Just got a
Warner Music Experience "Think You Are Ready" email with new stuff coming - and I actually jumped on it thinking that maybe, just maybe there would be a blurb about Quadio discs and the titles. Do I think I am ready???? I've never been so sure of something in my life.
But no, nothing there about quad Alice, Sab, Purple at all.
It's ok, I have been waiting for these on modern disc for 25 years, what's another 21 days right? And especially if I get a couple of my top choice picks, all will be forgiven.
These discs are going to sound really great, even better than Chicago and the Doobies discs did because they are better recording / mix jobs imo.
I have commented on why I like Alice's B$B in quad as well as the Machine Head US Warner quad mix, but I have not commented on Paranoid in this thread. I think that the quad mix lifts a veil off the master tapes (listen to the metal work on drum kit), like a better mixing console and record deck was used over the UK stereo mix. All songs have this improved fidelity. But the title song from this album has some ping-pong reverb effect that is just a tad distracting, and makes it the only track on the quad album that does not imo improve over the stereo "hit" mix of the song. Not a biggie to me as the rest of Paranoid is a revelation or will be in four-channel quad coming from a nicely preserved Warner Brothers master.
I am hoping that the new transfers and mastering of these tapes retains this clarity and bit of "air" I have grown to like on these classic heavyweight rockers, and they don't try and tone that down to sound like the stereo mixes. These are different animals, and all the better for that. They are meant to sound big and spacious with more crystal clarity and not dark and heavy like they sometimes are in stereo iterations.
I know I'm rambling on and on about this potential titles but I can't help it. I have had nothing to drink and no medical puffs, and am just going to ride out this quite difficult period sober. I think I can make it, and the only time I start to think otherwise is when Seals and Crofts and James Taylor get mentioned here, and I then start to feel real paranoia.