The Four Earred Wonder turned me onto this release and I am thankful. I voted 10. I look at the whole package when I vote and here are my notes. Two discs, RBCD and Blu Ray 5.1 for $18.09 from Amazon, screaming great deal. Clean, easy to use digipack, great liner notes with lyrics. The CD plays great in car and must not have very much compression as I can play louder than others. The performance was what I was worried about as I am just a little burned out on soft/prog rock. The performance is super great, easy to listen to, 3 or 4 different vocalists keep it interesting and the different musicians, (20) keep each track fresh. The easy to use menu on the Blu Ray screen is interesting and different on each track. I have listened to 4 times in 4 days and that is a lot for me, for one release. This is the kind of release that we all want, packaged, done well, good price with a musician that understands recording and 5.1.
Sonics: I still give it a 10. I am fortunate enough to have a respectable machine and I did not incur the bass problems that others mentioned. It is not a gimmicky release, there are swirling moments though, all 5.1 speakers are active in a discrete fashion. The sonic quality is clear and has breath of air running through speakers with no muddle in the back ground. As with most recordings the listening volume is best at 60-70db.
The item that just made this a no brainier for me was the mini doc of the making of, called "Somewhere In Darkest Teddington" It is amazing how this disc was recorded, how it was mixed, how the musicians came together, etc. Steve Hackett and his team really proved to me the expert knowledge they have in recording music in the modern day. There is a lengthy discussion in the video of mixing this release to 5.1 and also Steve and Mr. Dodd, I forget his first name, talk about the absolute importance of bass management on any recording. It appears that Mr. Dodd is the go to guy for tweaking bass management even referring in the video that Steven Wilson goes to Mr. Dodd for bass management support.
I have many discs/releases come to me weekly, and it makes me so happy when every once in awhile new music will come my way that really grabs me. It has to be the whole package and The Night Siren delivers.
