Concord Records SACD Sampler vol 1

I am very slowly expanding my SACD collection. Up until recently, I have had only two SACDs (Karajan's 1977 version of Beethoven's 9th and Keane). Now I have three with the addition of the Concord Records SACD Sampler. The rear surrounds really come to life in a seamless, non-gimmicky manner - kind of like the Dolby True HD track of Dave Matthews + Tim Reynolds Radio City Blu Ray.

There are some great demo tracks here - "Straighten Up And Fly Right" by Rosemary Clooney which starts with the original mono track through the center channel and seamlessly widens to a modern 5.1 version. Very cool. Then you have the popular "Watermelon Man" by Poncho Sanchez and Mongo Santamaria - again, amazing use of multichannel here.

Although not apples-to-apples, whenever I listen to ordinary CDs, the sound is often very harsh and I'll get listener's fatigue. Our family room is not very acoustic friendly (tile, walls). I suppose a throw rug might help but all things being equal SACD sounds much smoother to my ears vs the CDs that I have. Yes, SACD is pretty much a dead format. But the catalog of titles is > 5000 and there are some real gems to in terms of classical and jazz.