HiRez Poll Doobie Brothers, The - QUADIO [Blu-ray Audio]

[Albert Dagger]

I’ve finally voted on this one. It’s a 10 for me. I’ve been enjoying the Doobies for the last couple of weeks, in both stereo and surround. Great stereo remasters (same as the 2016 remasters), great quad mixes. The quads sound incredibly modern for their time, in terms of mixing strategies. There are a couple of exception which I found real fun, such as Without You, with both drummers in the rear channels.

For Captain, I think I prefer the 5.1 overall, but a couple of tracks are more fun on the quad mix, Long Train Runnin and Without You being two examples.

Vices and Stampede seem better produced, or at least I’m noticing an improved fidelity in both albums. I think Black Water sounds great in quad. These mixes are far superior to the Santana’s quads, perhaps with the exception of Caravanserai

Nice little packaging for an affordable price, no unnecessary extras, good artwork replicas. That’s all you need.

A final note: I’ve read in some reviews that the quad and 5.1 for Captain were mixed similarly. I have to disagree with that finding. It might be song dependant but I find the two mixes quite different and showing their respective age!

Full marks this time. I really hope that Minute by Minute and Takin’ it to the streets will receive a surround treatment in the future. Captain and Takin’ are their two best albums in my opinion.

Grab this box set as long as it’s available!

 

[cornwall198]

Ok then - had a great weekend listening to this lot. 7.1? Great. 5.1? Greater still. Then closed down the sub (as advised on slip note in the box), and the center - just the four main speakers set to large. (2 B&W CM 10s up front, 2 CM 9s behind). And WOW! Just incredible sounding. Oh I know - the obvious answer. But no sub, no center, no back surround - and the music and mix just come right into place. What splendid fun. Had to double check that the sub was off so convincing was the bass. Same with the center - it really sounded like I hadn't disabled it so convincing was the center image. And the crispness of everything else. Wonderfully integrated and brilliantly discrete - killer combination. You know it is working when the musical experience stops the tinkering and seduces you into just listening... Unambiguous 10 for me!

 

[tezzalavell]

Well my 2nd post . Gotta say the immersive sound and warmth . Yes warmth , didn't know my system had it in it !! The surround sound unbelievable and the crispness of instruments, amazing. Now I am going to tell you why I am only going to vote 9.


Only knew the popular songs, LTR , LTTM , CG , BW etc . I was more familiar with the Ronald McDonald years. Mix and fidelity, sonically top marks all the way . The content is good as well apart from the vocal aspect. In a lot of the songs (the out and out rockers, lots of them) the vocals are buried and unclear so much I was running for my iPad and checking the song lyrics . I am a 5.1 man not sure whether quad suffers from having a phantom centre but I did and so docked a mark.


9 only from me . Pineapple Thief – Versions of the Truth just arrived so that will be my next review

Well an Update from me on this . As I said vocals were buried so could not and still will not give a 10 . Still a 9 because you vote on what is put in your hands. So now I have to apologise especially to all you quad purists . I took what was in my hands and threw it through Auditon centre channel extractor and gave myself a vocal centre channel . Now I can hear the vocals much more clearly. A lot of work on 4 albums ( most I had to add a centre). Very satisfying for me , again sorry to you guys !

 

[Sashaaa]

HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!!

I usually don't swear here cus I feel like y'all don't appreciate that here, but DAMN. This is such a great set of albums and content. Each of the mixes are top tier quad mixes with fidelity that beats out most 5.1 mixes. Totally blown away by the quality of the tunes and the mixes. I wasn't expecting to like the other albums besides The Captain and Me but they're all just really great straight up rock music. It's honestly pretty impressive how well they're able to craft just great they are able to just craft straight up rock music.

I don't think there's much else I can say that hasn't been said.

Buy this, please!!!

 

[ar surround]

...I usually don't swear here cus I feel like y'all don't appreciate that here, but DAMN...

Nice review, Relentles. Glad you like the set. I think that judicious use of swear words is tolerated here, especially in this case where you’d probably like to rate something a 12 of 10. (Or perhaps where a release pisses one off so much that a “1“ is a generous score. )

 

[DAC1961]

Thank you...... Mystery solved and I can stop playing with wires and menu screens

How did you correct the issue on the Sony? No decoding in the player via setting HDMI output to bitstream? If so, what was it set to prior? THanks

 

[wrat]

And yet another 8 ,the mix and fidelity ae excellent but there is filler on all the albums and unlikely that I will listen to any ALL the way through again but pick and choose

 

[Rhinojack]

I played Toulouse Street this weekend and was surprised how whisper quiet the opening guitar riffs of “Listen To The Music” were, and as I’ve said before, on “Blackwater”, the, "I’d like to hear some funky...” chorus vocals are pretty quiet too.

