This will be an old chestnut for many. Perhaps I can make it worthwhile.
I grew up with two versions of Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition: the 1975 record by Isao Tomita, and Vladimir Horowitz' interpretation from 1951. Both are gorgeous in their very own way, and they will be forever etched in my memory.
Just in case you don't know Pictures as a solo-piano piece: this is the original, but Maurice Ravel's orchestration is much more popular and more widely known -- for reasons that escape me. I find it quite superfluous.
In the drain -- at / l / cRU3bEYm -- you'll find
-- Horowitz (horomustchai)
-- Tomita, the 1975 German LP {24-96} (tompiexvinde)
-- Tomita, the 2007 remastered CD reissue (tompiexrem)
-- Tomita, the 2014 remastered SACD reissue {24-96} (tompiexremsac)
I haven't yet carefully compared all of these Tomitas. My impression is that the LP and the CD are fairly close. The CD may be a tad more differentiated in places -- which does not necessarily mean it's "better".
The SACD does not hold up. It is overall brighter than the original LP -- too bright --, and they somewhat overdid it with the effects here and there. But that's just me. Don't let this discourage you from listening. You know how difficult it is to accept a different version (even if it is just slightly different) when you're very familiar with another one of the same album.
I ripped the SACD myself. If you've ever ripped one you'll know that it can be a bit of a nuisance (no, one doesn't need a Playstation 3 with first-generation firmware, but still). Converting a DSD stream -- which is pulse-density modulated -- to a PCM file is not a lossless conversion in the strict sense.** Not because one would necessarily lose any quality, but these encodings are incompatible, and it depends on the capability of the conversion algorithm how it turns out.
I used the Tascam Hi-Res editor for this. It's a professional tool, so I should assume that it has done a good job.
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** Pulse-density modulation (PDM) is technically related to FM radio, pulse-code modulation (PCM) to AM radio.
