Listening to now (In Surround!) - Volume 1

[fredblue]

Not yet, I got rather side tracked by my landline phone and broadband going completely dead. I'm posting this on flaky 3G on my iPad while waiting for idiots to sort themselves out.

oh gawd.. sorry to hear look forward to hearing your thoughts on it. It's not half bad, certainly a much easier listen than the hideeeeeousssss 5.1 mix! :yikes

 

[bmoura]

Thank you as ever for the great info! I've had my eye on her SACDs for some time, so I guess I'll have to scour around for best prices now.

The Morricone/Dulce Pontes is nice as you say.. but its stupidly super rare. I only know 2-3 other people who have it, which is a shame as it'd get more recognition if more people heard it, I reckon.

There are a number of Jacintha SACDs - both Surround and Stereo. Worth looking for. That includes a Best of Collection on SACD which might be a good place to start.
Girl from Bossa Nova is still in print - so the prices are reasonable. It's one to get.

Morricone/Dulce Pontes was one that real SACD fans knew about when it came out. But it had a limited pressing. So it did get snapped up pretty quickly.
Probably very difficult to find today.

 

[fredblue]

There are a number of Jacintha SACDs - both Surround and Stereo. Worth looking for. That includes a Best of Collection on SACD which might be a good place to start.
Girl from Bossa Nova is still in print - so the prices are reasonable. It's one to get.

Morricone/Dulce Pontes was one that real SACD fans knew about when it came out. But it had a limited pressing. So it did get snapped up pretty quickly.
Probably very difficult to find today.

current gouging on the Focus SACD isn't what it was.. but still way too expensive imho.. it is a lovely album tho..!

http://www.sa-cd.net/showreviews/1587

 

[user 1679]

Steven Wilson - Drive Home (blu-ray)

 

[quattroatl]

Ditto for Steven Wilson's Drive Home. The entire disc is demo worthy on repeat. Just awesome....

 

[Perp]

Steven Wilson - Drive Home (blu-ray)

How did you get it so fast? Was it imported? The release date is tomorrow and Amazon shipped my copy out today.

 

[user 1679]

How did you get it so fast? Was it imported? The release date is tomorrow and Amazon shipped my copy out today.

I ordered from Burning Shed. They shipped it about 2 weeks ago and it arrived last Friday.

 

[Owen Smith]

oh gawd.. sorry to hear look forward to hearing your thoughts on it. It's not half bad, certainly a much easier listen than the hideeeeeousssss 5.1 mix! :yikes

Just listened to the LPCM 2.0 on the Queen ANATO blu ray and it is very good, possibly the best stereo copy I have (and I've got the original EMI CD, 2002 DVD-A, 2005 DVD-V, 2011 Remaster boxset and now this blu ray). The stereo image is almost holographic at times with nearly a 3D feel, and I can hear things I've never heard before (quiet guitar guide notes in the acapella section of Prophet's Song, accidental clonks from various instruments, the odd crump or click that's probably a tape artefact). I think I can hear what people are calling tape saturation, there's distortion overloading on guitar and vocals occasionally.

This is probably the best stereo copy of this album we'll ever get, I think we've reached the limits of what is on the tape.

How they managed to do such a great job of the stereo so soon after the underwhelming 2011 remasters is a mystery. And to then put the horrid 2005 version of the 5.1 on the same disc is a travesty. Oh well, with Queen Productions Ltd these days you have to be thankful for whatever you get.

Thanks guys for tipping me off to the great stereo on this disc, I only bought it from a collecting point of view.

 

[DuncanS]

How did you get it so fast? Was it imported? The release date is tomorrow and Amazon shipped my copy out today.

Burning Shed shipped "Drive Home" well in advance (they do tend to ship in advance in the UK anyway, so an advantage to buying through them). I listened to most of mine last week. It is awesome.... and I haven't listened to the audio only tracks yet!

 

[user 1679]

Barclay James Harvest - Once Again

 

[Disclord]

Just listened to the LPCM 2.0 on the Queen ANATO blu ray and it is very good, possibly the best stereo copy I have (and I've got the original EMI CD, 2002 DVD-A, 2005 DVD-V, 2011 Remaster boxset and now this blu ray). The stereo image is almost holographic at times with nearly a 3D feel, and I can hear things I've never heard before (quiet guitar guide notes in the acapella section of Prophet's Song, accidental clonks from various instruments, the odd crump or click that's probably a tape artefact). I think I can hear what people are calling tape saturation, there's distortion overloading on guitar and vocals occasionally.

This is probably the best stereo copy of this album we'll ever get, I think we've reached the limits of what is on the tape.

How they managed to do such a great job of the stereo so soon after the underwhelming 2011 remasters is a mystery. And to then put the horrid 2005 version of the 5.1 on the same disc is a travesty. Oh well, with Queen Productions Ltd these days you have to be thankful for whatever you get.

Thanks guys for tipping me off to the great stereo on this disc, I only bought it from a collecting point of view.

So is the 5.1 mix on the BD of ANATO the same brickwalled version that is on the 2005 DVD? If so it sounds like I should stick with my two DVD-A's, the ES mix and the Brian May mix.

 

[Owen Smith]

So is the 5.1 mix on the BD of ANATO the same brickwalled version that is on the 2005 DVD? If so it sounds like I should stick with my two DVD-A's, the ES mix and the Brian May mix.

