HiRez Poll Beck - SEA CHANGE [DVD-A/SACD/BluRay Audio]

[4-earredwonder]

I am thoroughly sickened by the obnoxious low ball scores. Really? A score of 1? 2 or 3? What in the hell.

It's the internet, Gene, get used to it. I have Sea Change on both DVD~A and BD~A and I love it. It gets a solid 9 from me.

Same with movies. Movies I love get low scores and more pretentious fare gets higher scores. Go figure.

Traffic was a manipulative mess and yet it won Best Picture. Brokeback Mountain was an American Masterpiece and yet it lost out to Traffic and the late Heath Ledger put in an oscar worthy performance....but lost. Even late night host Stephen Colbert agreed with me on that.

And I love Jazz, Classical and World Music......but that's a different story altogether.@:

 

[markshan]

Some of you may know that I recently got "new to me" speakers for the surround sound system in the family room. I have been enjoying them so much that I have tried when possible to listen to at least one surround mixed album a night after the kids are in bed. Of course, the variety available in surround sound is paltry compared to the vast wealth of music available in other formats. So occasionally you listen to something that you may not have otherwise.

This may come as a shock, but I've never listened to a Beck album before. When he first came out, I was put off by the "Loser" video enough to keep me from really seeking out his work. Most of his stuff doesn't seem to get airplay (that should have clued me in I suppose) and what did ("Two Turntables and a Microphone", anyone?) was fine but didn't sway me to change course with him. So tonight I put in the DVD-Audio of "Sea Change" and sat in stunned silence as the beauty of "The Golden Age" swept over me. How could I have missed this for 15 years? Then "Paper Tiger" started and I smugly thought to myself "see, this is the kind of lo-fi crap I knew he must be making and I hate it". Then the orchestrations came in. All of the sudden it went from Jesus and Mary Chain to Elton John's great albums with Paul Buckmaster writing the charts. The album never lost me again from that moment. I felt like I had been transported to another plane. To my shock, the only thing I could think of that the album recalled was the 70s pop-prog of bands like Supertramp or 10CC (high praise indeed). All of the great melody of a pop song with all of the virtuosity of prog rock. I'm still not blown away by his voice, but when the tracks are as wonderful as these, it can be overlooked.

To top it all off, the surround mix was brilliant. Since I don't know the stereo mix to make a comparison, all I can say is that everything seemed right. The stuff that should be grounded was, and the atmospheric stuff floated around in a most wonderful fashion. This one will go right next to "Brothers in Arms" and "Gaucho" as demo material for the home theater. It sounds that great. Tonight's listening session was nothing short of glorious.

 

[uffeolby]

Some of you may know that I recently got "new to me" speakers for the surround sound system in the family room. I have been enjoying them so much that I have tried when possible to listen to at least one surround mixed album a night after the kids are in bed. Of course, the variety available in surround sound is paltry compared to the vast wealth of music available in other formats. So occasionally you listen to something that you may not have otherwise.

This may come as a shock, but I've never listened to a Beck album before. When he first came out, I was put off by the "Loser" video enough to keep me from really seeking out his work. Most of his stuff doesn't seem to get airplay (that should have clued me in I suppose) and what did ("Two Turntables and a Microphone", anyone?) was fine but didn't sway me to change course with him. So tonight I put in the DVD-Audio of "Sea Change" and sat in stunned silence as the beauty of "The Golden Age" swept over me. How could I have missed this for 15 years? Then "Paper Tiger" started and I smugly thought to myself "see, this is the kind of lo-fi crap I knew he must be making and I hate it". Then the orchestrations came in. All of the sudden it went from Jesus and Mary Chain to Elton John's great albums with Paul Buckmaster writing the charts. The album never lost me again from that moment. I felt like I had been transported to another plane. To my shock, the only thing I could think of that the album recalled was the 70s pop-prog of bands like Supertramp or 10CC (high praise indeed). All of the great melody of a pop song with all of the virtuosity of prog rock. I'm still not blown away by his voice, but when the tracks are as wonderful as these, it can be overlooked.

To top it all off, the surround mix was brilliant. Since I don't know the stereo mix to make a comparison, all I can say is that everything seemed right. The stuff that should be grounded was, and the atmospheric stuff floated around in a most wonderful fashion. This one will go right next to "Brothers in Arms" and "Gaucho" as demo material for the home theater. It sounds that great. Tonight's listening session was nothing short of glorious.

Welcome to the club

 

[markshan]

Can I vote again? I listened to this again last night and I want to give it another ten. I can't believe this isn't even on the front page. Not top 50? It's top 5 on my list, and as I said above, I wasn't even a Beck fan previously. I just can't get over how beautiful it is.

 

[himey]

Can I vote again? I listened to this again last night and I want to give it another ten. I can't believe this isn't even on the front page. Not top 50? It's top 5 on my list, and as I said above, I wasn't even a Beck fan previously. I just can't get over how beautiful it is.

Check out Mutations, Midnight Vultures and Odelay. Preferably through SpecWeb. I actually like the music better on those but nothing sounds better than Sea Change mix wise and sound quality wise. True reference recording.

 

[timbre4]

The very first SpecWeb disc I made was Beck - Morning Phase. Love that album too.


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[himey]

The very first SpecWeb disc I made was Beck - Morning Phase. Love that album too.


