BIG Blu-Ray Audio drive from Universal Music in 2013

[Dixie4]

pretty sure its just part of the PLII "Music" options?
(Not available in PLII "Cinema" mode).

my Denon has it too, so not a Yammy-only thing.

I highlighted PLII MS but couldn't see any options for on or off, or anything ?

 

[fredblue]

I highlighted PLII MS but couldn't see any options for on or off, or anything ?

what model's your AVR? it may be buried deep in a cryptic menu!

 

[Dixie4]

what model's your AVR? it may be buried deep in a cryptic menu!

Sony DH820 ( It must be very cryptic, from what I can see !! )

Cranked up Grrr ! Sounds quite good, nothing amazing though,...surround'ish. I'm quite fatigued at present though. ( Will play around with different soundfields when other discs arrive )

I think there is a sense of separation though.

 

[fredblue]

Sony DH820 ( It must be very cryptic, from what I can see !! )

Cranked up Grrr ! Sounds quite good, nothing amazing though,...surround'ish. I'm quite fatigued at present though. ( Will play around with different soundfields when other discs arrive )

I think there is a sense of separation though.

Page 54 of your manual gives you all the sound field info..

http://pdf.crse.com/manuals/4266497121.pdf

I can't see anything on "Panorama" either but keep twiddling and see what works best for you.

you have to select PCM on the Stevie blu-ray btw in order to be able to set PLII Music, Dolby or DTS won't let you process the 2.0 into 5.1

 

[Dixie4]

Page 54 of your manual gives you all the sound field info..

http://pdf.crse.com/manuals/4266497121.pdf

I can't see anything on "Panorama" either but keep twiddling and see what works best for you.

you have to select PCM on the Stevie blu-ray btw in order to be able to set PLII Music, Dolby or DTS won't let you process the 2.0 into 5.1

Thanks very much for that, Adam...i'm a little too tired to dig out the manual & go through it. Thanks for the PCM advice....be glad when the discs turn up...you would have thought i'd be priority, wouldn't you !! ?

 

[jasong]

Thanks very much for that, Adam...i'm a little too tired to dig out the manual & go through it. Thanks for the PCM advice....be glad when the discs turn up...you would have thought i'd be priority, wouldn't you !! ?

QUESTION FOR EVERYBODY WHO HAS PURCHASED THE BLU RAY DISCS FROM FNAC.

i ordered mine Thursday. for those of you who have odered , gotten confirmation, had them delivered, etc. I have a couple of questions.

1. did you get a confirmation email saying you had purchased them ?
2.how long was it after you bought them that you saw the charge hit your bank or credit card.
3. how long after that til you got a they are being shipped.
4. how long did it take to get delivered. I'm in the states so I'm curious. thanks, everybody

 

[Dixie4]

QUESTION FOR EVERYBODY WHO HAS PURCHASED THE BLU RAY DISCS FROM FNAC.

i ordered mine Thursday. for those of you who have odered , gotten confirmation, had them delivered, etc. I have a couple of questions.

1. did you get a confirmation email saying you had purchased them ?
2.how long was it after you bought them that you saw the charge hit your bank or credit card.
3. how long after that til you got a they are being shipped.
4. how long did it take to get delivered. I'm in the states so I'm curious. thanks, everybody

All I can say is, ordered yesterday at around 1pm, just received now, 23 and a half hours later....EXCEPTIONAL SERVICE !! ( to the U.K. )
Now it's time for a spin !!! :banana:

 

[Dixie4]

Listening to Stevie first, settings 2.0 LPCM ( or to be more precise, 2.1 ) From the first sound...WONDERFUL !!!

I have the SHM-SACD, which I think is excellent, will try & compare through the day.

( So much better than the Rolling Stones - Grr ! disc ! )

 

[jasong]

All I can say is, ordered yesterday at around 1pm, just received now, 23 and a half hours later....EXCEPTIONAL SERVICE !! ( to the U.K. )
Now it's time for a spin !!! :banana:

Dixie- did you get a confirmation from FNAC after you ordered ?
then did you get a notice it was being shipped?

thanks

 

[Dixie4]

Dixie- did you get a confirmation from FNAC after you ordered ?
then did you get a notice it was being shipped?

thanks

Yes ( Have you checked your fnac account ? )

 

[Dixie4]

OH MAN !! THIS IS SO SO GOOD !!!!

 

[mattB2]

View attachment 10501

OH MAN !! THIS IS SO SO GOOD !!!!

A really pleasant surprise - shame it's just stereo but at least the disc is comfortable to listen to. To me the sound is certainly preferable to the second half of Grrr! which seems to suffer from being a loudness victim (love the first half though). It'll be interesting to see how many of these releases make it to a more general distribution later in the year (and at a more reasonable price). (The £11.20 I paid to Amazon UK for Grrr! seems to be a relative bargain.)

 

[Dixie4]

A really pleasant surprise - shame it's just stereo but at least the disc is comfortable to listen to. To me the sound is certainly preferable to the second half of Grrr! which seems to suffer from being a loudness victim (love the first half though). It'll be interesting to see how many of these releases make it to a more general distribution later in the year (and at a more reasonable price). (The £11.20 I paid to Amazon UK for Grrr! seems to be a relative bargain.)

I wasn't expecting it to sound this good ! Compared to Grr ! this is like comparing a Belgian chocolate, to a slab of Dairy Milk !!
I guess the pricing is no surprise, really. It's not fair, but what can you do ?? If this is approached right, then it could be the replacement for the redbook cd ?

