here's our thread for the forthcoming Blu-ray Audio of Pet Sounds, which is an entirely separate release from the SACD in this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=91333

I'll take hi-res in any of the three physical formats, but ideally, the labels would all be rallying behind Blu-ray. (I have some hope that AF, MoFi and APO will all go Blu at some point down the line.)

Why do you prefer br? As far as audio goes, I don't see a difference.

I don't believe there's an audible difference either. But I want optical hi-res to succeed on a wide scale so that everything we want will end up being available that way. The two old formats, SACD and DVD-A, are niche products for people like us on the ICE boards. Blu-ray, OTOH, has a huge mainstream installation base. Much easier to market hi-res audio discs to people who already have the equipment to play them on.

Do most of the inexpensive br players not do SACD & DVD-A? If so, I get your point.

The inexpensive ones are mostly BD, DVD, CD and sometimes they recognise digital file formats too. Even my beloved Onkyo hasn't made a mid-priced universal player in the Blu-ray era, you have to go higher.

I prefer the BD format over all the others. The higher capacity of the discs allows for higher sampling/bit ratios, multiple surround formats, and High Definition video. The next generation of BD will support 4K resolution and be backward compatible. Any BD player can read, decode or pass through the content via HDMI. One cable, nice and simple. And though technically not legal because of the DMCA, the discs are rippable (is that a word?) for portable personal use. You can't get that with SACD DSD.

100% agree
I also want BluRay to be the format for high res audio as there are so many players out there compared to SACD and especially DVD-Audio which only has limited players in the market

There is when you're listening to the DVD-V soundtrack because you don't have a DVD-A player.

SACD is rippable, but the skill level required is beyond my ability.

AFAIK a PS3 with original firmware, in addition to some open source software, is required to do so. I have updated the firmware of my original PS3 far beyond returning it back to the original state. It still plays SACD's though.

YEP. + there is a limited number of players that will play the rips (at least in SACD format as opposed to flac), & my understanding is there is a DSD->PCM->DSD conversion required, which can't help with the sound quality!