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First Beck I did was Midnight Vultures which turned out great. Then I did Mutations and it turned out even better. I think it is a better recording/mastering. The newest one, Colors is very compressed but does OK, nothing spectacular. The latest Bjork album is so good "SpecWeb'ed" you would have no idea it was upmixed. The music lends itself to multichannel and the stereo recording is so wide and deep itself, it also has a similar smooth, soothing sound like Sea Change.

 

[sjcorne]

I won a bid on the SACD for $5 a few weeks ago. Not a disc that was really on my radar, but who could say no to an ES mix for so little. I sampled the first track a few days ago and then let it sit aside for a while. Maybe I just wasn't feeling it that day?

I sat down about an hour ago and played the whole thing end to end. I am simply blown away. "Immersive" doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of what it's like listening to this disc on a good full-range system.

It's a 10: a real showcase surround disc. I kinda wish I had the DVD-A or BD-A so I could rip and make a car disc, but you can't win 'em all.

 

[bossfan]

Sea change is brilliant. I liked. The DVD audio so much I bought the cd. Just for listening to on the iPod.

 

[timbre4]

I kinda wish I had the DVD-A or BD-A so I could rip and make a car disc, but you can't win 'Em all.

Check your PM


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[key_wiz]

Easy “10”

Great album. Great sound. Killer surround mix.

Completely immersive. Great disc for showing off the system.

This is what I dream every surround disc will sound like.

 

[Bill Mac]

I gave Sea Change a 10 as it's a killer 5.1 mix. As mentioned the mix is so immersive and it's one of my best sounding 5.1 mixes by far. The only issue is that music is so damn depressing that one has to be in the right frame of mind to listen to it .

Bill

 

[Frogmort]

My God, that Frank dude that gave this a 1 is all cray-cray. If this is a 1, then what is his 2~10 range? If they were that much better than this, I might actually have an eargasm! I see he hasn't visited the site in over 13 years, so that might help explain it.

Depressing as hell, but damn fine in absolutely every respect. 10

Edit: Just read this: '...Beck and his fiancée, stylist Leigh Limon, ended their nine-year relationship. Three weeks before Beck's 30th birthday, he discovered Limon had been having an affair with a member of Los Angeles band Whiskey Biscuit. Beck lapsed into a period of melancholy and introspection, during which he wrote the bleak, acoustic-based tracks on Sea Change. He wrote most of the album's 12 songs in one week...'

 

[AshBuchanan]

This recently became available on Amazon, so I bought it immediately. However, I received an email several weeks later saying it was no longer available. Huge bummer. Dying to hear what it sounds like.

 

[edisonbaggins]

Just picked up the DVD-A, to compare to the BD-A. Anybody ever compared all 3 versions? If so, is there a clear winner? Or do all masterings sound equally good?
Asking because the SACD vs. the BD-A evidently doesn't sound the same for some releases (e.g. Yellow Brick Road).

 

[DuncanS]

The BD-

Just picked up the DVD-A, to compare to the BD-A. Anybody ever compared all 3 versions? If so, is there a clear winner? Or do all masterings sound equally good?
Asking because the SACD vs. the BD-A evidently doesn't sound the same for some releases (e.g. Yellow Brick Road).

The BD-A has a phenomenal sound quality, way better than the SACD IMHO.

 

[4-earredwonder]

The BD-

The BD-A has a phenomenal sound quality, way better than the SACD IMHO.

The MLP DVD~A 5.1 is phenomenal, as well. I suppose it's dependent on the quality of your playback equipment. I haven't compared my DVD~A to the BD~A only because my DVD~A player [Meridian 800 Reference] is better than my BD~A [OPPO BDP~105] player. The sound from my DVD~A player is just astounding!

 

[sjcorne]

Asking because the SACD vs. the BD-A evidently doesn't sound the same for some releases (e.g. Yellow Brick Road).

I had read elsewhere in the forum that the fronts are phase inverted on the BD-A, which explains some sound difference. Like Steely Dan's Gaucho, both the BD-A and DVD-A are sourced from PCM conversions of the SACD DSD master, rather than using the original PCM files. Doubt anyone could hear the difference, but it is sort of puzzling the Universal made extra work for themselves instead of using the readily available PCM master.

I have the SACD (I won a bid for $5 last year, perhaps one of the greatest steals in all my years of surround collecting) and it sounds wonderful.

 

[4-earredwonder]

I had read elsewhere in the forum that the fronts are phase inverted on the BD-A, which explains some sound difference. Like Steely Dan's Gaucho, both the BD-A and DVD-A are sourced from PCM conversions of the SACD DSD master, rather than using the original PCM files. Doubt anyone could hear the difference, but it is sort of puzzling the Universal made extra work for themselves instead of using the readily available PCM master.

I have the SACD (I won a bid for $5 last year, perhaps one of the greatest steals in all my years of surround collecting) and it sounds wonderful.

The MLP DVD~A of Gaucho was released prior to the mch SACD....and before MCA even switched their allegiance from DVD~A to SACD so are you sure the DVD~A was indeed sourced from the DSD master? Rather confusing.

 

[sjcorne]

The MLP DVD~A of Gaucho was released prior to the mch SACD....and before MCA even switched their allegiance from DVD~A to SACD so are you sure the DVD~A was indeed sourced from the DSD master? Rather confusing.

See posts #75 and #76 here

Gaucho DVD-A always sounded great to me