HiRez Poll Foreigner - FOREIGNER [DVD-A]

[fredblue]

Parakalo????(there, some Greek for you!)
HMV is an English chain ( I think) which is "His Master's Voice" , just like RCA...great for great sounding and unfortunately now radioactive discs... www.hmv.co.jp
an OBI strip???? Come on, you gotta know what that is!!!!

Hahaha!! "Parakalo" is "please" I seem to recall.. so is that a "PER-LEEEASE..?!?" Kap'n?

what what what?!? who's records are radioactive?!? :yikes

 

[kap'n krunch]

haha!....

"The term 'obi-strip' is derived from the name of the piece of wide fabric - the obi - that a geisha woman wears around her waist over the traditional Kimono dress. An amazing amount of information is packed onto this little wraparound piece of paper, often noting special tracks, concert dates, discography information and release anniversaries. And, as this information is intended to be read in the home market, it?s all printed in Japanese kanji and ~kana script! Whilst they are safely sealed on new release CD?s they are often discarded once opened, so they should be considered a real bonus when intact on out-of-print CD?s."

Duuuuude...I did NOT know the origin of the word OBI...geishas, huh???? "Kinnnnnky!!!!" no wonder those Japanese releases are so ...exotic!!!

 

[fredblue]

Duuuuude...I did NOT know the origin of the word OBI...geishas, huh???? "Kinnnnnky!!!!" no wonder those Japanese releases are so ...exotic!!!

well, there you go!
we live and learn, everyday, ah!

I have many Obi's.. sadly they all belong to Japanese cd and vinyl pressings, rather than any gorgeous geisha girls!

 

[kap'n krunch]

Hahaha!! "Parakalo" is "please" I seem to recall.. so is that a "PER-LEEEASE..?!?" Kap'n?

what what what?!? who's records are radioactive?!? :yikes

Sorry for the sobering and depressing news and derail...
EVERYTHING from Japan is radioactive after the explosion in the "Nuk-Kular" plant last year(at least 100x Chernobyls)....reports and MMedia do not report it cause they don't want to freak people out(some news about the tuna from the Pacific is as far as they go, AAMOF the Pacific is entirely contaminated now), and besides, there's NOTHING we can do about it...Reactor no. 4 is about to collapse and if it really does, it will release a RIDICULOUS amount of radiation into the atmosphere..about the same as an all out missile war in the Cold War times...

Now, back to a regularly scheduled programming..please look into this light...FLASH!!!!!(we need a MIB "Deneuralizer"...another movie that gets less funny every year!)

 

[fredblue]

Sorry for the sobering and depressing news and derail...
EVERYTHING from Japan is radioactive after the explosion in the "Nuk-Kular" plant last year(at least 100x Chernobyls)....reports and MMedia do not report it cause they don't want to freak people out(some news about the tuna from the Pacific is as far as they go, AAMOF the Pacific is entirely contaminated now), and besides, there's NOTHING we can do about it...Reactor no. 4 is about to collapse and if it really does, it will release a RIDICULOUS amount of radiation into the atmosphere..about the same as an all out missile war in the Cold War times...

Now, back to a regularly scheduled programming..please look into this light...FLASH!!!!!(we need a MIB "Deneuralizer"...another movie that gets less funny every year!)

Oh god! The end is nigh! If the nuclear fallouts in 5.1, I can die a happy man.

I guess I won't be ordering anymore Japanese imports (lovely little obis and all) anytime soon..

 

[kap'n krunch]

(and back to the thread)
Was listening to this today, and it was a much more eclectic disc than the following ones...
Also , the volume is really low!!!
The mix is really good with all kinds of things in the rears.
A curious disc- I guess this was before Mick Jones and Louis Grammatico took over songwriting duties entirely...

 

[The Bright Side]

Love this one, great album that I've had since the early 1990s (when I was in my teens). Held the DVD-As of this and "4" in my hands about 10-12 years ago, thinking I'd buy them once I get around to owning SACD and DVD-A equipment. Little could I know that once I did have the equipment, I'd have to pay through the nose for these discs.

