Elton John Diamonds (SDE Blu-Ray #31) Dec. 27th, 2024

[key_wiz]

Funeral For A Friend is in Atmos on Apple Music.

wait, wut?

 

[sjcorne]

The full studio albums currently up in Atmos on Apple Music are the debut, Honky Chateau, GYBR, and Too Low For Zero.

However, Greg Penny gave an interview way back in 2020 saying that he'd finished Madman Across The Water in Atmos as well and was at the time working on Captain Fantastic.

 

[HomerJAU]

Mine arrived yesterday.

 

[The Rang]

I recall reading somewhere, Stereophile I think, that the resolution when streaming Atmos through Apple isn’t as high as physical media.
That’s assuming I understood it correctly.
Is that true?

 

[perzon57]

wait, wut?

See post#302.

 

[kmacleod]

Mine arrive yesterday. Can't wait to give it a spin....

 

[bnyhof]

Hi Guy

Ella here from the SDE shop in London
Hope you are well and thanks for your interest in the SDE surround sound Blurays.

Good news that the postal workers are back on the job now.

We will be posting the orders we were holding soon. You will receive confirmation and tracking then.

I am just waiting for confirmation from Royal Mail that they have processed the backlog they were holding.

Hope that is OK.

Anything else I can help with in future then just let me know.

Thanks Ella

Yes, the postal strike has been over for three weeks now, and they haven't even sent "Thompson Twins / Into The Gap" yet. I imagine Royal Mail forgot to tell them the backlog is gone.

 

[key_wiz]

The full studio albums currently up in Atmos on Apple Music are the debut, Honky Chateau, GYBR, and Too Low For Zero.

However, Greg Penny gave an interview way back in 2020 saying that he'd finished Madman Across The Water in Atmos as well and was at the time working on Captain Fantastic.

See post#302.

Good news that hopefully bodes well for other albums coming to streaming and maybe even physical release.

For me? I don't have an Atmos system and have no plans to upgrade to one anytime soon. So my support for Atmos mixes being released is simply that that's the new/best way to get 5.1 into my home. So HC and GYBR in Atmos hold little interest for me except maybe for some curiosity as to any difference from the the old 5.1 mixes. which I still find to be so nearly-perfect that I have no desire to replace them.

Bring on the OTHER albums!

 

[SHB]

Mine arrived today. A kiss on the hand may be quite continental. But EJ's diamonds is this forum's best friend.

 

[Blackwood]

Yes, the postal strike has been over for three weeks now, and they haven't even sent "Thompson Twins / Into The Gap" yet. I imagine Royal Mail forgot to tell them the backlog is gone.

I can tell you here in the states we were notified by USPS that while the strike was over, mail would not be going out from USPS into Canada until yesterday. I wonder if other countries had the same situation.

U.S. Postal Service will resume acceptance of mail and packages to Canada​

The U.S. Postal Service will resume acceptance of mail and packages to Canada starting Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. Canada Post has made significant progress in clearing delayed volumes caused by their employee strike, and now commercial and retail customers, as well as those using online systems, will be able to send mail and packages to Canada once again.

As I wrote this, mine was just dropped off in my mailbox. Time to take a stroll outside.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

I recall reading somewhere, Stereophile I think, that the resolution when streaming Atmos through Apple isn’t as high as physical media.
That’s assuming I understood it correctly.
Is that true?

https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...mos-stream-compared-to-a-blu-ray-atmos.35811/

 

[GilWave]

Funeral For A Friend is in Atmos on Apple Music.

Yes, but that version is compressed - not full bandwidth. I have the 5.1 DTS version of GYBR on BluRay, it was one of my favorite DVD Audio discs at the time.

 

[HomerJAU]

Yes, but that version is compressed - not full bandwidth.

DR13 in not compressed. Maybe you mean lossy?

 

[marcb]

DR13 in not compressed. Maybe you mean lossy?

View attachment 112483

Not remotely the same thing, but data compression and dynamic compression are both compression (and unfortunately they do get conflated often...)

 

[marcb]

I recall reading somewhere, Stereophile I think, that the resolution when streaming Atmos through Apple isn’t as high as physical media.
That’s assuming I understood it correctly.
Is that true?

Yes, it is basically true. Physical atmos media is generally lossless (if not always?). Streaming atmos is lossy (and not particularly high resolution lossy). Maybe some will disagree, but I would say most people can tell the difference when A-B'ing them. I know I can and the difference isn't just nuanced IMO.

But streaming certainly has its benefits...

 

[The Rang]

https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...mos-stream-compared-to-a-blu-ray-atmos.35811/

Thanks, interesting read that confirms what I thought
This is the article I was thinking of:
https://www.stereophile.com/content/beatles-last-stand

Followed a month later by:


https://www.stereophile.com/content/dolby-atmos-bleak-shadow

 

[HomerJAU]

Not remotely the same thing, but data compression and dynamic compression are both compression (and unfortunately they do get conflated often...)

Data compression has no relevance to audio quality (e.g. mlp, FLAC, DTS-HDMA, TrueHD are all data compressed)

 

[key_wiz]

it'll be coming on the SDE Surround Blu-ray of "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road"!

which frankly is 3,000 copies minimum of money being left on the table and must surely be on the radar for a 2025 release maybe along with an SDE Surround release of "Captain Fantastic" which will be celebrating it's 50th Anniversary later in the year!!

50th anniversary of "Rock of the Westies" this year as well.

 

[Bill B]

My copy arrived today. I listened to about a third of it and my first impressions are all positive. Very nice surround mix. What a deal, 3+ hours of music on a stand alone BR. My Elton fandom has always revolved around the music from the first third of his career. I was surprised how much I liked a lot of the later songs. I can't wait to give it a full attention listen.

 

[fredblue]

@key_wiz "Rock Of The Westies" has (unfairly, imho) long had a fairly raw deal from critics etc. i remember nearly spitting out my sandwich when i first read John Tobler's shall we say less than glowing/back-handed complimentary tone liner notes in the back of the CD remaster of Westies when it first came out in the mid-90's

on balance, it was a Number 1 album with a Number 1 single ("Island Girl") so it's hardly a dud and i personally know several Elton fans for whom it is one of their favourite EJ albums.

yes it's a slightly harder edged record with a different sound and a larger quite different band lineup than his previous few LPs but without damning it with Tobler's kind of faint praise it's far from EJ's worst album of the 70's!

it has to be said though, Bernie's songwriting had clearly taken a dip after "Captain Fantastic" (the lyrics to tracks like Tower Of Babel, Tell Me When The Whistle Blows, Bitter Fingers, Better Off Dead, We All Fall In Love Sometimes, Someone Saved My Life Tonight etc are sheer poetry) and every tune on that album is a toe-tapper (even the ballads are catchy!) mainly because Elton had to unfathomably memorize all the melodies as he wrote the entire album while on holiday on the SS France with no tape recorder to capture any of the writing!

in a case of "follow that!" (a crime he'd already committed following "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" up with the "Caribou" album) Westies had no chance to be seen as a great album coming after "Captain Fantastic" in all fairness but i'd still adore an Atmos/5.1 release of it because the best tracks on it are still stonkers!!! (i said stonker not Stinker! )

"Take the wheel, i hear the timbers creaking,
Take the wheel, i think this ship is sinking..
Jamaica seems so far and i've been thinking,
old Billy Bones has gone to sea
and quit his dockside drinking!"

CHECK IT OUT!!