 

[Dixie4]

All I can say is, ordered yesterday at around 1pm, just received now, 23 and a half hours later....EXCEPTIONAL SERVICE !! ( to the U.K. )
Now it's time for a spin !!! :banana:

Sorry correction ! Ordered 1pm 15th May, delivered today....still less than 48hrs, which is still exceptional !!

 

[fredblue]

I wasn't expecting it to sound this good ! Compared to Grr ! this is like comparing a Belgian chocolate, to a slab of Dairy Milk !!
I guess the pricing is no surprise, really. It's not fair, but what can you do ?? If this is approached right, then it could be the replacement for the redbook cd ?

tried Stevie in PLII Music yet Rob?

 

[fredblue]

View attachment 10501

OH MAN !! THIS IS SO SO GOOD !!!!

(unrelated question, Rob.. have you got the HDMI Video Out on your Oppo set to "RGB Level"? it should be "Video Level".. those Info bars at top and bottom should not be as black/blend into the black of that BDA interface, they should be slightly paler/greyer, otherwise films will all look too dark and blacks too black/oversaturated.).

Back home now, trying to see how Supergrantramp pans out in PLII..

Hmm.. Certainly not got the same instant WOW-factor of the new BDA Stevie processed through 5.1..

 

[fredblue]

Sorry correction ! Ordered 1pm 15th May, delivered today....still less than 48hrs, which is still exceptional !!

I had no right to grumble really, I ordered them as soon as I could on FNAC and they arrived within a couple of days of Monday's official release date.

as for the Supertramp, the SH Forums discussed the original recording of the album some time back.. and in light of that information, I've reconciled myself to being a little less harsh on the slightly brittle sound of this new BDA.

the new BDA certainly has loads more oomph in the mid and bass than I've ever heard, albeit a bit out of control at times... though I feel this way about all 3 of these BDA's.. so it could be my gear, or just I've been enjoying listening to old bass-shy versions of these albums all along when the music itself has been full of bass which those CDs just could not resolve..!?

fascinating discussion on the Breakfast In America album here..

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/supertramp-breakfast-in-america-cd-sound-quality.141529/page-5

couple of key posts to the "sound" of this album and why it sounds that way..

Doug Sclar: "That record was cut on a Harrison board full of early VCA's (voltage controlled amplifiers). IMO, those were nasty sounding devices that allowed the volume levels of each channel to be controlled by digital voltages. This was one of the early attempts to automate consoles. You could do a mix and the moves were recorded and stored on a computer as DC levels. When you play back the automation it controlled all the VCA's which controlled many paramaters of the mix. Of course this was just for the main channel faders. The early automation systems didn't have ways to control pan pots, eq, aux sends and returns as well as other important mix paramaters.

The problem was that these VCA's didn't sound very good. They could have a hard, dry, brittle and slow sound to them which could be heard easily with some instruments, particularly cymbals which are pretty hard to process in general. They obviously have a lot of fast high frequency energy and without fast, phase coherent amplifiers their sonics are easily degraded.

Like with early digital technology and products, many people in the industry were so enamored with the things these new devices could do that they either overlooked or didn't notice the sonic degradation. I did at the time, but I my opinion was most definitely considered a minority opinion.

Btw, Neve's automation system of this era was much better sounding. Instead of using VCA's they used motorized faders which did not have the sonic cost of the VCA's. You can find similar technology on many of the hi-fi pieces that started to surface in the late 80's or 90's. Of course they were not automated, but did allow for remote control of volume adjustments."

and from Steve Hoffman himself..

"A bad mix, dude. Sad 'cause it's one of my all-time favorite albums. Try disconnecting your tweeters."

Possible conclusion after listening to these discs a good few times now, particularly the Supertramp: My old CD mastering I love wasn't resolving anything properly after all and its totally unfaithful to the master mixes..! Breakfast in America is supposed to sound bright, just like this BDA! I'm confused! @:

Well, well, well (not 3 holes in the ground with water in them!)... I'm happy to have my eyes opened - and my ears..

Maybe I won't need those old CDs after all.!?

 

[Dixie4]

tried Stevie in PLII Music yet Rob?

Only tried very briefly, Adam....going to try later.

 

[fredblue]

Only tried very briefly, Adam....going to try later.

Pleeeeease do when you get the chance!

you got to set it to PLII Music, switch off the centre channel.... and let rip!

Stevie is amazing! Supertramp's ok.. some of Bob Marley works out really really well in PLII ("Exodus" in particular, very Quad-like!).

So you'll have to get Bob too eh!?

 

[Dixie4]

(unrelated question, Rob.. have you got the HDMI Video Out on your Oppo set to "RGB Level"? it should be "Video Level".. those Info bars at top and bottom should not be as black/blend into the black of that BDA interface, they should be slightly paler/greyer, otherwise films will all look too dark and blacks too black/oversaturated.).

Back home now, trying to see how Supergrantramp pans out in PLII..

Hmm.. Certainly not got the same instant WOW-factor of the new BDA Stevie processed through 5.1..

I guess that I haven't, Adam, given your info....I actually always think the blacks look very good, when watching films...will check settings later.

The SW disc is exceptional, but as I said in pm, I suspect it is the same mastering as the SHM-SACD, which is exceptional too. but saying that, I think there's a difference between the two, only played some of the SHM-SACD today....I would say at this point, that the BD-A could be better than the SHM-SACD ?
Supertramp disc is ok, but find I need to turn up the volume more. Not owned this title on any format before, so can't compare ( Only have a Greatest Hits CD )
Will try PLII later, as you suggest.