John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band Super Deluxe Edition (New 5.1 & Dolby Atmos mixes!)

[neil wilkes]

My copy is broken.
Arrived this morning, so on it went in my trusty BDP-105.
After 'Working Class Hero' I wanted to see if I could access a specific track, so tried entering '12' with the remote which failed (I got the crossed out red circle indicating a prohibited operation) so instead scrolled down to 'Give Peace A Chance' and pressed enter - the player locked up tighter than a nun's virtue and had to be powered down to remove the disc.
I shall be returning my set forthwith.
Massive disappointment

 

[Steve Schoultz]

That sucks. Hopefully its unique to your copy and not major cock-up with the authoring or manufacturing. We all would have loved to hear your opinion of release.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

the player locked up tighter than a nun's virtue

I'm going to use that one somewhere...

 

[neil wilkes]

That sucks. Hopefully its unique to your copy and not major cock-up with the authoring or manufacturing. We all would have loved to hear your opinion of release.

Yah - absolutely.
The disappointment here was crushing. I have both the other 2 releases in this form & was very happy if somewhat underwhelmed by the 5.1 mixes - I wonder why Atmos was used? Restricted to 48kHz, whereas DTS-X can go to 96k for certain and possibly 192, although personally I don't get 192k myself as it brings biasing frequencies into play if not careful.
I should not say this, but am currently ripping the discs and returning the set. There is also a very odd 4 second silent track at the start of BD01 'The Ultimate Mixes' that should not be there, although I cannot see how this might cause problems like a full lockup of my Oppo.

 

[César]

Tidal link here: John Lennon - Plastic Ono Band (The Ultimate Mixes)
I'm on a quick listen between two conf calls and I must say the Atmos mix is pretty disappointing.
On Remember, for example, it sounds like double stereo, with Lennon voice, background vocals and percussion duplicated in the rears, although at much lower volume.
Same happens with Love, but it's only John on the piano, so not a lot could be done with this track. Mix looks like being the same as in the Gimme some Truth box, which I just played to cross-check.
Then you get Well Well Well, where there are also drums and guitar... and same mix... all duplicated in the rears. And got up to the height speakers and exactly the same instruments.
Not good at all, so far
Looking forward to someone else's opinion

 

[M-K]

My copy is broken.
Arrived this morning, so on it went in my trusty BDP-105.
After 'Working Class Hero' I wanted to see if I could access a specific track, so tried entering '12' with the remote which failed (I got the crossed out red circle indicating a prohibited operation) so instead scrolled down to 'Give Peace A Chance' and pressed enter - the player locked up tighter than a nun's virtue and had to be powered down to remove the disc.
I shall be returning my set forthwith.
Massive disappointment

I had problems with Beatles - Abbey Road. It started somehow with problems and stopped at Golden Slumbers. It was replaced by a new box that is still ok. Manufacturing quality issue. You have to wait some time for your replacement, I think....

 

[DuncanS]

Tidal link here: John Lennon - Plastic Ono Band (The Ultimate Mixes)
I'm on a quick listen between two conf calls and I must say the Atmos mix is pretty disappointing.
On Remember, for example, it sounds like double stereo, with Lennon voice, background vocals and percussion duplicated in the rears, although at much lower volume.
Same happens with Love, but it's only John on the piano, so not a lot could be done with this track. Mix looks like being the same as in the Gimme some Truth box, which I just played to cross-check.
Then you get Well Well Well, where there are also drums and guitar... and same mix... all duplicated in the rears. And got up to the height speakers and exactly the same instruments.
Not good at all, so far
Looking forward to someone else's opinion

Mine has just turned up. So all I have done is skip through listening to a few bits here and there. What I will say is that overall the sound clarity is excellent.
Everything on BD-1 is in stereo either 192kHz/24-bit or 48kHz/24-bit, and DTS HD-M 5.1 or Dolby Atmos
Everything on BD-2 is in stereo either 192kHz/24-bit or 48kHz/24-bit.
The surround 'mixes' (note the ') were done by Paul Hicks and the DTS is basically front-centric with a bit of something in the rears. I don't have Atmos so its being decoded as TrueHD and it is more wrap round stereo than surround.
The music is excellent, the sound quality of the stereo and DTS is excellent, Dolby seems not as good, the mix.....
I won't pass judgement until I can truly listen, but ...................................

 

[César]

Mine has just turned up. So all I have done is skip through listening to a few bits here and there. What I will say is that overall the sound clarity is excellent.
Everything on BD-1 is in stereo either 192kHz/24-bit or 48kHz/24-bit, and DTS HD-M 5.1 or Dolby Atmos
Everything on BD-2 is in stereo either 192kHz/24-bit or 48kHz/24-bit.
The surround 'mixes' (note the ') were done by Paul Hicks and the DTS is basically front-centric with a bit of something in the rears. I don't have Atmos so its being decoded as TrueHD and it is more wrap round stereo than surround.
The music is excellent, the sound quality of the stereo and DTS is excellent, Dolby seems not as good, the mix.....
I won't pass judgement until I can truly listen, but ...................................

