HiRez Poll America - HOLIDAY [Blu-Ray Audio]

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Rate the BDA of America - HOLIDAY

  • 6

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 5

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 4

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 3

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 2

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1: Terrible Content, Surround Mix, and Fidelity

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    43
Thanks, Paul, you are correct. When I look Very Closely at my TV screen I _can_ see the song title text change slightly, and I can access the stereo tracks this way. Maybe I need to adjust my TV settings :)

I thought I could access the stereo tracks by using the remote's Audio button, but that doesn't work.

Glad this wasn't another Quadio with a manufacturing error!

Bill
 
There does seem to be something odd with the authoring (?) of this disc (besides the fact that the color of the menu item doesn't change when cursored-to as obviously as on other discs) . On several other Quadio discs (including those by Chicago and Sabbath) I can change from quad to stereo and back using the Oppo remote's Audio button. Not so on America. No big deal tho, can use the cursor/menu to do so.

I had not previously heard this album, except for the hits back in the day. Especially with the George Martin arrangements and production, it shows the band's McCartney influences.

Will vote after more listens...
 
finally got around to slitting the shrink on this one (!) 😅 and well.. either there's something up with my disc or i need a new Blu-ray player.. or i don't know what! 🤔🙄

not only was i getting a blank menu with just album art on the left hand side and no song titles or onscreen navigation coming up anywhere but i was only getting Stereo sound in the Front channels, even though hitting the information button on the BDP said "4.0 DTS HD MA" was playing! 🤷🏻‍♀️

"..we haven't got defective cans, we've got a defective person out there!!" 😅🤯😂
 
finally got around to slitting the shrink on this one (!) 😅 and well.. either there's something up with my disc or i need a new Blu-ray player.. or i don't know what! 🤔🙄

not only was i getting a blank menu with just album art on the left hand side and no song titles or onscreen navigation coming up anywhere but i was only getting Stereo sound in the Front channels, even though hitting the information button on the BDP said "4.0 DTS HD MA" was playing! 🤷🏻‍♀️

"..we haven't got defective cans, we've got a defective person out there!!" 😅🤯😂
try the last track - has a very surround feel.
 
I have never been an "America" fan they always were a bit to mellow for my taste. The two hits were of course very familiar and not bad musically but surround wise there is almost nothing in the rear.

Sound wise it did reminded me a bit of those George Martin Beatles recordings on Apple Records, it had that rather smooth sound quality to it but occasionally it sounded a bit muddy. Interesting, America recorded in London England and produced by George Martin! Oh, they were all sons of American servicemen stationed in England: that explains it!

The vocals on the last two tracks were horrendous. The last track "In the Country" is the only one to actually rock out a bit and features excellent surround.

I'm voting a seven.
 
Wow. I thought this disc was going to be amazing after hearing the first track, Miniature. But Tin Man, right after that, fell flat. The rears just disappeared. (Listen in the left rear at 2:06 into the song. I swear someone says "I think I'm going to pass out.")

I would call the surround mix "cute." Silly little sound effects in the rear. I expected more. Obviously, I don't blame Rhino on this...not their fault about the mix. Although not my favorite America album, it was still nice to listen to on Blu-ray, blowing away my CD-4 for fidelity. Am I happy they released this? Hell yeah!

I'll say a 7 because of how uncreative I found the mix. But I'd buy it again knowing all of it.
I gave it a 7, too. I was going to post the same thing about the transition from Miniature, which sounds awesome in surround, into Tin Man, which goes completely flat as the rears evaporate -- even moreso because as the instrumentation builds, the mix just keeps getting more and more cluttered in the front channels (except for a gimmicky chime in the rear channels). I love America and this album overall. I'm glad this was released. But I was underwhelmed by the quad mix.
 
I never was a big America fan, the hits are great, the rest hoo hum.
I never heard any other release so I'll take the word of those here that say its
a good representation of the original mix. That said I found the quad mix on most
songs weak in the rear channels with stuff occasionally popping out..
I give it a 7, the weakness based mainly on my not liking the music.
But THANKS anyway Rhino, you keep em coming and we'll keep buying.
 