Yes I believe so. One sign is God Save The Queen. On all the DVD-As this one track is an upmix from the stereo because they couldn't find the multi tracks on the 24 track tapes. By the time of the 2005 DVD-V they found them on an older 16 track tape, it was recorded quite a bit earlier than the rest of the album and used for closing concerts, then they decided it would be a great ending to the album. Anyway, you can tell which mix it is by listening to that track.

Also the wind fly around is much shorter at the start of Prophet's Song on the DVD-V and the Blu Ray 5.1, the DVD-A lenghened it for a 360 degrees fly around.

Personally I really like the extra detail in the stereo on the blu ray and I recommend it for that alone.

 

[bossfan]

Todd Rundgren, Liars. Just picked it up and put it on. Sounds good so far.

 

[Disclord]

Yes I believe so. One sign is God Save The Queen. On all the DVD-As this one track is an upmix from the stereo because they couldn't find the multi tracks on the 24 track tapes. By the time of the 2005 DVD-V they found them on an older 16 track tape, it was recorded quite a bit earlier than the rest of the album and used for closing concerts, then they decided it would be a great ending to the album. Anyway, you can tell which mix it is by listening to that track.

Also the wind fly around is much shorter at the start of Prophet's Song on the DVD-V and the Blu Ray 5.1, the DVD-A lengthened it for a 360 degrees fly around.

Personally I really like the extra detail in the stereo on the blu ray and I recommend it for that alone.

Well that sucks about the 5.1 and I can't justify the price just to get the 2 channel mix on the BD even if it is the best sounding 2 channel mastering ever released. I'll have to be satisfied with my DVD-A's of the ES mix and the Brian May mix. I made an Involve encoded CD of the Brian May 5.1 mix of ANATO so I can listen to it on my systems without DVD-A capability. Played back through the Involve decoder it sounds just as discrete as the DVD-A and actually sounds fuller and more holographic. The ES mix is just weird in some parts with super heavy noise gating on the beginning of Bohemian Rhapsody - their voices just drop off into total silence. Its the worst noise reduction I've ever heard - and then there are missing instruments. I'm so glad Brian May stepped in but shocked he had anything to do with the 2005 brickwalled mix.

Right now I'm playing the LaserDisc of Picture Music and have it playing in the SQ mode on the Involve decoder - with pre-processing of the stereo signal that I do, the SQ decode wraps the sound around in a 270 degree arc and sounds like true quad. Some tracks, like Steve Miller's Abracadabra, are stunning in synthesized quad.

 

[IMachine]

Roxy Music - Avalon.
Great when relaxation is needed.

 

[Disclord]

It's fake surround but if you wern't told you wouldn't know - Heart Dreamboat Annie transforms into the most amazing surround when processed via the SQ Synthesizer and decoded by the Involve SQ unit - I've wondered if I could encode the synthesized SQ into the Involve format and retain the quality. I know how to make a pre-processor for QS/Involve to create synthesized surround, I just don't know how to flip the phase of one channel, which is required to preprocess the signal.

 

[DuncanS]

It's fake surround but if you wern't told you wouldn't know - Heart Dreamboat Annie transforms into the most amazing surround when processed via the SQ Synthesizer and decoded by the Involve SQ unit - I've wondered if I could encode the synthesized SQ into the Involve format and retain the quality. I know how to make a pre-processor for QS/Involve to create synthesized surround, I just don't know how to flip the phase of one channel, which is required to preprocess the signal.

That interesting, I'll have to try it with my amps ProLogic/DTS matrix settings to see if anything interesting appears as fake surround. It was one of those DVD-Audio discs which never appeared I think. I spent ages trying to track it down.

 

[TVB]

Tony Mottola.... Superstar Guitar....an Enoch Light project three CD-4. Great fidelity and incredible separation (Good enough to make me post). The guys that thought up this CD4 stuff are real genius's in my opinion. If only Columbia would have gone with CD4. I had never found a Project 3 CD4 until I went into a record shop in Arizona last summer and found three of them in mint condition. You can bet i'll be keeping my eyes open for more of these. ya just cant get this with Matrix!.

 

[bmoura]

Tony Mottola.... Superstar Guitar....an Enoch Light project three CD-4. Great fidelity and incredible separation (Good enough to make me post). The guys that thought up this CD4 stuff are real genius's in my opinion. If only Columbia would have gone with CD4. I had never found a Project 3 CD4 until I went into a record shop in Arizona last summer and found three of them in mint condition. You can bet i'll be keeping my eyes open for more of these. ya just cant get this with Matrix!.

The Project 3 CD-4 Quadradiscs are uniformly excellent. Grab any that you can find. If you have an advanced demodulator like the CD4-50, they really shine !

 

[Q8]

Tony Mottola.... Superstar Guitar....an Enoch Light project three CD-4. Great fidelity and incredible separation (Good enough to make me post). The guys that thought up this CD4 stuff are real genius's in my opinion. If only Columbia would have gone with CD4. I had never found a Project 3 CD4 until I went into a record shop in Arizona last summer and found three of them in mint condition. You can bet i'll be keeping my eyes open for more of these. ya just cant get this with Matrix!.

I recently found the QS of that