Billy Joel's "52nd Street" 40th Anniversary Limited Edition Coming in Oct. '18

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Audio Fidelity released the 70s quad mix of "Streetlife Serenade" a couple of years ago. Pretty good quad mix.

Joel is definitely on my short list of artists for which I would like to much more of their catalog mixed to surround. I'd love to have Glass Houses, Nylon Curtain and Innocent Man in 5.1!
Though, not sure what the cost of Streetlife Serenade is these days....so glad I purchased on day of release...I personally love it. Old school, with great Quad-ness.
 
Though, not sure what the cost of Streetlife Serenade is these days....so glad I purchased on day of release...I personally love it. Old school, with great Quad-ness.

I just searched Ebay because I was curious myself. Looks like you can get new copies pretty easily for a little under 50 bucks including shipping. Not a bargain, but could be much worse.
 
Well, maybe a 5.1 mix wouldn't have the issues with missing instruments, etc.

yeah that's what I meant when I said I'd like to see a new 5.1 of Turnstiles. Hopefully they'd get it right! I'd buy a reissued quad anyway, but apparently one song is missing a piano part? How can you mix a Joel album and manage to leave out the piano?? :geek:

Sony was usually pretty good with those old quad mixes but they did occasionally make mistakes like that. There's a couple "missing parts" on a few Chicago songs in their quad mixes as well.
 
I'm still perplexed by Markie's [marpow] assessment of the 'remastered' 40th Anniversary edition of 52nd Street. Mark has an excellent audio system [McIntosh separates and B&W speakers] and his previous reviews have always been SPOT ON.

I only purchased this remastered edition for the 7" packaging, a hopeful QUAD DSD remastering of the original analogue masters and to 'support' SONY Japan's further QUAD/5.1 release program.

Like Adam [fredblue] I LOVE the original SONY 5.1 SACD of 52nd STREET so it's rather perplexing to me what could've gone wrong!
 
BTW---I can't wait to hear what's up with the mix on "52nd Street". I have one of these on order from Japan as well. I don't know if it's shipped yet or not.

Sounds to me like maybe the poster has his system set to "5 channel stereo" or some such by mistake? Hope that's all it is!
 
I just searched Ebay because I was curious myself. Looks like you can get new copies pretty easily for a little under 50 bucks including shipping. Not a bargain, but could be much worse.
LOL, once it becomes even more rare...those prices will slowly increase.
 
LOL, once it becomes even more rare...those prices will slowly increase.

Yep. I still can't get over missing the boat on Billy Cobham "Spectrum". Of all the titles to NOT buy right when it was released, that one is probably the one that sells for the most these days! o_O
 
I'm still perplexed by Markie's [marpow] assessment of the 'remastered' 40th Anniversary edition of 52nd Street. Mark has an excellent audio system [McIntosh separates and B&W speakers] and his previous reviews have always been SPOT ON.

I only purchased this remastered edition for the 7" packaging, a hopeful QUAD DSD remastering of the original analogue masters and to 'support' SONY Japan's further QUAD/5.1 release program.

Like Adam [fredblue] I LOVE the original SONY 5.1 SACD of 52nd STREET so it's rather perplexing to me what could've gone wrong!

I suppose it could have been a mastering error. In which case I would hope Sony Japan would fix it?
 
hmm.. now i wonder if Markie has the old version to compare? :unsure:

just before i go and switch my brain off for the next few hours with a bevvy of soap opera's, I thought I'd report on my having briefly blitzed thru the old 52nd Street disc.. skipping thru to the tracks I used to play most.. and blow me down but this might just nudge upto a QQ "10"..! :eek:

its a lot better than I remember - and I'd already rated it a "9" on that basis...plus i'd forgotten how much fun it is to shut off the Centre channel and go all BJ karaoke on those tracks that are mixed with his lead vocal hard in the Centre only...

"oooooh-ooooooh-ooooooohhh.. its just a half a mile awaaayyy..."

ok.. i may not sing as well as Billy but I bet I do a better BJ! HA!! :rocks

thank you and goodnight..!!:dance

No, sorry Adam, don't have the old version. At this point I hope I am wrong, but unless somebody tells me they hear, discrete, meaning different sounds (instruments) playing around in at least more than the front 3 I'll be suprised.
If that is the case, maybe it's time to do an Audessy correction on my rig, but again, I don't think so.
 
