I'm on the second run through his debut album "Elton John".
There is a stunning richness in songs like "Your Song" and "First Episode at Hienton"; Buckmaster's strings are very nice on "Sixty Years On", as is the acoustic guitar.
Elton's voice has a very slight touch of brightness in harder, rockier numbers like "Take Me to the Pilot" and "The Cage". He can push the falsetto up, living in the top end of his range; I can see how this may not work so well on systems that are slightly hard in the treble.
On "Border Song", there doesn't seem to be much weight in his left hand, but there is good mid-bass in the drumming. Once again, his voice is ever so slightly thin, although the backing vocals seem OK.
The cymbals on "The Cage" seem pretty splashy; slightly thin sound here, not much midrange. Once again on "The King must Die", the high-hat is pushy, but the ride cymbal is nice.
This SACD has the same three bonus songs as were on the Rocket reissue.
I can understand now how some have criticized these for being too bright. There is a fair bit of energy up top and if you don't have good control of the treble in your system, this SACD could make you a little unhappy. This SACD is not warm and cozy, but it's pretty exciting and revealing.
I don't have a comparison point here - but for Madman and others I have MFSL UDIs (Japan) to contrast against the SACDs. I'll have another crack at this thread later.
Regards,
