Listening to in Dolby Atmos Streaming, via Tidal/Apple/Amazon

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I couldn’t believe that Ben Böhmer’s last single had been mixed to Atmos, so I opened his artist profile on Tidal and discovered that his last album had also been secretly released in Atmos too! One of my favorite electronic artists at the moment 😍.

https://tidal.com/album/198077927
Here is the Apple link


Very good it is too... (y)
 
In 1993?

I'm calling BS. Virtually no one was buying vinyl in 1993. All the big chains had stopped carrying it by then, and most albums were no longer even being released in the format.

Yeah it was a week early release but the sales were counted from the first five days of the WIDE release which was October 19th, that early pressing was likely around 10,000 copies. They probably sold more with Vitalogy as they also released a pretty widely marketed 7" for Spin the Black Circle, but again probably pressed no more than 15-20,000 copies. Vitalogy was carried by most major chains on vinyl as part of this promotion.
 
Yeah it was a week early release but the sales were counted from the first five days of the WIDE release which was October 19th, that early pressing was likely around 10,000 copies. They probably sold more with Vitalogy as they also released a pretty widely marketed 7" for Spin the Black Circle, but again probably pressed no more than 15-20,000 copies. Vitalogy was carried by most major chains on vinyl as part of this promotion.
I was working for Tower Records back in those days. We had long stopped carrying vinyl LPs by that time. (12" singles for the DJs were a different story). My recollection is scant, at best, about the details of "Vs." My guess would be that if it came out a week early on vinyl that we probably would have ordered some copies. But if we managed to sell more than a small handful, I'm pretty certain I would have remembered that. (I would have been the one to make the call on how many to order initially and fill any re-orders for the store.)

Having released the vinyl a week early, I don't doubt they moved some copies of it. But the claim that vinyl was the majority of the then-record 'million copies in the first week' sales? Not a chance that happened. Even IF they included all the early-release vinyl copies sold the week prior in that total.
 
Having released the vinyl a week early, I don't doubt they moved some copies of it. But the claim that vinyl was the majority of the then-record 'million copies in the first week' sales? Not a chance that happened. Even IF they included all the early-release vinyl copies sold the week prior in that total.

Yes, my post was supportive of your comment. That claim was added by the poster here and isn't attributed to any reliable source, they've mistaken the first weeks sales with the vinyl being released a week early, not realizing that the first week of sales being counted was Oct 19th onwards.

Vs. likely had around 10,000 copies pressed back then, that's at best 1% of its first week sales if they sold 100% of them. I've had one, it sounded no better than the CD. Pearl Jam love the idea of vinyl, not the execution of it.
 
Vinyl was WAY out of vogue at the time. 1993 may have been the very bottom of interest in vinyl. And the small handful of vinylphiles who clung to the "vinyl sounds better than CD" beliefs were not Pearl Jam fans. The kids at the time had moved on and were perfectly happy with CDs.

Those who bought it on vinyl were certainly almost 100% diehard fans who either would buy it on ANY format in order to hear the album as soon as possible and/or bought it for the collectability of the larger album cover.
 
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Pearl VS sounds really good apart from some really intense centre channel levels on some tracks.

Daughter - an acoustic guitar track hits really loud toward the end very distracting.
Glorified G - some vocal delay effects are too loud in the mix in the centre channel.
Leash - a guitar solo towards the end rips your head off in the centre channel and should’ve been a bit lower in he mix or faded in

ooof, I just listened to Leash and that's pretty jarring...hard to excuse the idea that the mixer's centre channel is properly calibrated when such a large change in volume compared to the rest of the program occurs. The stereo mix, awful as the mastering is, sounds nothing like this. I can't edit the full Atmos, but I've edited my 5.1 FLAC conversion of the core to drop that part by 3 dB.

Guess I'll have to check those other two now.
 
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full new slowdive album released:


What a relief to be able to listen to this amazing new Slowdive record with dynamics, the stereo mastering on the 24/96 digital download and vinyl releases is absolute gash. Can't get enough of Prayer Remembered, Alife, Chained to a Cloud and The Slab. Atmos mix appears not to have used the stereo master as a reference, because Alife in Atmos is actually longer than the 24/96 stereo version due to not fading out so abruptly.
 
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What a relief to be able to listen to this amazing new Slowdive record with dynamics, the stereo mastering is absolute gash. Can't get enough of Prayer Remembered, Alife, Chained to a Cloud and The Slab. Atmos mix appears not to have used the stereo master as a reference, because Alife in Atmos is actually longer than the 24/96 stereo version due to not fading out so abruptly.
It’s a really good one. Need to grab the 2017 s/t and the EPs for a full vinyl collection…
I wonder if they‘ll ever do the back catalogue. I also wonder if doing so would be a headache for licensing reasons…
 
What a relief to be able to listen to this amazing new Slowdive record with dynamics, the stereo mastering is absolute gash. Can't get enough of Prayer Remembered, Alife, Chained to a Cloud and The Slab. Atmos mix appears not to have used the stereo master as a reference, because Alife in Atmos is actually longer than the 24/96 stereo version due to not fading out so abruptly.
Such a nice surprise to see Slowdive with a Dolby Atmos mix! I've been playing that and the Oppenheimer soundtrack a ton lately.

Another surprise, The Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack, has a very impressive Atmos Mix. I probably haven't played my CD since the 90s but it was a lot of fun revisiting it with the new mix. Dennis Sands is credited as the Immersive Mix Engineer but not sure if they just carried over the original mix credit.
 
Regarding Pearl Jam, 1993, and records. Agreed that records were not popular then... except for in the punk community. Punk bands never stopped putting out records. 7"s were business cards for punk bands in the early '90s. Often the best way to book shows and tours.
Vedder was really into Fugazi then (and now) and you can really hear it on Vs. I'd bet he was the one who demanded that Pearl Jam have records because he wanted Pearl Jam to appear punk during that time when anything mainstream was lame from the punk perspective.
Really fun to hear Vs. again. Great album.
 
ooof, I just listened to Leash and that's pretty jarring...hard to excuse the idea that the mixer's centre channel is properly calibrated when such a large change in volume compared to the rest of the program occurs. The stereo mix, awful as the mastering is, sounds nothing like this. I can't edit the full Atmos, but I've edited my 5.1 FLAC conversion of the core to drop that part by 3 dB.

Guess I'll have to check those other two now.
And strangely enough when using headphones those tracks sound really good and balanced. No guitar jumping out, it just blends in.
 
The big Pearl Jam/vinyl story in the 90's was actually in regards to their third album, Vitalogy. The vinyl was released two weeks before the CD & cassette. 34,000 vinyl copies were sold in its first week of release which was enough for it to place at #55 on the Billboard album chart. In 1994, that was a big number for vinyl. It would be another twenty years before any album would sell that many vinyl copies in a single week. When the CD and Cassette were released two weeks later, the album shot straight to #1, selling close to 900,000 copies. (I still have mine!).
 
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