And only main album is in surround as reported in SHF, am I correct?
Until a few minutes ago I was trying to cancel my Amazon order that supposedly was going to arrive by the 30th and all of a sudden it changed status to shipped and arriving this Sunday

 

[beerking]

I cancelled mine from Amazon, a few days back, after reading the surround mix review posted earlier, in this thread.

I could tell it was going to be an underwhelming surround mix.

Such a shame!!

 

[Mcallister]

Listening now in Atmos. it sound like Hicks basically put the the vocal effects and room in the rear channels. The 5.1 all vocal effects are up front. It’s kind of weird, but cool in a way, not sure what to think off this first listen

 

[J. PUPSTER]

I cancelled mine from Amazon, a few days back, after reading the surround mix review posted earlier, in this thread.

I could tell it was going to be an underwhelming surround mix.

Such a shame!!

There's only so much that can be done in surround with such minimal instrumentation; hopefully the audio quality (mastering) is what stands out on this. I never expected much more than some room acoustics/reverb type stuff in the rears for most of it. Waiting for more remarks to come in.

After reading Neil's (good to know he's still kickin' it BTW, it's been awhile) plight when I woke up this morning, I thought of this for some reason:

A Viking Oseberg is slowly pushed into the Fjord with their slain leader aboard all dressed in battle gear and set afire for his safe passage into Valhalla.
*Unfortunately, they only just burned a beautiful and valuable custom made ship; Floki would not be amused.

This sort of stuff seems to be happening more and more, either miscommunication of what's in the box, or faulty/sloppy mixing/mastering, what's the deal- is it really that hard to get it right?

 

[beerking]

There's only so much that can be done in surround with such minimal instrumentation; hopefully the audio quality (mastering) is what stands out on this. I never expected much more than some room acoustics/reverb type stuff in the rears for most of it. Waiting for more remarks to come in.

Yep, fully appreciate that pups but decided I really only buy releases for the surround mix.
Same with the Stones Goats Head Soup release, sent that one back.

This quality control issue is becoming a right PITA.
Should never be the case nowadays.

 

[César]

Listening now in Atmos. it sound like Hicks basically put the the vocal effects and room in the rear channels. The 5.1 all vocal effects are up front. It’s kind of weird, but cool in a way, not sure what to think off this first listen

Uhmm, I'm again using Gimme some Truth box as a reference and I've been comparing the 5.1 and Atmos mixes for God. I hear basically the same in the front and the rears, although rears look like being a bit more echoey. But I'd swear I could tell no difference in a blind testing switching back and forth from Atmos to 5.1 (apart from Atmos being a more spacious experience due to the repeated info on the heights).
I guess the multis Hicks had to work with were very limited, as the more recent songs in Gimme some Truth have much better (discreet) mixes

 

[César]

Now I'm really intrigued, read the posts below from SHF:

"GubGub said: ↑

Just arrived and giving it a listen. This might be something I am doing wrong but the DTS 5.1 mix only seems to play through the front speakers. On the other hand I get full surround from the Atmos mix even though I don't have an Atmos processor. Very weird. Anyway, that aside it sounds great so far.

I’ve had a similar experience.
In addition, with the raw studio mixes, although the Blu ray only has options for stereo, I’m definitely getting 5.1, with piano and drums in the rear speakers for Mother, for example.

All very strange!"

I guess the guys must have an upmixer running, but hope springs eternal

 

[sjcorne]

How's the mastering? The DTS-HD 5.1 streams on Imagine and Gimme Some Truth were both brickwalled to some extent.

 

[admsh]

Mine is also broken. Disc one won't play at all, says "unknown disc". No problem with disc two, but not interested. Very fucking annoying and disappointing.

 

[César]

How's the mastering? The DTS-HD 5.1 streams on Imagine and Gimme Some Truth were both brickwalled to some extent.

I can't tell, as I would not recommend using Tidal version as a reference. Maybe Duncan will be able to comment later

 

[humprof]

Now I'm really intrigued, read the posts below from SHF:

"GubGub said: ↑



I’ve had a similar experience.
In addition, with the raw studio mixes, although the Blu ray only has options for stereo, I’m definitely getting 5.1, with piano and drums in the rear speakers for Mother, for example.

All very strange!"

I guess the guys must have an upmixer running, but hope springs eternal

It was the "Raw Studio" and "Elements" mixes that made the Imagine set worthwhile for me. (Seems like the consensus opinion was that the standard "Ultimate" mixes were underwhelming.)

I was hoping for something similar with Plastic Ono Band. But are the "Raw Studio" mixes here stereo only, or not?

 

[tezzalavell]

It was the "Raw Studio" and "Elements" mixes that made the Imagine set worthwhile for me. (Seems like the consensus opinion was that the standard "Ultimate" mixes were underwhelming.)

I was hoping for something similar with Plastic Ono Band. But are the "Raw Studio" mixes here stereo only, or not?

Same here . Cancelled mine from Amazon UK yesterday. Shame

 

[César]

It was the "Raw Studio" and "Elements" mixes that made the Imagine set worthwhile for me. (Seems like the consensus opinion was that the standard "Ultimate" mixes were underwhelming.)

I was hoping for something similar with Plastic Ono Band. But are the "Raw Studio" mixes here stereo only, or not?

I don't know, according to the printed info and the bluray menu they are in stereo only, yet now we have these two guys at SHF claiming that they can hear them in 5.1