Listening to Now (In Surround) - Volume 2

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I received for Christmas a new in the box Sony BDP-S390 and spent time today figuring out how to rip and convert SACDs to play on my Mac. My plan for tonight.

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I recently purchased a few Johnny Mathis SQ LP's. I saw a couple of them on eBay cheap but then found even better deals on Discogs. This is not the type of music that I was ever into before but I thought that I'd give them a try anyway. So far I've only listened to this one "The First Time Ever I Saw Your-Face" and although it's just easy listening pop renditions what were once current hits still I rather liked it. I just noticed today that it had come out on DTS CD as well, again I had passed up on it when first released. I think that there are a couple more SQ releases that I may add to my collection as well. All the albums I've seen are the gold bordered style and so released early in the game, he must have been one of Columbia's most popular and prolific artists at that time to warrant so many quad releases, all circa 1972.
 
I recently purchased a few Johnny Mathis SQ LP's. I saw a couple of them on eBay cheap but then found even better deals on Discogs. This is not the type of music that I was ever into before but I thought that I'd give them a try anyway. So far I've only listened to this one "The First Time Ever I Saw Your-Face" and although it's just easy listening pop renditions what were once current hits still I rather liked it. I just noticed today that it had come out on DTS CD as well, again I had passed up on it when first released. I think that there are a couple more SQ releases that I may add to my collection as well. All the albums I've seen are the gold bordered style and so released early in the game, he must have been one of Columbia's most popular and prolific artists at that time to warrant so many quad releases, all circa 1972.
Hard to believe that’s been two years ago now. That dts-CD used to sell cheap (and probably for good reason.) With much browbeating and lashing me to a yardarm to freshen my perspective, by others I trust; I’ve learned this dts title is pretty hosed up (technical term!)

The first thing I noticed about it, is a mastering error, where it doesn’t even display the correct song information when playing on my oppo (the song titles there are from one of his compilation releases!)

Secondly, the 5.1 sounded like some weird double stereo and not very discrete at all with Johnny’s vocals coming from all the channels. Apparently the 5.1 was derived from the Quad mix by a fake Center summed from the Fronts and lesser volume; and a LFE by low pass filtering from all the Quad channels. Taking out the Center and LFE should give the original Quad mix, but again very tame and unsatisfying to say the least. I don’t have a copy of the Q8, but that may be more telling.
 
Hard to believe that’s been two years ago now. That dts-CD used to sell cheap (and probably for good reason.) With much browbeating and lashing me to a yardarm to freshen my perspective, by others I trust; I’ve learned this dts title is pretty hosed up (technical term!)

The first thing I noticed about it, is a mastering error, where it doesn’t even display the correct song information when playing on my oppo (the song titles there are from one of his compilation releases!)

Secondly, the 5.1 sounded like some weird double stereo and not very discrete at all with Johnny’s vocals coming from all the channels. Apparently the 5.1 was derived from the Quad mix by a fake Center summed from the Fronts and lesser volume; and a LFE by low pass filtering from all the Quad channels. Taking out the Center and LFE should give the original Quad mix, but again very tame and unsatisfying to say the least. I don’t have a copy of the Q8, but that may be more telling.
Yes the vocals were rather odd (especially for SQ), no way to null them out in any of the channels but I find that to be rather cool. I've been dubbing all my new vinyl directly to the hard drive and so haven't sat yet down to really listen through the speakers yet. Only monitored the sound indirectly (away outside the sweet spot) and via headphones. It will be interesting to check out the other releases as well. These mixes would of been done early in the game so the producers /engineers would have still been experimenting with their mixing techniques which I think is rather cool.
 
