HiRez Poll Doors - PERCEPTION (DVD-A Box Set)

[JazzDoc]

My first post on this board ... I'm fairly new to owning DVD-A compatible equipment but once I had the gear, I wanted to get a copy of 'Perception'.

Perhaps some listeners are being somewhat harsh on the new 5.1 mixes. For sure, the audio fidelty is not on a par with the Steely Dan or Donald Fagen DVD-A discs that I have or the wonderful 5.1 mix of Grover Washington's 'Winelight' but ...

I didn't really buy the 'Perception' set for the 5.1 mixes. These were an added bonus. All six albums are great music (I even like 'The Soft Parade') and the remastered CDs are well worth owning in the own right. They are much better than any previous Doors CD issues.

The set cost me £39.99 from Amazon in the UK so for six newly remastered Doors albums, all with bonus discs and the DVD-A discs included for good measure, I reckon I've got a result!

 

[Guy Robinson]

The set cost me £39.99 from Amazon in the UK so for six newly remastered Doors albums, all with bonus discs and the DVD-A discs included for good measure, I reckon I've got a result!

Great deal! I didn't know that they had re-released this in a smaller box. That's quite a savings for less cardboard which appears to be the only difference. I could not have waited for this release in the smaller box at the lower cost of course, but if these discs are the same as the original Perception box discs this is another case of someone telling me to bend over and take it like a man.

 

[JazzDoc]

The carboard box edition was released a couple of weeks ago. I fought my conscience about buying the original box set and my sensible side won! At one point the albums were to be released individually in both the CD only and CD/DVD-A formats but this plan was shelved in favour of the less expensive complete set.

Don't feel bad though. The number of 'metal box' editions was strictly limited and it looks like the original issue is going to become a collectors' piece that will fetch really good money ... Not that you would ever sell your copy of course!

 

[Guy Robinson]

Don't feel bad though. The number of 'metal box' editions was strictly limited and it looks like the original issue is going to become a collectors' piece that will fetch really good money ... Not that you would ever sell your copy of course!

Well time will tell. I would sell anything in my collection for the right price.

 

[Chris Gerhard]

Well time will tell. I would sell anything in my collection for the right price.

I said the same and I now have a few blank spots in my collection as a result when I actually did what I said I would do. Of course your right price may be higher than my right price was. Limited supply items with only a tiny demand can surprise you when the entire world is your marketplace. I am glad this box set was released at a lower price, I hope it is a big success.

Chris

 

[EMB]

J Yes I wish the first album could have been better, but if you know the history of the recording, Botnick didn't have much to work with.

While "Light My Fire" seemed wonky on the old quad Lp, "Soul Kitchen" and "Take It As It Comes" are not bad. I wonder if a few of the mixes would have been better off as 3.0, others 4.0 for that album. The debut, from a surround perspective, is limited, yes, but well balanced(although the back channels are superfluous).



ED

 

[Dob]

Fantastically clear and spacious surround sound on this box. Yeah, some of the mixes are closer to 3.1 than 5.1 (or 5.0?), but that didn't bother me in the slightest.

My painstakingly constructed (stereo) Doors collection (all the DCC gold CDs, Morrison Hotel target, as well as the mini-LP editions of the Grundman remasters, compared track by track for the best sounding versions) is now obsolete. Oh well...I guess I can still use the mini-LP packaging for the discs and put the ungainly box in storage where it belongs.

One caveat: I found that the 5.1 mixes all sound best in DTS, with the center channel off. There are differences in the DVD-A mix and the DTS mix, which I noticed when I switched off all channels except the center, and compared the two.

There's also some out of phase bass weirdness going on with the center channel...at times, when I was switching the center in and out, I noticed a drop in bass response with the center on (can't remember if this was DVD-A or DTS or both).

 

[cupboy]

There's also some out of phase bass weirdness going on with the center channel...at times, when I was switching the center in and out, I noticed a drop in bass response with the center on (can't remember if this was DVD-A or DTS or both).

Have you checked to be sure your speakers are connected in-phase?

 

[Dob]

Have you checked to be sure your speakers are connected in-phase?

Well, my center channel is definitely "hooked up" in phase...but my bass management sends the center channel bass to one of my subs, so I would think that the problem lies there. I suppose it's possible that one of my subs is out of phase with the other. It occurs to me that I can test my subs by switching one of them off...but the majority of my surround discs seem OK, and IIRC, the bass anomalies on this set were not consistent from disc to disc. I want to say that I noticed it on Strange Days.

