I received it today from Japan.





Nice stuff. A Decca/Universal release.
As usually there is a heavy japanese booklet inside with liner notes by Mike Koshitani and lyrics in english.
The regular booklet is written by Pierre Perrone. Quite interesting. He mentions the Stones longevity of course, the influence they had on bands like Stone Roses, Gun's Roses (oh yes, Stone and Ro...), Black Crowes (sounds like RS even in the name of the band, 2 words) Aerosmith (lip copy) and people trying to do their Keith but unable to find the limit (Cobain, B Jones)and the collectibles attraction engendered by the band (like the 3 LP test pressing of Rolled gold - who has it ?).
The final word is fine : "roll up for the Satanic Majesties Mystery tour"...

Now the most important is how sounds the SHM (super high material) version ?

Maybe you think this is another marketing artifice to sell cd's.
But I do not think so. The SHM brings something more than a regular cd (maybe not on all records but if the mastering is well done yes). I started a listening with cd 2. And I must say it does sound perfectly... like the SACD ! Of course a SACD has a higher resolution of 24 bits.
But can you hear it ? I would be curious to try a blind test and try to tell which one is SHM or SACD (I will try myself)... a few people have an ear (too much mp3 freaks nowadays...who try to bring you down). Both SACD and SHM have a brown burned surface rather than silver for regular cd.

Some songs still have hiss due to the original tapes : JJ flash, Brown sugar (have you ever noticed the "yeah" at the very end of the song ? could be Keith)
Some songs have an amazing sound : ruby tuesday (all instruments clearly heard like the band would be in your lounge), Sympathy (the percussions at the beginning are crystal clear), Rambler, HTW (the bell is really IN your right ear), Wild horses.

Cd1 sounds perfectly if you consider that several songs were recorded during the first part of the 60's.

I think this compilation and thus the SHM benefits of the sacd/dsd remastering made by Decca for the sacd series (interesting about the intentional 'not perfect' remastering according to Bob Ludwig [www.highfidelityreview.com]).

For people who have an excellent cd player it worths to get some SHM cd if you do not want to buy a sacd player (mainly because there are just a few sacd releases if you compare now with the Shm ones) rather than usual cd's.
And with a strong € guess what ? I only paid 43 euros for Rolled gold + and the shm deluxe edition of London Howlin' wolf sessions (I will give my impressions in an other topic about this must) including the postage. Really cheap for 4 cd's with such a quality (you understand that I will always prefer the records to digital music).

"..Some songs still have hiss due to the original tapes : "

The clarity of the tape hiss on a release can actually be quite a good indicator of transfer and mastering quality.
Attempting to remove or submerge it will only ever compromise the integrity of the reproduction.
On many old multi track recordings you can clearly hear tracks being faded up or down as the tape hiss appears and disappears above and below the overall noise floor. Less good transfers from second nad third generation masters typically lose this inforamtion, togther with the "air" and other fine detail in the sound.

You can hear the ha hah at the end of BS on even the vinyl originals yet alone the CBS and Virgin and ABKCO issues.