I popped it in again, listened at 70db, and I listened hard.
My amps at 450 watts front right and left and 350 watts at center and two rears all display a very good even mix. An example of track 1, sounds beautiful, definitely surround, when a cymbal does a repeated crash, 4 times per measure, you hear it crash front and fades rear. Not my idea of a great surround disc. When lead guitar does a chord solo, it is the same effect, starts front (heavy) fades rear (lighter).
The fidelity of the over all sound is excellent, very clear, not bright, very good mid range, great bottom end and vocals clear as a bell.
I guess if other listeners where wowed by the first version in surround then there expectation would be for this new version to be at least equal or better. This is my first listen in surround of this, 52nd St.
Maybe at 70 db I can retract my very dissapointed to dissapointed, but having listened to 1500 surrounds, this is the best I can offer. I will also admit maybe I am less passionate about Billy Joel, but this disc does not equal the other piano players surrounds by name of Elton John.
 
No, sorry Adam, don't have the old version. At this point I hope I am wrong, but unless somebody tells me they hear, discrete, meaning different sounds (instruments) playing around in at least more than the front 3 I'll be suprised.
If that is the case, maybe it's time to do an Audessy correction on my rig, but again, I don't think so.

ah that's cool my friend, no problem (y)

the style of surround mix on the 52nd Street 5.1 may not be like one of the old Columbia Quad mixes of Billy Joel's (lead vocals are more upfront in the 5.1 mixes than on his old Quads for a start..) but there's definitely discrete stuff happening in the Rears in both his 5.1 SACDs.

i don't want to derail the topic but if you have one main listening position for your surround rig and have a tape measure and an SPL handy you might want to shut off Audyssey and try a simple manual speaker setup process?

all you need do is make basic adjustments to your AVRs Speaker Distance settings based on the measurement taken of the distance from the front baffle of each of the main channels' speakers to your main listening position, together with readings on your SPL from your listening position of each channel in turn to make individual speaker level adjustments.

you won't get the benefits of the sort of room compensation and EQ or subwoofer setup for your LFE that auto setup routines like Audyssey, YPAO, MCACC, etc., bring (although there are ways to manually setup subwoofers which might be better to go into separately) but for surround music you may notice some differences when setting up manually as opposed to the auto setup systems, hopefully somewhat for the better.. but who can say, it's all in the ears of the beholder! something like that maybe anyway.. :giggle:
 
The first version in surround is very discrete. On par with the EJ mixes.

I can't imagine they would do a new 5.1 mix for this disc. When has Sony Japan ever done that?

Sounds as if there must have been some sort of error somewhere.
 
I just searched Ebay because I was curious myself. Looks like you can get new copies pretty easily for a little under 50 bucks including shipping. Not a bargain, but could be much worse.

Easily...not really...there are only 2 under $50 and they are both in Germany...that's it...2 over $80 and one used one in an auction situation..and that's all on Ebay and none on amazon..bullmoose...importds..deepdiscount..elusive disc...and music direct...the only other copies available are on discogs and there are only 3 of them and one is from Russia...which I wouldn't even consider and they are all over $50...the reality is that it is scarce and soon will be unavailable anywhere...it's a shame that Marshall couldn't sell a lot of inventory and now they are getting top dollar on the secondary market...
 
The first version in surround is very discrete. On par with the EJ mixes.

I can't imagine they would do a new 5.1 mix for this disc. When has Sony Japan ever done that?

Sounds as if there must have been some sort of error somewhere.

pretty sure Sony Japan has never done a 5.1 mix of their own of a title that's been released by Sony in 5.1 in another territory.

the nearest they've come to any surround tinkering with these 7-inchers is the (imho superfluous) Centre & LFE they added to the Quads of "Rough & Ready", "Wired", etc.
 
Easily...not really...there are only 2 under $50 and they are both in Germany...that's it...2 over $80 and one used one in an auction situation..and that's all on Ebay and none on amazon..bullmoose...importds..deepdiscount..elusive disc...and music direct...the only other copies available are on discogs and there are only 3 of them and one is from Russia...which I wouldn't even consider and they are all over $50...the reality is that it is scarce and soon will be unavailable anywhere...it's a shame that Marshall couldn't sell a lot of inventory and now they are getting top dollar on the secondary market...
Ahhh.. I didn't bother to see if those two sellers had only one copy offered. Although often it seems to be the case that when one sells, other listings are to follow. But for those who don't yet have this title, they may want to snatch these up?

Did Marshall not sell through all his inventory of this title? What did he do with the unsold stock?
 
pretty sure Sony Japan has never done a 5.1 mix of their own of a title that's been released by Sony in 5.1 in another territory.

the nearest they've come to any surround tinkering with these 7-inchers is the (imho superfluous) Centre & LFE they added to the Quads of "Rough & Ready", "Wired", etc.

Oh, well, we can always encase our original BJ 5.1 SACD of 52nd Street into that gorgeous 7" packaging and call it a day. At least, it'll sure look 'purdy!'
 
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