If you see...

If you see Beatles albums go on sale for incredible prices, DON'T buy them!!! It's all a ruse.

Picked up the reissue of Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde and continue to be floored by SACD hybrid reissues (hybrid discs can be played on either SACD or CD players). The SACD format allows audio to be stored in distinct channels corresponding to a 5.1 speaker set up, so sound engineers are able to emulate the actual space which musicians recorded in. From the Crutchfield Advisor's interview with Dylan reissues producer Steve Borkowitz:

The panning presents Bruce Langhorne (guitar) on the left and the bass on the right, with Bob in the middle — exactly like the stereo. But now, you have the actually palpable sound of the musicians playing in a room — in a real space. It’s three-dimensional, just like it was when he recorded it. The only thing you hear at the back is the stuff that you would naturally hear behind you in the room.

For those without a 5.1 SACD system (I'm still not quite to that point yet either), it's important to note that the work put into the SACD tracks is so intensive that it comes across remarkably even on a simpler system. Extensive work is done working with original masters in an effort to pull out all the detail and sound they contain. You can hear instruments as individual units of a song, giving the music a much more real feel.

The Rolling Stones were the first to receive an extensive hybrid reissue discography and now we have Dylan. I've stopped buying Beatles albums hoping that they'll get similar treatment but there doesn't seem to be anything definite on the horizon.