This DVD-A has the annoying mastering that makes players physically jump back and forth between tracks, causing them to cut off the first note of pretty much every track on the disc. Seriously, who authors DVDs like that?! I hear the Oppo BDP-93 doesn't have the cut-off problem anymore, which is why I'll upgrade from the 83 once I have the cash...

 

[fredblue]

Love this one, great album that I've had since the early 1990s (when I was in my teens). Held the DVD-As of this and "4" in my hands about 10-12 years ago, thinking I'd buy them once I get around to owning SACD and DVD-A equipment. Little could I know that once I did have the equipment, I'd have to pay through the nose for these discs.

This DVD-A has the annoying mastering that makes players physically jump back and forth between tracks, causing them to cut off the first note of pretty much every track on the disc. Seriously, who authors DVDs like that?! I hear the Oppo BDP-93 doesn't have the cut-off problem anymore, which is why I'll upgrade from the 83 once I have the cash...

great story! thanks!

I held the "4" DVDA in my hands when it was new too (£20-odd in HMV.. Come on I thought! It's bloody Foreigner! my CDs of theirs sound like crap! this'll be a waste of space!).. about 2 weeks later (next time I went in there, there wasn't much movement in the DVDA section there, in particular!) the Foreigner DVDA (and the Machine Head SACD for it's RRP of £16.. Sixteen measly pounds..!!) had gone too!

I never saw a copy of either of those again, in the wild, or so cheap.

interesting on the disc authoring, I remember hearing the laser zip around all over the place on a fair few DVDAs to access tracks and have encountered that self-same problem of the beginning of tracks getting cut off due to the time taken for the processor to lock on and decode, etc.. but not on the Foreigners.. you're right it's more than likely a player (or firmware) thing as much as authoring cock up!?

 

[LizardKing]

.........
This DVD-A has the annoying mastering that makes players physically jump back and forth between tracks, causing them to cut off the first note of pretty much every track on the disc. Seriously, who authors DVDs like that?! I hear the Oppo BDP-93 doesn't have the cut-off problem anymore, which is why I'll upgrade from the 83 once I have the cash...

To get around this problem (I have a 83SE) - I ripped the hi-rez audio and re-authored a blu-ray using Audiomuxer. I now play that (off Hard drive) rather than the physical disc. I've done this for the discs where I notice this problem - ELP - BSS also has this problem......

This disc is definitely one of the worst for clipping the start of tracks....

 

[fredblue]

To get around this problem (I have a 83SE) - I ripped the hi-rez audio and re-authored a blu-ray using Audiomuxer. I now play that (off Hard drive) rather than the physical disc. I've done this for the discs where I notice this problem - ELP - BSS also has this problem......

This disc is definitely one of the worst for clipping the start of tracks....

now you mention it, the Foreigner S/T was one of the DVDAs I was hoping Warner Japan would reissue as an SACD, like the Machine Head but mainly because I'm not a fan of the interface on those DVDAs, with the "stage spotlights" used for highlighting onscreen menu icons, as i feel they're clunky, poorly laid out and look naff.. but it would also have got around this bigger, more pressing problem of the start of tracks being cut phenomenon, too. neat workaround by the way!

 

[fredblue]

on a DVDA menu-related note, it occurred to me playing the Megadeth DVDA earlier today (from 2004) that it featured the same layout & little white round icon set in the bottom right hand corner with the graphic depicting in relief what each button was for (with options for lyrics, playlist, photo gallery & skip back & forth) as later Warner DVDAs, which together with a full 16:9 format, I felt should have been the standardised way of doing it for all these discs as it was the most elegant, sensible and easy to use solution. shame it came too late for the format.. but it could have been adopted for blu ray audio releases, they're a real mixed-bag of user interfaces already and none of them that great - and we've only had a few so far, so no hope of a universal standard there, then! phew!

 

[Snood]

Snood gave it a 7 to 7.5.............listened to it last night. Always loved the album..........but something was missing, seemed a bit hollow on the hits and some other songs. Some somes just didn't have the oomph like the Stereo - "Long Long way From Home" for one - Overall, there was some nice action on the surround speakers, even on the hits. I had to turn up the sub a lil tho

Weird thing was that the mix seemed to be pretty great on the last 2 songs "I Need You" and really nice on "Fool for you Anytime".........almost like they spent more time.

