Santana "Borboletta" 7-inch Sony Japan MultiCh SACD coming November 6th, 2024

[jhw59]

Mine's in New York waiting on customs clearance so on the right coast.

 

[Rhinojack]

I checked today and would you believe it went back to Anchorage, and now has arrived in Tennessee.

 

[MikeMonaco]

Mine arrived today via DHL. Will listen later this evening.

I listened to this several times on Tuesday night, and it was a perfect distraction to everything else going on in the world. This is a favorite of mine from way back (stereo LP), and this surround release is excellent. Each speaker has drums, bells, all sorts of bongo percussions everywhere, along with Carlo's otherworldly guitar, fantastic horns and bass. This is definitely a release I'll play again and again.

Note: IMO if you miss going to church on Sunday, playing this album is a pretty good replacement. Very uplifting.

 

[shakti]

Note: IMO if you miss going to church on Sunday, playing this album is a pretty good replacement. Very uplifting.

Very true! All of the Santana albums from 72-74 exhibit some kind of spiritual yearning, but this is the one with the most "Christian" sound if that makes sense. It's probably the gospel tinge to a few of the songs. Singer Leon Patillo was probably at least part of the inspiration behind that, AFAIK he was a devout Christian. But also the inspiration from Earth, Wind & Fire which was creeping into Santana's music (and would be even more evident in 1975-76).

I had a good session with this new release yesterday. It is another bloody fantastic surround release from Sony Japan. I only had one digital version of this, which is the original 80s?90s? European CD release. I don't think there's ever been another CD release, when the Santana remasters came out in the early 2000s they stopped at Welcome. This one absolutely shatters the earlier CD into pieces. Mind you, I am talking about the surround mix. I had high hopes for it, seeing as it was recorded and mixed by Glen Kolotkin and done in 1974, but this exceeded even my high expectations by some margin.
Give and Take was just stunning; it's a pretty dense track with lots of percussion, keyboards, vocals, guitar and saxophone. The immersiveness was off the scale on that one, and the BASS!! Oh my, it's not that it was overpowering, it was just so present and authoritative. I hardly even heard the bass in the stereo mix, but here it thumps with massive authority and really lifted this track.
The only tiny quibble I have is with the track Flor de Canela, which was noticeably weaker in every way...it still had some discrete elements, but it sounded tiny by comparison. The reason is probably that it has a lot of flanging effects and these were retained exactly as on the stereo mix. So most likely they used the stereo mix as a basis for this track, but added some elements in the surrounds. It's not a "fake" surround mix, just noticeably different from the other tracks. Fortunately it is a fairly brief track, so it doesn't detract from my overall enjoyment. Fantastic fidelity, fantastic mix of a great, great album.

 

[rjstauber]

Received my copy today, and I love it! My favorite Santana album, and the Quad mix is superb in my opinion.

I did rip it to an ISO file, and then extracted that and have each track in an individual DSF file. Is there a way to merge some of the tracks together into one track? When I play DSF files from HDD, the playback is not gapless. Actually, non of my surround playback is gapless, now that I think of it, only the stereo playback is gapless (for PCM).

I usually overcome this issue by putting the tracks which merge into each other (like the first four and the last four tracks on "Borboletta") into one file each. Haven't found a way yet to do this, without converting the actual file to PCM. Any ideas?

 

[JediJoker]

I did rip it to an ISO file, and then extracted that and have each track in an individual DSF file. Is there a way to merge some of the tracks together into one track? When I play DSF files from HDD, the playback is not gapless. Actually, non of my surround playback is gapless, no that I think of it, only the stereo playback is gapless (for PCM).

You can use single files-per-album plus CUE files for track selection on many players. When converting from an SACD ISO, you would choose "DSDIFF Edit Master" as the file format. For PCM, you can rip/convert a CD/album to a single file in any lossless/lossy format you wish. When you want to play an album, select the CUE file rather than the audio file and you can then navigate the album like a playlist.

 

[Rhinojack]

I’m inclined to say that Borbolletta is one of the top five best sounding, mixed and produced digital quad recordings I’ve ever heard. I didn’t know the album before this Sony Japan release, and it has already become one of my top favorites. Definitely a show off disc.

 

[jhw59]

Can I give this an 11 please? Simply magnificent, a landmark in surround production. An album I bought upon release and I have owned every format except 8 track yet I hear sounds unfamiliar to me for example Stanley Clarke's magnificent bass churning underneath Promise of a Fisherman.

 

[jefe1]

There is nothing to complain about this SACD. If you don't like the music fine but this is a great sounding disc perhaps the best of the Santana quad reissues...

 

[bnyhof]

For those interested, I tried their much cheaper Registered Mail service this time. It arrived today taking only 1 week and best of all no customs fees in Canada!

 

[Tribby2001]

Received from CDJapan today.

WOW - this SACD is demo material. Stunning realistic sound. Fabulous!