Well Worth Hearing: Multichannel SACDs from Stockfisch

Like most A/V journalists, I have favorite music discs I like to take to trade shows, partly to have high-quality reference materials on hand, but also to have good "show-and-tell" offerings for the back-and-forth musical exchanges that make good audio shows so much fun. Three discs I own that have consistently "wowed" listeners at CES, Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, and other shows happen to be multichannel SACDs that were produced by Gunther Pauler (of Pauler Acoustics) for the German label Stockfisch.

The discs are:

Sara K, Hell or High Water
Steve Strauss, Just Like Love
Blue Chamber Quartet, First Impressions

In all three cases, Pauler creates vibrant recordings full of rich tonal colors and textures, all of them set within huge, 3D acoustic spaces. But most of all, these records are just plain fun (and intensely engaging) to listen to. On more than a few occasions I've played tracks from these records in demo rooms, only to have listeners on hand demand to hear the tracks over again. I think that speaks well for the records' ability to win hearts and minds.

Try them out and see what you think...