I recently purchased a few Johnny Mathis SQ LP's. I saw a couple of them on eBay cheap but then found even better deals on Discogs. This is not the type of music that I was ever into before but I thought that I'd give them a try anyway. So far I've only listened to this one "The First Time Ever I Saw Your-Face" and although it's just easy listening pop renditions what were once current hits still I rather liked it. I just noticed today that it had come out on DTS CD as well, again I had passed up on it when first released. I think that there are a couple more SQ releases that I may add to my collection as well. All the albums I've seen are the gold bordered style and so released early in the game, he must have been one of Columbia's most popular and prolific artists at that time to warrant so many quad releases, all circa 1972.

afaik the Johnny Mathis CBS Quads that saw release included;

Love Story (Japanese SQ LP only),
In Person (SQ & Q8),
Me & Mrs Jones (SQ & Q8),
You've Got A Friend (SQ & Q8),
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (SQ, Q8 & DTS CD),
I'm Coming Home (SQ & Q8),
When Will I See You Again (SQ & Q8)

all except the last two Quads (from '74 & '75 respectively) had gold-bordered artwork in their SQ LP form and the first one was a Japanese only SQ Quad release which came in more regular sleeve art with the CBS SQ logo at top left.

I'm Coming Home is the gem among them i would say. the album itself is wonderful and has a superb Thom Bell produced Quad mix, engineered by Philly International's Don Murray (who mixed The O'Jays' Ship Ahoy Quad) and overseen by the late great Larry Keyes.
 
afaik the Johnny Mathis CBS Quads that saw release included;

Love Story (Japanese SQ LP only),
In Person (SQ & Q8),
Me & Mrs Jones (SQ & Q8),
You've Got A Friend (SQ & Q8),
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (SQ, Q8 & DTS CD),
I'm Coming Home (SQ & Q8),
When Will I See You Again (SQ & Q8)

all except the last two Quads (from '74 & '75 respectively) had gold-bordered artwork in their SQ LP form and the first one was a Japanese only SQ Quad release which came in more regular sleeve art with the CBS SQ logo at top left.

I'm Coming Home is the gem among them i would say. the album itself is wonderful and has a superb Thom Bell produced Quad mix, engineered by Philly International's Don Murray (who mixed The O'Jays' Ship Ahoy Quad) and overseen by the late great Larry Keyes.
I Just got through listening to "Me & Mrs Jones" and "Song Sung Blue" and they don't have the phasy all around vocals like "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" . As I recall Kris Kristofferson "Border Lord" has the same type vocals as "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face". I must be getting old as I actually like all of these albums much more than I thought that I would. I'll be on the lookout for the others!
 
I Just got through listening to "Me & Mrs Jones" and "Song Sung Blue" and they don't have the phasy all around vocals like "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" . As I recall Kris Kristofferson "Border Lord" has the same type vocals as "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face". I must be getting old as I actually like all of these albums much more than I thought that I would. I'll be on the lookout for the others!

I love Mathis! As said, Coming Home is freaking amazing.
 
afaik the Johnny Mathis CBS Quads that saw release included;

Love Story (Japanese SQ LP only),
In Person (SQ & Q8),
Me & Mrs Jones (SQ & Q8),
You've Got A Friend (SQ & Q8),
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (SQ, Q8 & DTS CD),
I'm Coming Home (SQ & Q8),
When Will I See You Again (SQ & Q8)

all except the last two Quads (from '74 & '75 respectively) had gold-bordered artwork in their SQ LP form and the first one was a Japanese only SQ Quad release which came in more regular sleeve art with the CBS SQ logo at top left.

I'm Coming Home is the gem among them i would say. the album itself is wonderful and has a superb Thom Bell produced Quad mix, engineered by Philly International's Don Murray (who mixed The O'Jays' Ship Ahoy Quad) and overseen by the late great Larry Keyes.
If Johnny had a better marketing team or got friendly with a current pop artist (like Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga,) we could see a Quadio in the future! :LB

Johnny Mathis and Lil Nas X :D
 
Arnie Somogyi's Ambulance: ACCIDENT AND INSURGENCY [Linn Records/Multi~CH SACD 5.1] Beautifully recorded accessible jazz from five of the coolest cats! 🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000ZOTEDU?tag=hraudio-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1

'Accident and Insurgency' features five of the UK's most exciting young jazz musicians, in collaboration with U.S. jazz legend, trumpeter Eddie Henderson.

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