HiRez Poll Led Zeppelin - HOW THE WEST WAS WON [DVD-A/Blu-Ray Audio]

[kap'n krunch]

Not fair to compare Floyd in the Studio to LedZep Live (apples and oranges)...
In spite of the basic LZ instrumentation live, Pagey manages to place more than a few good things in the Rears in this DVD-A, so , to me, it is quite worth it-a real good disc.

 

[keenly]

Putting lead guitar in right rear channel with nothing in left is a stupid decision. Sounds horrible. No balance.

 

[ProgRules]

My disappointment with WYWH stems from my (probably too) high expectations thinking of the potential and owning/listening to DSOTM first. That was heads above both of these actually. Yes, I admitted my bias here, not to mention the fact HTWWW was my first purchased DVD A. That also factors a bit into this. I am a bigger fan of Zeppelin than of Floyd, but I am fond of both. I will admit that Floyd does in fact transfer to surround better, for the most part. I will also say that I do agree with SW's live mixes being much better than this one. Until two days ago, (I purchased Arriving on dvd, and it is very good), I was ignorant to that potential, and this disc falls way short of that. I rated this disc I guess as much on the music as well as the surround, and again with my favoritism coming out.

I gave 7 points here.
I also like it discrete, but it is live and not music like SW does.

Really hope for a surround mix of any LZ studio album.

I think LZ could transfer very well to surround; this live recording is not a real barometer. I had high hopes that he new remasters would include surround, but it isn't looking that way. I think a well-done 5.1 of Physical Graffiti (just as an example) could compete w/ the best (DSotM; CttE; Aqualung; to name a few contemporaries that are reference-quality imo).

 

[IMachine]

I think LZ could transfer very well to surround; this live recording is not a real barometer. I had high hopes that he new remasters would include surround, but it isn't looking that way. I think a well-done 5.1 of Physical Graffiti (just as an example) could compete w/ the best (DSotM; CttE; Aqualung; to name a few contemporaries that are reference-quality imo).

Physical Graffiti in 5.1? Yummy....

 

[DennisMabry]

Physical Graffiti in 5.1? Yummy....

Oh Yeah!

 

[ProgRules]

Somebody should introduce Steven Wilson to Jimmy Page.

But it's probably too late. All these special boxed-sets of the studio albums on the way (allegedly) but nary a thought to surround. Such a missed opportunity (of which our hobby has a seemingly endless supply). But since peak-period Yes is getting the SW deluxe treatment, I can't complain (too much).

 

[keenly]

I voted 5. VERY annoying 5.1 mix. No balance. Poor use of speakers. The first thing that should of been done is spread drums over soundstage aka 3D. Page in the right rear channel with nothing in left rear channel is horrible. No balance. JPJ keyboards should of been in rear left channel with page in rear right at similar volumes. This would create an immersive sound on the relevant tracks. Instead the balance is terrible.

 

[skindzier]

Found this at my local used store for $18.99 yesterday.

I went 8, primarily because of the 48/24 and the fact that the surround mix is fairly tame (but that's to be expected with a live release recorded in '72). The GOOD is that this is a recording of the best band ever (IMHO) at their peak. Also, the 5.1 mix is SOOO much easier on the ears than the CD release. That itself is reason enough to own it. Other than a few quickie checks, I haven't had a chance to do a side by side with the Stereo on the DVD vs. the CD. Based on that small sample, what I've read & looking at DR, it appears that the DVD stereo is someplace in the middle. I've read that some folks have downmixed the 5.1 to stereo & said that sounds better than the actual stereo mix. I made a downmix, but haven't listened to it yet. The DRs are higher though...

 

[steelydave]

I don't have time right now to do a long post about this album, but I spent a couple of days investigating the 5.1 mix. Much like the George Benson 'Breezin' mix, the center channel on this one is way too low, and it contains dry bass and dry vocals which make the mix balance much more nicely when it's brought up. You need to boost it by something like 12dB to make it sit properly with the other channels.

The surround mix is tame indeed - I listened to it on headphones and it's mostly double stereo. It's basically drums and vocals in the front 3 speakers, guitar in front right and rear right, keyboards in the front left and rear left, and crowd noise in all 5 speakers (but not double stereo).

