In 1975, I was 8 years old and the Tommy soundtrack wasn't on my radar! I did see pictures of Elton as "the Pinball Wizard" and thought those were cool but otherwise, I waited until 1977 for his Greatest Hits Vol 2 release. I did (or rather mom bought them for me!) buy the "Philadelphia Freedom" and "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" American 45's at Tower of Records in Sacramento, CA.
So, let me understand what you are doing with your system. You are running the 5.1 layer through the auromatic upmixer. You also have a non conventional speaker setup such that the height speaker placements do not conform with the standard Auro 3D configuration. Further, you do not utilize a VOG speaker. Please correct me if I’ve gotten any of this wrong. Assuming that I understand you correctly, then, you are enjoying a significant variation on the Auro 3D template. I’m happy to hear that you are very much enjoying listening through your system and it would be very cool to hear another forum member’s experience of listening to music in your room.
Watt Ave Tower? Or Broadway? I practically lived at both those stores when I was living in Sac and going to college at American River c. 1980.
I grew up in the Sierra Oaks area of Sacramento (American River Drive between Watt and Howe Avenues) so mom would drive me to the Tower Records on Watt Avenue. Tower of Books was in the same strip mall so I got my rock magazine fix (usually CIRCUS or CREEM) at the same time! I later worked at the Record Factory (1986) on Howe Avenue until the chain was purchased by the Wherehouse and I quit when I figured out that it was going to be pretty much only a video store. I landed at an independent record store (Spirit Records) in Rancho Cordova until I graduated from CSU, Sacramento in May of 1991.
1980 I lived in an apartment on Edison between Watt and Howe. Was at the Watt store all the time except to go to the Tower on Broadway most Saturday nights to hang out at that store until midnight (or whenever it was) and then walk across the street to the Tower Theater to see Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Ooh the stuff I've learned off Adam .just briefly popping back to add to this train of thoughtwhile we at QQ understandably tend to focus more on Mixing and Engineers, continuing on with the idea that the original Producers of these tracks play a big part in how Greg Penny's Surround ultimately panned out, an example of how how 'clever' and 'bold' i thought it was to even attempt a Surround remix of "Good Morning To The Night", itself a multi-layered collage of old Elton tracks and yet the end result in Atmos is kinda "meh" and underwhelming to me, potentially because the "original" (if we can call Pnau's multitrack mashup that!) is quite flat and lacking compared to the texture and detail of the actual originals Produced by Gus Dudgeon.
then i thought "why so/how so?" and then "Victim Of Love" hit me like a two-ton truck. Dance has to achieve something quite different from a ballad or a rocker, with a vibe that's not loaded with whimsy or passion, no sweet romance, it's love of a different kind from the innocence of "Your Song" or the adoration of the seamstress for the band of "Tiny Dancer" but Dance should be thunder in the night, doof-y and thuddy, Teutonic with a beat to get you on your feet.
of the other Producers on Diamonds, we have the likes of Narada Michael Walden handling the "True Love" duet with Kiki Dee. lush but kinda sterile and bland and hangs there, the Surround doesn't do much either.. and how did he get the Producer's gig anyway? a Proggy spacey drummer does a schmaltzy rendition of a Classic? huh?like most of the "Duets" album it's a head-scratcher.
then we have Wilbur C Rimes producing the Aida duet with LeAnn Rimes, "Written In The Stars", i find the original track has all the verve and emotion of a deflated crisp packet, there's no chemistry between the singers and again i ask myself, what did Greg Penny really have to work with here?
i find "Believe" to come across more satisfyingly in the Surround stakes but then it was originally Produced by Greg Penny himself so he should have had less miracle work to do to inject some life into the track, if that comes across as a back-handed compliment it's not intended to be, however one supposes it would have been less challenging to reimagine in Surround.
unlike "Something About The Way You Look Tonight" & "Live Like Horses" the parent album they're from being 1997's "The Big Picture" which i found a sonic sludge with some of the most leaden dreary dirges of Elton's career, mired by some awful arrangements and mostly plodding Production; a bit like some of the 80's tracks, Chris Thomas Producing Elton with neither doing their best work. the Atmos of "Something About The Way.." also uses an alternate vocal take, at least for part of the first verse, which is a less gutsy vocal to that used in the original Stereo but i'm sure there's only so much Greg Penny had to work with.
then we have the 2 x 'Songs From The West Coast' tracks, "I Want Love" & "This Train Don't Stop There Anymore", Produced by Patrick Leonard.
the original Stereo mixes of both were compressed and congested by design with intentionally reduced dynamics and distortion and saturation used to create "a sound".
at the time of the album's release, Elton was banging on about "analogue" and how he wanted everything he did from now on to be on tape and all warm and hissy and analogue-y, no more of that digital schmigital for Sir Eltonand Greg Penny was clearly going for a similar sound in his new mixes of these two tracks, which is fair enough otherwise the Atmos wouldn't sound authentic to the originals but by recreating 'that sound', no matter how artfully, it renders the new mixes Lo-Fi and shrunken by comparison to some of the other tracks in Atmos, with an overall sense of there being less of the breath of life of Gus' best Elton work, dynamic with plenty of room to dynamically expand out into space. ahh.. time to get back to work
...to be continued..
oh King of the Nektar
you're far too kind! there's sooooo much guff i can puff n stuff about Elton it'd derail the Rocket train of this Poll 
i ought to refrain from doing so and maybe take it to a separate thread, i dunno 
Chris, clearly inspired by this flash of brilliance in the studio, then had the genius idea to whizz from Montserrat to LA and ask Stevie Wonder to drop in a sensational harmonica solo which took the track to another level 
) to polish the odd latter-day Elton glass bauble into an EJ Diamond, you know with these Polls when 8's and 9's are outliers it's far from doom and gloom and as has been said many times by many commentators, in a weird way Elton was one of his own biggest rivals, with his current music always being judged (unfairly?) by the benchmark of his 70's Classics.. and that's exactly what happens with Diamonds, even in Surround the 70's gems often outshine the later tracks and there's no getting away from that. still, 48 Elton tracks in Surround, is that the good stuff or what!!! 
♀
it is a bit of a shame that the largely excellent 1995 "Made In England" album was so under-represented on the compilation besides "Believe", at the very least i'd have expected the title track to represent a post-70's punchier tune and that 2004's "Peachtree Road" and 2006's "The Captain & The Kid" were also totally airbrushed out of the picture 
i'd be a rich b!tch if i had a penny for every conversation about Elton's latest single/album over the last 30 or so years with both casual listeners and hardcore fans alike where they've said "ah it's alright but it's not as good as his old stuff"
yes, you can now change your voteNo they are definitely discrete with key instruments in the rears, just for the first part of the collection, it does seem that the ATMOS mix sounds a bit more front heavy compared to the previous 5.1 mixes on the sacds.
I rated it an 8, but am just revisiting the second half of the collection, and the acoustic guitars and background vox in the rears on Sad Songs are bliss. I would bump the rating to 9. Can I do that?
You probably blew your wad on that Brazilian Bikini WAX, Adam!my candle blew out long before my speakers ever did!
I did too. Daniel was pretty cool also
