I do not think all of the AF quads sound stellar, nor do I think Harvest is a total abomination (hence a good number of high poll scores).
First, this is a classic well known masterpiece of an album that is going to score high in the content category. Secondly, the fidelity of the tracks is extremely good. It is very well recorded and it is not compressed at all. This quality translates to good poll scores as well.
On the uncorrected album, my biggest complaint was the disembodiment of some of the instrumentation and particularly the vocals. That is where my complaints started and ended. Were it not for that unfortunate quality, this would be a sure fire 10 from me in a poll (note I have not voted yet, even though I’ve had this release for many years). To my mind, the other aspects of the mix simply are not that bad.
But as far as the mix goes, there were several odd choices made and I think a lot of it has to do with the idea of reproducing the “Barn” atmosphere.
It seems like the mixer was shooting for two primary sound stages. One to the front, and one to the left. There is also a right side sound stage, but it is mainly used for fill in and for some isolated instruments on some tracks (ie: banjo on Old Man). This pretty much explains the drums placed on the left side (maybe where they were in the barn?).
Since the instruments are located in what amounts to three stereo sound fields with phantom center points corresponding to each one, we can swap front for back channels and still have those phantom centers do their thing, all be it, with some changes in location going front or back. This is very much like the majority of 5.1 releases where all manner of instrumentation is located on the side stages. With this release however, the vocals being present to some degree in all 5 active channels is where the problem seems to come in.
The full range LFE does not cause me concern. For most of the tracks the LFE contains only drums, bass, and a little miscellaneous leakage (these comments do not apply to tracks 3, 7 and 8, as those three are different animals entirely owing to the orchestral accompaniment and the live recording of Needle). At no time when playing this release did I ever feel that there was something wrong with the LFE channel. Full range output or not. I think on the majority of systems, the natural roll off of the sub makes it a non issue. And I would prefer that to any kind of sonic compromise that might show up due to trying to limit its output to 200 hz or less via filtering.
When you isolate the original front right, it sounds like only ambiance. Oddly, when it is played along with the other channels in the unaltered mix, I don’t notice a lack of information to the front right. When we swap the fronts and rears, I do notice a lack of information in the rear right. I’m not sure why that is. Perhaps I need to listen again closer. At any rate, having an ambiance channel located in the front right is simply not something we are used to, and to me it is the strangest mixing choice of them all. Could it have been the “back wall” side of the barn?
By swapping the fronts and rears the vocals become more stable in the sound field, the slide guitar parts in the left sound stage move more toward the rear and seem to become more discrete. Anything else that was originally placed in the side sound stages moves a bit to the front or rear. All good so far, but the down side is it also opens up that sound hole in the right rear where there is little discrete information (from memory, “Old Man” is at least one exception to this, there may be more).
To be sure, both the “fixed” and the “unfixed” versions of this album have their flaws. To think that an error was made during mastering and we should have gotten a version with the fronts and rears swapped doesn’t make sense to me either. That would mean Neil and crew listened to the swapped mix and had no objection to the obvious lack on information in the right rear. I can’t see that.
I’m leaning towards the idea that the mix we got, however oddball it may seem, is the mix that was intended. Maybe they thought the disembodied vocals were a neat effect or something. And on some other release, maybe that would be the case. It might fit in well on a Floyd tune or a Yes album, but it just doesn’t seem to suit this album all that well.
I can’t say yet which “version” of this release I like better. Do I prefer a hole in the RR, or a general disembodiment of vocals? It’s a bit like trying to decide to vote for Clinton or Trump, you lose either way.