The really disappointing thing about this album is the mastering. As we know, the CD version has a DR of something like 8, and the DVD-A is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 11 or 12. If you run tracks through the DR meter one at a time, it will give you DR values for all 6 channels of a track, rather than just an average (which is derived from adding all 6 values together and dividing by 6). Doing this with the tracks from this disc yielded interesting results...basically, the more volume the channel had before mastering, the more it was compressed (or brickwalled) during mastering. I don't have the DR values to hand, but they basically looked like this:

FL: 8
FR: 8
C: 15
LFE: 15
RL: 12
RR: 12

The front left and right channels are effectively just as compressed as the stereo CD mix, and because the center channel was mixed so low before mastering, it escaped almost unscathed. I bet this mix sounded fantastic before the mastering engineer got his hands on it!

 

[fredblue]

This sadly happened quite a bit with 5.1 back then.

Springsteen/Devils & Dust DualDisc is another example.. the Surround has hugely boosted & compressed Front L&R.. the surround mix is subtle in the first place but there is quite a lot mixed to the Centre and certainly discrete rear activity.. but with such boosted Front L&R you'd never even know there was any surround or centre stuff in the mix.. raise those channels and lower the fronts and hey presto it all suddenly clicks into place.

 

[keenly]

This sadly happened quite a bit with 5.1 back then.

Springsteen/Devils & Dust DualDisc is another example.. the Surround has hugely boosted & compressed Front L&R.. the surround mix is subtle in the first place but there is quite a lot mixed to the Centre and certainly discrete rear activity.. but with such boosted Front L&R you'd never even know there was any surround or centre stuff in the mix.. raise those channels and lower the fronts and hey presto it all suddenly clicks into place.

There's MANY 5.1 titles with heavily compressed front channels, unfortunately. Rob Thomas, Staind, Muse, Metallica, Santana(shaman), Bon Jovi, Dommi Borgir, Incubus, Jane's etc etc. Really STUPID engineering. It is like stereo mix having one channel really loud, imagine that? The SHF would go huts. Having fronts really loud ruins a 5.1 mix. just lowring the volume as you said can make a huge difference. if the titles I mentioned had lower volume in fronts; say 3-4db they would be great.

 

[skindzier]

Will play with the fronts & center - thanks folks!

 

[Odys]

I love Led Zeppelin, but their live recordings have never lived up to their studio work. Do we really need 25+ minute versions of Dazed and Confused and Whole Lotta Love? How much moaning and guitar noodling can we stand? And don't get me started on Moby Dick. A great guitar riff absolutely ruined by the drum solo indulgence. Yeah, I know, it's Bonham's showpiece, but come on. Nothing great in the surround mix either. I keep trying this disc every couple of years, and it never gets any better. 7.

 

[keenly]

I love Led Zeppelin, but their live recordings have never lived up to their studio work. Do we really need 25+ minute versions of Dazed and Confused and Whole Lotta Love? How much moaning and guitar noodling can we stand? And don't get me started on Moby Dick. A great guitar riff absolutely ruined by the drum solo indulgence. Yeah, I know, it's Bonham's showpiece, but come on. Nothing great in the surround mix either. I keep trying this disc every couple of years, and it never gets any better. 7.

They could of actually mixed moby dick in 5.1 like the drum solo on Zappa's halloween! Complete waste.

 

[wheeler98]

They could of actually mixed moby dick in 5.1 like the drum solo on Zappa's halloween! Complete waste.

That recording wasted my B&W subwoofer with some weird low frequency...

 

[Bill Houston]

I was pleasantly surprised by this release. I remember seeing the DVD-A version 15 years ago in Ameoba's 5.1 section, but could never bring myself to buy it because I thought it had been "Silverline-d" (anemic mix/sonics). Both are better than I expected, but don't expect to be knocked out. This is a live album from '72 after all. I was just happy they put discrete instruments in the rears. I agree the mix is off balance (Page commandeers the entire right side), but it's lively and better than the Rolling Stones (Eagle Rock releases) and Neil Young (Rust...). Granted, those are not high bars to clear from a mix perspective.

My rating is heavily biased toward the performance which crackles with energy. There are a couple of ponderous LZ navel gazing sections where they plink and plank away to the oddly timed drum beat (which any King Crimson fan will find enthralling) and run any momentum they had into the ground, but that was to be expected. This more than any other release I've recently heard makes me appreciate when bands stay within the confines of their studio versions and don't wander into the wilderness. During Dazed, Whole Lotta..., and Moby Dick Page and Bonham seem unaware they're onstage and are instead at home jamming to an audience of one. This one person seems to love aimless solos not coordinated with the rest of the band.