Given that, and since my bass management sums the bass from the rears, the center, and the .1 channel, I think it's more likely that one of those channels was (sometimes) mixed with out of phase bass...which wouldn't be too shocking, considering that the .1 channel of this set isn't without criticism (WFTS DVD-A doesn't even have one).

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the entire frequency spectrum for the center channel was deliberately mixed out of phase, in a misguided attempt to give the surround mix more "depth" or something. IMO, the front soundstage for this whole set is significantly degraded with the center on (both DVD-A and DTS, but DVD-A loses most of the vocal with the center off, IIRC, so you have to leave it on for DVD-A).

 

[Felix E. Martinez]

Back in stock at CDUniverse.

Down to $119.69.

 

[solaris]

I just grab this at HMV In Calgary $99 CDN

 

[aalloca]

Bought this from Amazon for my Dad. Did a brief run thru of several tracks on a few diff albums. I thought the mix was very clear, didn't get a chance to do a full review. Packaging was flimsy, I got the larger limited edition.

One question we were pushing the axiom's Qs4's pretty hard (85 volume on Onkyo 674) on riders on the storm. In the rear channel there is rain and thunder, is there any clipping or distortion noticeable for you guys or was it the surrounds being clipped?

Thanks,
Andrew

 

[jarofclay73]

I love this boxed set. However, I don't know how to access the stereo versions in my Acura. Switching groups doesn't work because there's only the bonus tracks in group 2. Any ideas?

 

[Felix E. Martinez]

What happens if you click "audio" to switch audio tracks on the remote? I believe WB/Rhino often authored their hi-res DVD-Audio discs with both the hi-res stereo and surround options in one group, so one only had to hit "Audio" to toggle back and forth. Worth a try!

Still in stock. Cool!

 

[jarofclay73]

What happens if you click "audio" to switch audio tracks on the remote? I believe WB/Rhino often authored their hi-res DVD-Audio discs with both the hi-res stereo and surround options in one group, so one only had to hit "Audio" to toggle back and forth. Worth a try!

Still in stock. Cool!

If only my Acura came with a remote!

 

[Felix E. Martinez]

But is there a button on the control panel that allows you to toggle between audio tracks?

 

[jarofclay73]

But is there a button on the control panel that allows you to toggle between audio tracks?

Unfortunately, no.

 

[umrk]

I've been listening to the Doors since the beginning. I'm a fan, but not of this box set..
Great music is art. What's been done to this music is is the equivalent of drawing a moustiche on the Mona Lisa.

The sonic improvements are welcome but all the little additional changes to the music are not. Why couldn't they just leave it alone. One thing I liked about the Doors music was that it had great ambience. The sound seemed to come out of this strange audio landscape. I now realise that it was created by analogue delays and analog reverb. The problem with the music on these discs is that some of the new bits that have been stuck on, sound like they come from a different soundspace. It's probably digital reverb/delay and it just sounds wrong.

I have a copy of the La woman DVD-A and it's good and so I was expecting the same for the other discs. Not so.

Most of the extras are out takes and of little interest.

There are a couple of tracks that were only available on Weird Scenes Inside the Goldmine LP which are a welcome addition.

 

[timbre4]

I was afraid the box DVD-As would sound like the earlier L.A. Woman disc; it contains more sacriledge to the Doors sound if that is your interpretation of the box set. Happily it works overall, even if the the 1st album is more like 3.1...

Actually, the radically different versions of The Spy and Queen Of The Highhway (jazz version) are surprisingly good and welcome additions to the Doors catalog. Morrison Hotel has the best range of extras and the others are thinner in this regard.

We always have the originals to return to; they didn't disappear. I find it hard to argue with getting such a monumental high profile 5.1 release as late as 2006-2007.

 

[JohnA]

I gave it an 8.
The music is full 10 of course, but as a surround effort it does leave a bit to be desired. They didn't go the full hog like the Dark side of the Moon, now did they

Still, the classic albums are now one step closer to perfection, can't complain.
Mercifully the price dropped after a year, otherwise I wouldn't have gone for the box, already had all the remastered CDs.

Let's wait for the Genesis albums from the 70s now!