Listening to Now (In Surround) - Volume 2

jefe1 · Feb 8, 2024

You bought this as a cut out to have an extra small hinge case right? The cover was of no influence right.....

perzon57 · Feb 8, 2024

Steven Wilson THC, while reading the excellent SW interview by Mike Mettler in Stereophile of all places.

J. PUPSTER · Feb 8, 2024

Maceo Parker – School's In!

(5.0 SACD - 2005)

ohhh boy, another potential project for "The Mutt!"

I really enjoy ol' Maceo's funked up playing with Prince and earlier JB. But I always thought this SACD MC release sounded too harshly bright and potentially compressed in the mastering; especially since this has a lot of cymbals, brass etc . After years not thinking about it (have no idea why not) I decided to finally rip it and check it out.

Sure enough looks like the front channels have some substantial limiting/compression going on. If you figure I don't have any db adjustment in FB2K when converting the dsf to wav files, could be +3db louder, but not sure if there is any clipping going on. Also discovered there is no LFE, so it's a 5.0 disc.

It actually has some pretty nice surround
(for "Basic Funk: 101") - Maceo's sax mixed into the Front Phantom center. Percussion/Conga and organ mainly in the Center. Fronts also have a guitar on the left and other horn section in the right with some keyboard. Main bass and drums spread nicely in the Fronts.
Rhythm guitar rear left and some sort of wah-wah guitar or keyboard rear right with Maceo's horn, other horns and drums/bass also mixed in the rears.

Here's what the 5.0 wav's look like for the song "Basic Funk: 101" I'm sure a little EQ adjustment would help, especially in the Fronts.