Page is a little too high in the mix relative to Jones too, but that's minor complaint. Most importantly the thunder gods hammer away! Fairly priced too. If you're a LZ fan this release is a no brainer.

HTWWW- 8

 

[Audiowannabee]

Got the bluray...love the zepp but the 5.1 mix surriund sound on this aint that great...its ok but not very immersive...give it a 7 cuz its zepplin...its live

 

[sjcorne]

I was never a big fan of this disc myself. I much prefer the studio stuff as well- the overlong soloing is exhaustive, and the boring surround mix doesn't make it any better. As stated above, it's basically the band upfront, with Page across the entire right side (??), and echo/crowd in the rear. There are a few interesting surround flourishes, such the guitar bouncing from speaker to speaker in "What Is And What Should Never Be" and "Dazed And Confused", but it's too little too late.

If you look at any track from this disc visually, the first things you'll notice is that the front channels are clipped and the center channel is too low. So, I promptly dropped the entire thing 5 dB and then raised the center 10 dB.

"Heartbreaker" (Original):


"Heartbreaker" (-10 dB All Channels, then Center +10dB):


Now I could've just stopped there, but I noticed an opportunity for a bit of "revisionism", if you will, on this particular track. From about 2:00 to 5:00, all that's happening is a guitar solo along the right side and some crowd noise. It's essentially double stereo with different crowd mics placed front and rear.

It occurred to me that you could just diagonally swap channels and firmly plant (no pun intended) Page's guitar in the front or the rear. Being the surround nut I am, I decided to throw the whole thing in the rear. It sounds surprisingly decent, likely because there is enough cross-channel blending to cover up the crude cut/paste.

So to summarize, from roughly 2:00-5:00, I swapped the audio in right front with than of left rear. I then matched the levels of my new front and rear pairs.

"Heartbreaker" (FR & RL swapped from 2:00-5:00, then RR +2 dB, FL -2 dB):


Again, I totally could've stopped there, but no. I'm having too much fun!

I noticed there are small breaks in Page's soloing, which if exploited carefully, could be used to break it apart and assign different passages to different speakers. Everyone loves a little channel-hopping guitar, no?

It would take too long to explain every channel swap and adjustment I did here, so I'll just post a pic below. Basically, I made a track marker every time the guitar stops, and then kept swapping channels back and forth so the guitar does a fun call & response from front to rear. I also added some careful volume boosts and reductions to make it flow more seamlessly.

"Heartbreaker" (with channel-hopping guitar solo):


From about 4:22 to 4:27, Page does this very fast stop-and-start descending guitar work that I took and swirled clockwise around the room. This was done with a combination of front/rear channel swaps and timed volume boosts.


Anyway, it was a good 15-20 minutes of work and the results are, in my opinion, quite a bit more fun than the original disc. If you're into this sort of thing and have some time to kill, it's worth a try. My next move is to see if some similar cut/paste panning trickery can be done on Bonham's drum solo in "Moby Dick"...

 

[sjcorne]

My next move is to see if some similar cut/paste panning trickery can be done on Bonham's drum solo in "Moby Dick"...

...and it can! Not quite as effective as the other track though. Here's what I managed to make out of it:


How I got there:
1. All Channels -5 dB
2. Center Channel +15 dB
3. LFE -5 dB

Then:

If you have good cut/paste timing, it's easy enough to get some nice front-to-rear action on the drums from about 7:30-11:30.

At around 8:55, I pulled some cymbal crashes out of the front and threw them in the rear. Works really nicely.


Starting at 11:30 there's already some interesting surround action going on with the drums. It's still not true surround though, it looks more like a gradual volume shift from front to rear. Props for trying to be a little "surround".

 

[sjcorne]

I was just looking at "Dazed & Confused" and I made an interesting discovery. At around 18:18.90, the center channel becomes time-offset from the mains. I noticed this because after I boosted it, you can hear Robert Plant's voice is delayed between the fronts and center. This was previously unnoticed because of the way the disc is mastered: the center was so dialed down that with the mega-boosted fronts, it was nearly inaudible.



I applied the same balance changes I used on "Moby Dick" here (-5 dB All Channels, +15 Center, -5 LFE). In terms of surround, this track is one of the more successful examples. There's some nice panning echo on the guitar around the 9:00 mark. I wasn't able to mess around too much with moving things to the back, but I managed to throw some of the "violin bow on guitar" solo back there at around 7:30.



Perhaps a new thread is in order? "Messing with How The West Was Won".