America

For many of a certain age, America has always been a band as easy to dismiss as Crosby Stills Nash and Young wannabes - saturated with soaring harmonies that descend to earth not in the coming of age majesty of Sugar Mountain or Wooden Ships but on the frosted flaked flotsam of a Tony the Tiger garage band hacking away somewhere in Battle Creek Michigan - manufacturing empty-calorie musical trifles customized for the empty-headed, ear candy requirements of 1970s AM playlists. Unfortunately, this conclusion would be unnecessarily cruel and unjust if you were to deny yourself the experience of rediscovering the band via the vastly improved Audio Fidelity gold-disc release of their 1971 self-titled debut, America - a lost in time masterwork that remains a crown jewel of the periods acoustic guitar based singer-songwriter obsessions. While the remainder of the decade would see the band produce a prodigious string of hook-laden pop singles, even the presence of Beatles uber-producer Sir George Martin could not replicate the sustained brilliance of their maiden voyage. For this one moment original band members Dan Peek, Dewey Bunnell and Gerry Beckley deliver an impossible to dismiss, almost perfect eleven-song suite to the loves and generational longings of venturing into adulthood during a period of great social strife. In fact, this album is so good it has always been considered an unofficial "greatest hits" collection featuring the now classic trio of A Horse With No Name, Sandman and I Need You. We used to call these kinds of records "headphone albums" (yes, earbuds will do) best experienced in solitude and at high volume. My bet is that deep in the bowels of a Michigan basement a certain cartoon tiger coming down from a sugar high is doing the same. A highly recommended, essential disc. p.s... don't be thrown off by the techno-babble of other reviews debating the merits of master tape origins and other nonsense. As someone who has owned this record on 8-track, vinyl and the criminally sub-par Warner Bros. CD, this gold-disc incarnation is a revelation and sounds amazing.

One of my all time favorite albums and groups- I've seen them live 4 times. The album came out just as I was entering college and was a always playing somewhere during those years. I still have my original vinyl copy and it still sounds decent but it has many miles on it. I've owned the CD for years and it is OK, but not as smooth as the analog recording. I have hoped for years that it would finally come out on SACD, but doubted it would as the format seemed to fade. Imagine my surprise when I saw the pre-order announcement. This is my best SACD purchase in several years and I'm glad I never gave up on the format. It is beginning to look like its making a comeback. The specialty digital download sites are starting to offer DSD files (which are SACD) and the best new DACs are offering DSD decoding. With Sony making a concerted effort to revive hi-rez digital SACD may make it yet. But if you are a fan of America don't miss this SACD

Years ago, I reviewed this album as a CD. I stated then that this was one of the 10 albums I'd want on a deserted island. Nothing has changed. America still reminds me of CSN in some ways with three usually acoustic guitars and wonderful 3 part harmonizing vocals. The music is less complex than CSN, but still wonderfully lush and inviting. This newly released SACD hybrid version just arrived, so I did an A/B comparison between the high quality WMA files I ripped from the CD and the SACD track. (I know, "high quality WMV" is an oxymoron, but the computer I used in my system didn't have a CD drive!) This SACD is well worth the price. The vocals and guitars are more detailed. Everything has much more presence. Instruments and vocals are positioned clearly in space rather than being smeared like a poorly erased chalk board. The entire album seems crisper. I do agree with a subsequent reviewer that the vocals (and guitars as well) are brighter than on the original CD. It sounds almost like it was run through Audyssey processing, but there is no edginess to it, it increases clarity and does not hurt the album. When I initially wrote this review, I failed to mention this is a stereo only, and contains no surround sound mix. I want to thank the person who added the comment about no 5.1. If you have an SACD player, this is a must album. (My equipment includes OPPO Blu Ray Disc player; Integra 40.2 preprocessor, Harman/Kardon Citation 22 amplifier, Infinity Kappa 9 speakers and matching SSW 212 subwoofer.)

If you enjoy this album, the Audio Fidelity SACD is well worth your $18 for the improvement in sound quality over previous redbook CD issues. While comparing the first minute or so of "Riverside" on the SACD to the redbook Warner remaster, I initially did not notice enough that made me believe that there was much improvement. However continuing to listen to the SACD, significant advantages over the redbook CD became obviously apparent: - The SACD has more of a smooth, analogue sound throughout - The SACD possesses significantly more ambience on cuts such as "A Horse with No Name." - The SACD reveals increased detail and depth of the guitars such as on "I Need You." - The SACD apparently uses less compression. Louder passages on the SACD do not 'fall apart' as they do on the redbook version. My only complaint is that the guitars on the SACD still remain somewhat on the bright side, but I suspect that the album would need to be remixed a la Steven Wilson to correct this. Regardless, the guitars don't have seem to have that 'grizzle' around the edges as they do on the redbook version.

This is a nice sounding CD...it has 2 of their biggest hits The harmonies and acoustic playing is very pretty - a good listen from beginning to end. Audiofidelity did a good job remastering this - it has a warm clear sound. I have a couple of their greatest hits CDs and they have never sounded better than on this CD.

Parlare dell'opera mi sembra superfluo, il primo album degli America è storia. Riguardo l'edizione Audio Fidelity posso affermare che è un ottimo lavoro, mai ascoltato questo album in questa qualità. Consigliato senza riserve anche ai più oltranzisti appassionati di riproduzione (cosiddetti audiofili). Voglio solo far notare che Amazon ha praticato degli aumenti spropositati su questo tipo di dischi (Audio Fidelity, MFSL, Platinum cd, ecc) che non trovano riscontro in nessun altro negozio, a partire dal loro stesso marketplace. Spero voglia riconsiderare la cosa data la palese incongruenza, è vero che comprare da Amazon resta ineguagliabile, ma quindici euro di differenza a colpo sono troppi, si rischia anche con Poste Italiane per queste cifre. Saluti.

Le premier album de América en sacd. le son est à tomber. on redécouvre les harmonies vocales et les solos de guitares 12 cordes. Il faudrait plus de réédition de sacd !!!!!!

Pre ordered and it was released on Oct 15th and still have'nt got it. Phoned up Amazon a couple of times and they just keep coming out with loads of lame excuses. PS 5 stars for the album and minus 10 stars for Amazon.

Amazing sound quality! I don't have an SACD player so I'm talking about the hybrid. This is about the second digital layer for the regular CD player. Why can't all cd quality be this good? Wow!

アコースティックギターの音が気持ち良い！ アナログ盤は所有してないので比較はできないけど、 この音で聴けるなら十分です。 大推薦！