Comments Inspired By Doobie Brothers, The - QUADIO [Blu-ray Audio]

[RustyStatic]

Several of the more knowledgable members here have suggested that the mastering engineer may have intentionally reduced some of the midrange information on the quad mixes as a way of emphasizing the high-end and low-end content. If you read through the poll threads, there's a pretty diverse set of opinions on how balanced both sets sound--some people say they sound fine with clear vocals, others are experiencing buried vocals and overloud rears, etc. I thought the vocals did tend to get lost on the Chicago set, but they sound pretty well-balanced to me on the Doobies.

How far back in your room are you sitting? And are you running any kind of EQ profile on your AVR (Audyssey, etc)?

Yeah, I do have Audessey running... I'm sorry for the additional static in this thread, I'm going through it with a fine tooth comb now to see if I can find a good suggestion that'll work for me. I do indeed have Audyssey running, I should mess with taking that off and see what happens. Clearly something is up, because the vocals are just SO far back I couldn't imagine this being intentional.

 

[GOS]

Yeah, I do have Audessey running... I'm sorry for the additional static in this thread, I'm going through it with a fine tooth cob now to see if I can find a good suggestion that'll work for me. I do indeed have Audyssey running, I should mess with taking that off and see what happens. Clearly something is up, because the vocals are just SO far back I couldn't imagine this being intentional.

Sounds like you may have dynamic EQ turned on.

 

[RustyStatic]

OK, now THAT was my "night and day" fix right there, GOS—THANK YOU. Jeez, I haven't heard that dynamic EQ setting make such a dramatic difference with anything else I've played (which actually why I just kept it on up until this point, because it sounded just fine...). Well, now that's another toggle I'll be messing with going forward depending on what I'm playing!

 

[Rhinojack]

Hey there, yeah similar to DAC1961 I'm wondering if there were any settings or recommendations to get this sounding A+?

Clearly this set (and Chicago) is blowing a lot of minds—but mostly I'm sitting here wondering what the heck is going on... I'm on a Sony UXB-700 myself, feeding into a Marantz SR8015, and although I've got sound coming out of all four speakers, the rears are screamin' while the fronts seem super muted... the vocals are WAY back in the mix... and while I'm not as familiar with the Doobies, with the Chicago I'm having exactly the same issue and I know the music well... and while I know quad is its own beast and expectations need to be set, there's no way this is right (the quad Atom Heart mother on the Floyd early years box is perfect). Core vocal lines and melody lines that are present in the fronts, are SUPER buried and overpowered by horn pads and harmonies and things in the rears...

I've gone through a few pages in this thread and no tweaks/suggestions have helped thus far (and hey, even if that's something like "you should add this particular player to get the most out of these discs because it can decode them right", I'm game—I want to be floored by this instead of confused!). Thank you!

 

[WBP]

Got this on order and really looking forward to hearing it , I had The Captain and Me on DVD-A years ago but stupidly sold it!

 

[mongojr]

Got this on order and really looking forward to hearing it , I had The Captain and Me on DVD-A years ago but stupidly sold it!

IMHO: I did too but the Quad is better - extras.

 

[Titch]

Well, as James Brown is prone to exclaiming from time to time: "Good God". The Doobie Brothers have never really registered on my radar, even when I was a student, buying lots of music guides ("1001 Albums You Must Listen To Before You Die" and the like) and unfamiliar albums, of all genres, to try to broaden my horizons. The Doobie Brothers are never in any 1000 albums list. But thanks to this website and the Surround Polls, I had to purchase the box. It would have been daft not to, based on how ecstatic the reviews are. Cranked up, the quadrophonic mixes are incredible - my teenage nephew remarked that the track Without You, on the Captain and Me album, could easily have been Led Zeppelin. Next time I have my mates over for a barbecue, we'll be playing these instead of the Creedence SACDs.

An easy 10.

Oh - I checked The Rolling Stone Album Guide, legendary for all the really clueless reviews they've done all through their existence. Yep, no surprise: no five star reviews for the Doobies.

 

[Titch]

By the way - the dude that gave this set a 4 - is he from Rolling Stone?

 

[ar surround]

Oh - I checked The Rolling Stone Album Guide, legendary for all the really clueless reviews they've done all through their existence. Yep, no surprise: no five star reviews for the Doobies.

It seems that a lot of really good stuff...stuff that has stood the test of time...got mediocre reviews when first released. Yes, the Doobies put their share of filler on albums, but they released an album per year over eight straight years. Most of today's acts milk an album for two or three years before we see the next one. So if you take the filler tracks out of these Doobies albums, you probably net 7 albums. That would yield 14 to 21 years of high quality output for one of today's artists.

More rant: The Beatles album output was truly prodigious with multiple releases every year. Plus, the singles and EP's weren't included on these albums and were additional output. Absolutely insane! (I salute Taylor Swift for putting out two albums last year, but touring was a bust because of the pandemic.)

 

[Scott65]

By the way - the dude that gave this set a 4 - is he from Rolling Stone?

no way, a person from rolling stone would not give the set such a 'high' mark......

 

[humprof]

New "live" version of "Takin' It To The Streets." (Not sure why they did this virtually; their live tour starts in just a couple of weeks, after all...)

 

[humprof]

Rick Beato finally gets around to the Doobie Brothers (one of his favorite bands, but he's never discussed them on his channel before)--with a 40-minute episode covering seven songs. Start at ~4:30 if you want to skip the preliminaries. Not as analytical as his "What's So Great" series--this is more of a head-bobbing, "this is so great!" listen-along--but it's still fun.