I gave it an 8. Though I'm not a big America fan, I do like much of their early music. This album took a while to really suck me in, but it did eventually get there. I think this is a really well done disc. Great sound, great tone. If there is any problem at all, it's with the original mix which seems to supplement the sound with elements in the rears at most times rather than really surround you with music. However, this seems to lead up to make the last song, "In the Country", more of a climax. The rears are very active on this one, and it happens to be one of my favorite songs on the album, so to end it on such a high note was a nice touch. Previously I only had a cheap stereo LP copy of this album, but I'm happy to have this disc as my go-to copy of the album now instead. No complaints here. My deduction in points above are due to the generally front-heavy mix and the somewhat inconsistent quality of the songs on the album itself.
I didnt write a review because I agree with the comments above and also rated the America disc an 8.
 
I don't think this album is quite as strong musically as Hearts (but only by a small margin) but I really like this quad mix, which puts a lot of the harmonies - to me, America's signature trait - in the rear speakers.

When I was (to quote Billy Joel) an Angry Young Man, I had no time for what was (at the time) called 'Soft Rock.' As someone who at the time (early '90s) was listening to rap and then classic rock, R&B and funk, I wanted to feel like my music had integrity and a message, and having grown up in the era of the '80s power ballad, it seemed like soft rock had none of that, that it was just a series cloying, sentimental cliches strung together over some assembly-line chord change drama, like my beloved Chicago when they were under the spell of David Foster and Diane Warren in the mid-to-late '80s.

America is one of those bands I never would've explored back then (I liked Horse with No Name, but actually thought it was a Neil Young song as a kid) but which was brought into my musical orbit thanks to quad, and my breadth of taste is all the better for it. Bands like America and Bread (and David Gates, whose first solo album is a quad gem) really challenged those notions I had about the value of this type of music, and I've only grown to enjoy them more as I've matured (musically definitely, not sure about how much emotionally).

I could go on at length about this album, and while it does have a mild cheese-factor, I just put it down to the fact that the band wore its '60s influences on its collective sleeve, at a time when it wasn't entirely fashionable to do so, something I think is very admirable. Obviously this album has its hits, but for me the real stunners are the wistful, melancholic tunes like Hollywood and Old Man Took - I could listen to music like this all day long (and all night strong).


I also wanted to commend @ForagingRhino for including the quad master tape box scans in the gatefold of the sleeve. If this album is a musical treasure, for someone interested in the history of quad, these two pictures are equally as valuable.

First off, these photos are the first visual confirmation (that I know of, anyway) of a completed quad mix out of George Martin's AIR Studios in London. I'd found mentions in trade magazines of the mid-'70s that AIR was quad equipped, but that's one thing, as many studios geared up for quad and then never got any work - confirming a completed mix is another.

Secondly, and more importantly (and interestingly) is the notation of the engineers that actually did the mix. I think I always presumed it was Geoff Emerick (given that he did the stereo mix, and there's no notation on the quad LP of any unique quad credits) but at the bottom of the master tape it's clearly denoted that the engineers were 'BILL PRICE / PETE H.', two heavy hitters in both engineering and production.

Bill Price had such a long career as an engineer (spanning from the mid-'60s when he started a Decca's West Hampstead studio) through the '90s that it's hard to pick out just a few albums from more than 600 credits, but they include landmark albums like Nevermind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, The Clash's London Calling, Guns 'n' Roses Use Your Illusion, along with albums from Mott the Hoople, Camel, Caravan, The Strawbs, The Pretenders, and most of Pete Townshend's solo work, amongst many others.

"PETE H." is Peter Henderson, who was just starting his career at this point, but who would go on to engineer some huge albums including Jeff Beck's Wired, Wings at the Speed of Sound, and others before moving into production, where he won a Grammy barely five years after doing this album, for Supertramp's Breakfast in America. He's also responsible for the production on their Paris live album and Famous Last Words, along with Rush's Grace Under Pressure, and more recently Paul McCartney's Flaming Pie and Flowers in the Dirt.