 

[AYanguas]

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!

I feel the same with those two sets and some other Quad mixes that put lot of loud discrete content in the rears.

In addition to playing with DEQ off and other level settings ("after Audyssey") one thing that has helped me to better listen the Doobies and Chicago Quads has been changing the Side Surrounds channels to the Surround Back Speakers. Also for Abraxas Quad.

With a typical 7.1 floor speakers, you have the Surrounds more or less at the sides (90º) and the rear Channels from the QUAD going to that surround speakers Sound really too overwhelming.

Thinking about the original intention of QUAD mixers in the 70's, with a square layout of the Speakers with the MLP at the centre. When I changed the rear Quad channels from Surrounds to Surround Backs, I got a more balanced sound.

 

[jefe1]

I am so happy with this set. I wish I could say the same for all my surround purchases.

 

[marpow]

I voted 10. I have been holding off on my poll opionion as this release arrived when my room was not quite finished, but now is. I am an orginal Doobies fan, have all there releases, CD's/some videos. As a Bay Area person they are just ingrained in our DNA.
I have seem them live, too many to count (Michel McDonald and Tom Johnston) including once in 2019 and 2020. These 4 albums are very intimately known to us. The music all combined is like 4 greatest hits albums, we really don't discriminate between songs.
This said, when listening, as a surround release it is hard to be highly critical as the music is so fantastic.
I have these 4 albums as CD's, stereo downloads from HDTracks, and stereo SACD's from Mobile Fidelity. Plus one DVD-A of The Captain and Me.
I will start with The Captain and Me for surround comparison. I prefer the DVD-A over the Quadio 4.0 Blu Ray. Main reason I tend to prefer mixes with center channel overall, and with the DVD-A you clearly hear track 1 at about 1:08 the swirling sound going around speakers that you barely hear on the Blu Ray, that alone is enough for me to prefer the DVD-A. FWIW you can hear that on the stereo releases also.
The other (3) 4.0 Blu Rays I have nothing in surround to compare to and I just love them. My listening situation is so good right now, that I am confident that I am hearing them all as a beautiful, box set, able to listen to soft or loud, able to deterimine the mix, what, where, and when with ease, never straining or wanting for anything more.

Please keep Poll Threads Pure, no shipping, equipment, off topic chatter.

 

[WBP]

I've voted 10, great content, the albums have aged well and much stronger than I remembered, the presentation is first class and the quad mix's are amazing

 

[Miilda]

It plays very well, sound and multichannel.

 

[Sparky]

Wow, I think the Quad mix is excellent. Like others I wasn't that big of a Doobie Brothers fan, this set has changed that. I find that I'm really enjoying almost all of the songs. I am voting a 10......almost had to knock it a 9 for the inexplicable placement of the track listing on Toulouse St.

 

[JNL]

What a fantastic set! I had only remotely heard of The Doobie Brothers (did recognize some songs though) so for me this is one of those 'discovered because of surround' delights. Listening to this, I honestly can't understand why so few artists have insisted on having their music mixed in quad (or, later on, 5.1 for that matter). Who cares there's a smaller market for it! I know the companies do, but I'd expect any musician to want their music to sound like this The increased separation is such a joy. I was late to the party so I'm happy it was still there when I finally decided to order it. I voted 10!!!

 

[Jabwylie1968]

I always rip my SACD’s , dvd-A’s , BRs to my drive so I can stream them, but not one of these discs can be recognised by makemkv ? Anyone know why

 

[JediJoker]

I always rip my SACD’s , dvd-A’s , BRs to my drive so I can stream them, but not one of these discs can be recognised by makemkv ? Anyone know why

Probably need to update MakeMKV.

 

[Jabwylie1968]

Probably need to update MakeMKV.

It’s bang up to date , is a weird one that every disc is a no-go

 

[Ninecats]

That is weird indeed - no disc recognition at all in makemkv? Can your win/mac detect the disc at all?

 

[neil wilkes]

Just because MakeMKV cannot rip a disc does not mean there is an issue with the disc.
Rippers like this are all built on reverse engineered hacks of licensed codecs & ROM drives are often problematic too.
I recently ran into a huge issue with MakeMKV here after 'updating' to the latest version. My ROM drive vanished completely from the system, unavailable - period - and I had to do a full shut down, leave it for a minute & then restart to get the drive running again.
To call it 'flaky software' is an understatement sad to say.