Was a good listen, went back and listened to the hits and a couple other tracks after..........still liked, but did not blow me away.

Looking forward to eventually picking up 4.

 

[richy2times]

Classic album from my youth. I still love the songs. Have a really minty vinyl copy of it. As the 5.1 mix goes it is so so. Just not that dynamic. Seems like it was a second thought just to get it out to market. I think worth seeking out at a reasonable price. Not for the OOP extortionist pricing one has to pay now.

I gave it a 6 with a tendency to 7.

 

[fredblue]

Classic album from my youth. I still love the songs. Have a really minty vinyl copy of it. As the 5.1 mix goes it is so so. Just not that dynamic. Seems like it was a second thought just to get it out to market. I think worth seeking out at a reasonable price. Not for the OOP extortionist pricing one has to pay now.

I gave it a 6 with a tendency to 7.

afaik, the 5.1 mix had band involvement and approval, at least from Mick & Lou, I don't think it was a rush job... just maybe some mixing (and possibly mastering) decisions made that don't work for you and others here it seems, I was surprised at how lukewarm the QQ response was to this disc, I absolutely love it.

Did any of you guys here try A-B-ing the old CD with the 5.1? to me its a night and day difference, the 5.1 is so pristine by comparison its unbelievable, a big old grungy haze is lifted on the 5.1 Vs the CD. I guess that's one of the benefits of going back to the multi's to remix over a straight remaster, you're going right back to the original recording rather than the original stereo mix.

 

[Jeddia]

A friend of mine brought this over awhile back and I finally got around to listening to it recently. I always loved the album better than all of their later releases - it just brings back good memories. The audio presentation on this DVD-A is pretty solid. I found that the songs I was really looking forward to hearing (like Feels Like the First Time, for example) weren't the standouts on the release. In fact, I found the mix to be slightly distracting on that track. The bass guitar is hot and slappy and slammed into the center speaker. Sounds a bit weird.

But further down the playlist, there are some major standouts: Cold as Ice and Headknocker both sound amazing at extreme volume. I play Headknocker for people who come over to sample my system.

I give it a 9: 8 for sonics, 10 for material

 

[edisonbaggins]

This album has cool songs and great "bump" from the kick and bass gweeter.
I think it lacks some snare and cymbals!
Other than that, kewl mix and reckurd. U iz not rong getting this.
Se7en point fyve.

**slightly beefier snare on thuh demoz, btw...**

 

[dr. simple]

I've got this cranked up this evening, and I gotta say...

You know, it seems like we all become much pickier when it comes to surround mixes as the years go by and Steven Wilson keeps remixing albums and Audio Fidelity keeps putting out quad mixes. Listening to the DVDA of the first Foreigner album, I have to say that I think if this were released today we'd be quite pleased. Maybe I'm biased because I love the original album, but this surround mix makes great use of the entire room. I love it.

 

[dr. simple]

I just looked to see how I voted on this (of course I have no idea WHEN I voted on it), and I'm happy to say that I gave it a "10". I still feel the same.

 

[GOS]

I just secured a DVD-Audio copy of this title. Never had it back in the day. A wonderful album obviously. A super talented band with their debut effort.
I had wished this sounded better than it does. The fidelity suffers a bit, as I find it a little raspy. Also, the surround mix is sort of...just OK. Maybe I could swing an 8, but I think a 7.

Still - nice to finally own this.

 

[key_wiz]

I just secured a DVD-Audio copy of this title. Never had it back in the day. A wonderful album obviously. A super talented band with their debut effort.
I had wished this sounded better than it does. The fidelity suffers a bit, as I find it a little raspy. Also, the surround mix is sort of...just OK. Maybe I could swing an 8, but I think a 7.

Still - nice to finally own this.

I'm giving a "7" as well. I agree with all you said. Great album. Hard to find title. Surround mix isn't great. One of the few classic albums I have where I think I prefer the original stereo.

Still glad to have it though.