Norah Jones - Come Away With Me
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CD Details
Artist: Norah JonesEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Hybrid SACD - DSD
CD Release Date: 2003-06-10
Music Label: Blue Note Records
Soundtracks:
- Don't Know Why
- Seven Years
- Cold Cold Heart
- Feelin' The Same Way
- Come Away With Me
- Shoot The Moon
- Turn Me On
- Lonestar
- I've Got To See You Again
- Painter Song
- One Flight Down
- Nightingale
- The Long Day Is Over
- The Nearness Of You
Music reviews of Come Away With Me
Music Review: This version should be pulled.
Rating: 3 Stars
One of the requirements of SACD releases, as set forth by Sony and Phillips, is that there be at least an SACD (DSD) stereo layer. The surround DSD and hybrid Red Book PCM CD compatible layers are optional. As the previous reviewer mentioned, the stereo DSD layer on this release was taken from the Red Book 16/44.1 PCM master used to make the CD layer. So Blue Note skirted a basic requirement of the format they were releasing on by deceptively scamming consumers into thinking they were getting a true SACD. As far as anyone knows, however, the surround SACD layer was taken directly from the 2 inch multitrack and sampled to DSD, then remixed and mastered to the SACD surround layer. I haven't heard anything to the contrary. As it stands right now, I agree with Fremer that Blue Note should simply apologize, pull the current release, rerelease a proper SACD, and give past purchasers a free exchange. I listened to the surround layer at my parents house in Oregon and was pleased at the music and sound quality. I do think it is overall a bit emotionally monotonal and placid though, as the recent SNL (or was it Mad TV) spoof parodied. But I think people who buy it are looking for that. Still enjoyable.
Let me clear up some of the misconceptions floating around:
Keep your universal DVD player set up internally for 5.1 channel with all channels on at fixed volume (usually max output), set to large, and your reciever/preamps on Surround Direct Analog with no digital conversion...then pray that you have a DVD player and reciever that doesn't do anything else funky. All of the older Denon universal units really messed with the sound. If you're still not getting good bass, then you need full range speakers. Never ever have speakers turned off or set to small in your DVD player when listening to SACD's. In fact, you shouldn't even do this with stereo CDs, since you'll mess up the dynamic range that the outputs are working at.
Most universal players use the original Sony DSD chip, which has a little port that connects to the DAC. Contrary to popular belief, SACD is not converted to DVD-Audio (PCM as opposed to the PWM of DSD) when it goes into that little port. That just sends the analog signal to the filter stage to lop off the high frequency noise. The only conversion that will ever occur is if you try and do bass management, which will kick the Sony converter chip into what's called Wide-DSD...a euphamism for a form of very high frequency PCM, also called Narrow PCM. It's still PCM, it's just that Sony doesn't like to call it that. So, keep everything On, Large, and Fixed in the player and Pure Analog Direct after it gets out and you'll probably be fine. Do volume changes in the reciever in the analog domain.
I also wouldn't trust the new players that convert everything to SACD internally to do bass management. It's another form of Wide-DSD. Why? Because you can't do computations with a 1-Bit format. You can't mix in SACD or produce in that format until you either convert it to analog or PCM. You can only record/master live to each descrete 1-Bit DSD channel, then you're stuck with it as is. All the SACD recording consoles are actually this psuedo-DVD-Audio format internally, though they likely sound quite good. To get true DSD through and through you either record/produce to analog tape, or you mix live, which is probably why Telarc likes the format so much.
PCM has good points and bad. PWM has good points and bad, too. They're both very low noise, but PCM tends to sound a bit artificial and lacking in that organic body of analog. PWM is hella organic and analog-like (probably due to its psuedo-analog 1-bit nature), but embeds subtle quantization noise within the signal permanently, often leaving it sounding not quite as transparent and Oh-My-God-clear and pristine as DVD-Audio at 192khz. Some engineers claim that the high frequencies are inferior in transient response to even normal Red Book CD, but transients are so difficult to measure, Red Book so rife with other problems, and DSD does so well in all the other departments (including other characteristics of its highs) that I find it to be a non-issue. At least you get SACD on all the channels in 5.1, definitely as good or better than 24/96. The last thing you want is conversion back and forth between the two formats internally; then you get the worst of both worlds. Remember that DSD was invented for archival purposes to permanently store the Columbia Records inventory. The archival format's actually twice the bitrate of consumer SACD, so it likely sounds as lovely as is claimed.
Description of Come Away With Me
Norah Jones Photos (by Danny Clinch)
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More from Norah Jones
 Not Too Late |  Feels Like Home |  The Little Willies |
It is not just the timbre of Norah Jones's voice that is mature beyond her 22 years. Her assured phrasing and precise time are more often found in older singers as well. She is instantly recognizable, blending shades of Billie Holiday and Nina Simone without sounding like anyone but herself. Any way you slice it, she is a singer to be reckoned with. Her readings of the Hank Williams classic "Cold Cold Heart" and Hoagy Carmichael's "The Nearness of You" alone are worth the price of the CD. Jones's own material, while not bad, pales a bit next to such masterpieces. They might have fared better had she and producer Arif Mardin opted for some livelier arrangements, taking better advantage of brilliant sidemen such as Bill Frisell, Kevin Breit, and Brian Blade; or if the tunes had simply been given less laconic performances. Jones has all the tools; what will come with experience and some careful listening to artists like J.J. Cale and Shirley Horn is the knack of remaining low-key without sounding sleepy--sometimes less is not, in fact, more. --Michael Ross
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