Anyway, as a student of the history of quad, absolutely fascinating stuff, especially for two guys who were never previously associated with the format. I love the fact that even 50 years after the fact there are still mysteries like this to be solved.
 
Finally got around to listen it. It's wonderful to listen the quad mix without all the layer of noise due to tape duplication etc etc etc..., now it sounds crystal clear.
A solid 9, reserved my 10 for Homecoming.
 
I don't think this album is quite as strong musically as Hearts (but only by a small margin) but I really like this quad mix, which puts a lot of the harmonies - to me, America's signature trait - in the rear speakers.

When I was (to quote Billy Joel) an Angry Young Man, I had no time for what was (at the time) called 'Soft Rock.' As someone who at the time (early '90s) was listening to rap and then classic rock, R&B and funk, I wanted to feel like my music had integrity and a message, and having grown up in the era of the '80s power ballad, it seemed like soft rock had none of that, that it was just a series cloying, sentimental cliches strung together over some assembly-line chord change drama, like my beloved Chicago when they were under the spell of David Foster and Diane Warren in the mid-to-late '80s.

America is one of those bands I never would've explored back then (I liked Horse with No Name, but actually thought it was a Neil Young song as a kid) but which was brought into my musical orbit thanks to quad, and my breadth of taste is all the better for it. Bands like America and Bread (and David Gates, whose first solo album is a quad gem) really challenged those notions I had about the value of this type of music, and I've only grown to enjoy them more as I've matured (musically definitely, not sure about how much emotionally).

I could go on at length about this album, and while it does have a mild cheese-factor, I just put it down to the fact that the band wore its '60s influences on its collective sleeve, at a time when it wasn't entirely fashionable to do so, something I think is very admirable. Obviously this album has its hits, but for me the real stunners are the wistful, melancholic tunes like Hollywood and Old Man Took - I could listen to music like this all day long (and all night strong).


I also wanted to commend @ForagingRhino for including the quad master tape box scans in the gatefold of the sleeve. If this album is a musical treasure, for someone interested in the history of quad, these two pictures are equally as valuable.

First off, these photos are the first visual confirmation (that I know of, anyway) of a completed quad mix out of George Martin's AIR Studios in London. I'd found mentions in trade magazines of the mid-'70s that AIR was quad equipped, but that's one thing, as many studios geared up for quad and then never got any work - confirming a completed mix is another.

Secondly, and more importantly (and interestingly) is the notation of the engineers that actually did the mix. I think I always presumed it was Geoff Emerick (given that he did the stereo mix, and there's no notation on the quad LP of any unique quad credits) but at the bottom of the master tape it's clearly denoted that the engineers were 'BILL PRICE / PETE H.', two heavy hitters in both engineering and production.

Bill Price had such a long career as an engineer (spanning from the mid-'60s when he started a Decca's West Hampstead studio) through the '90s that it's hard to pick out just a few albums from more than 600 credits, but they include landmark albums like Nevermind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, The Clash's London Calling, Guns 'n' Roses Use Your Illusion, along with albums from Mott the Hoople, Camel, Caravan, The Strawbs, The Pretenders, and most of Pete Townshend's solo work, amongst many others.

"PETE H." is Peter Henderson, who was just starting his career at this point, but who would go on to engineer some huge albums including Jeff Beck's Wired, Wings at the Speed of Sound, and others before moving into production, where he won a Grammy barely five years after doing this album, for Supertramp's Breakfast in America. He's also responsible for the production on their Paris live album and Famous Last Words, along with Rush's Grace Under Pressure, and more recently Paul McCartney's Flaming Pie and Flowers in the Dirt.

Anyway, as a student of the history of quad, absolutely fascinating stuff, especially for two guys who were never previously associated with the format. I love the fact that even 50 years after the fact there are still mysteries like this to be solved.
Such an interesting post. Thank you. (So much so, I was quite interested to see how you rated it, given your well-informed comments, and was surprised to see you elected not to.)
 
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