HiRez Poll Mahavishnu Orchestra, The - BIRDS OF FIRE [SACD]

[clg1977]

I'm convinced that the SACD is correct and that the SQ LP may have been a bit screwed up. I listened to One Word multiple times on Friday going back and forth between my SQ lp decoded through my Sansui QRX-7001 and the AF 4.0 SACD run through the straight four channel input of the same receiver.

On the SACD the instrument layout is: keyboard center, bass center (almost centered in the room), lead guitar left front, violin right front, bass drum rear left, cymbals rear left, snare rear right.

On the SQ LP the instrument layout is: keyboard center, bass center, lead guitar right front, violin left front, i couldn't hear the bass drum at all, cymbals rear left, snare rear right.

On both versions there's a swirling effect on the One Word song intro. On the SACD the effect is much less blurred and makes a criss-cross pattern around the four-channel sound stage: front center > left front > right front > right rear > center rear > left rear > right front > center front > left front. On the SQ LP it sounds quite blurred and all over the place, approximately: front center > right front > right rear > center rear > left rear > center front > right rear. (Again this is my best transcription as it sounded kind of all over the place.)

The overall sound improvement is so stark between the SQ lp and the SACD. On the SACD everything is so much more clear and detailed, yet still warm and lush sounding. As I noted above, I couldn't even make out the bass drum in the left rear channel clearly on the SQ LP. I absolutely love this new SACD and I'm going to pick up as many of these AF discs as I can.

 

[clg1977]

Let me revisit this:



Tonight I double checked that the instrumental balances on the SQ rears in One Word are Left - guitar -keys-violin -Right. I found that still to be true though again, the separation is *much less* than in the front channels (all three instruments are more clumped together in the center in the surrounds, but still have some left-right ordering). Meanwhile the fronts are very clearly violin-keys-guitar. So that weirdness remains.

But tonight I also focused on just the drums in the SQ decode of the song. The SQ decode is not very discrete, so there's lots of drums in the front channels as well as rears. What sound like Cobham's floor tom is consistently more in the left channel than right. *That's true in front and rears*

So that means the SQ situation is even weirder. The *drums* track correctly between front and rear. But the other instruments are reversed.

I would like rule out the possibility that this is an issue peculiar to the decoded SQ version I have. So if any of you have the SQ LP, please give a listen over your hardware and let me know the electric instrument layout in the surround channels. You'll probably have to mute the front channels to tell for sure.

Hmmmm...my SQ lp decoded through my Sansui sounds much more discrete than this with the drums very clearly just in the rears as I laid out in my post just above this.

 

[clg1977]

Hmm...which track on the SACD does a perfect circle? (Steelydave has established that the drumroll in One Word pans in an 'X' or 'Z' fashion, not a circle)

Yes, you're correct. I misremembered the perfect circle. Definitely more of an X on the SACD.

 

[ssully]

Hmmmm...my SQ lp decoded through my Sansui sounds much more discrete than this with the drums very clearly just in the rears as I laid out in my post just above this.

Yes, that's interesting.

Try muting/disconnecting your rear channels...do your hear drums present in the front channels?
Similarly if you mute/disconnect the fronts..do you hear guitar, keys, violin, bass in the rears?

It's not subtle on the SQ decode I have. There is significant, quite audible overlap between front and rear content, unlike on the SACD. Muting fronts or rears makes it totally obvious.

If your LP decode proves more discrete after these tests, then I can attribute the sound of the version I have to the decode process that created it.

 

[quicksrt]

I'm convinced that the SACD is correct and that the SQ LP may have been a bit screwed up. I listened to One Word multiple times on Friday going back and forth between my SQ lp decoded through my Sansui QRX-7001 and the AF 4.0 SACD run through the straight four channel input of the same receiver.

On the SACD the instrument layout is: keyboard center, bass center (almost centered in the room), lead guitar left front, violin right front, bass drum rear left, cymbals rear left, snare rear right.

On the SQ LP the instrument layout is: keyboard center, bass center, lead guitar right front, violin left front, i couldn't hear the bass drum at all, cymbals rear left, snare rear right.

On both versions there's a swirling effect on the One Word song intro. On the SACD the effect is much less blurred and makes a criss-cross pattern around the four-channel sound stage: front center > left front > right front > right rear > center rear > left rear > right front > center front > left front. On the SQ LP it sounds quite blurred and all over the place, approximately: front center > right front > right rear > center rear > left rear > center front > right rear. (Again this is my best transcription as it sounded kind of all over the place.)

The overall sound improvement is so stark between the SQ lp and the SACD. On the SACD everything is so much more clear and detailed, yet still warm and lush sounding. As I noted above, I couldn't even make out the bass drum in the left rear channel clearly on the SQ LP. I absolutely love this new SACD and I'm going to pick up as many of these AF discs as I can.

I can't believe that this title was chosen for AF 4.0 series in their first year of, and for launching the series. It's an "out there" title, not for everyone's taste, yet a stunner quad mix, and absolutely a "thrill ride" for those that enjoy this kind of thing.

 

[Clint Eastwood]

I can't believe that this title was chosen for AF 4.0 series in their first year of, and for launching the series. It's an "out there" title, not for everyone's taste, yet a stunner quad mix, and absolutely a "thrill ride" for those that enjoy this kind of thing.

They have been getting some good input about what quads to check out for release

 

[wavelength]

I can't believe that this title was chosen for AF 4.0 series in their first year of, and for launching the series. It's an "out there" title, not for everyone's taste, yet a stunner quad mix, and absolutely a "thrill ride" for those that enjoy this kind of thing.

Absolutely! A wonderful surprise addition to my collection.

 

[ssully]

The first is track 4, 'Sapphire Bullets Of Pure Love' (which is more a collection of random noises than a song) but the waveforms seem to show a decided channel swap. It's possible this track was even some kind of upmix/unwrap because there's a lot of stuff where audio information in the front speakers looks duplicated in the rear speakers at lower volume. I've put red circles around audio events that I feel are good examples of parts that identical or similar between front and rears, and as you can see when they're identical, it's between pairs of front left/rear right or front right/rear left channels, which would create two diagonal soundfields and probably make smoke come out of the ears of the SQ encoder.

View attachment 22745

Listen especially to the fast ascending pizzicato that ends this track just as it's fading out.

in the front channels of the SACD, it goes flying off to the right
in the rear channels of the SACD, it goes flying off to the left

in the front channels of the SQ decode, it goes flying off to the left
in the rear channels of the SQ decode it goes flying off to the right


i.e., 'X' panning in both formats...but reversed....@:

 

[quicksrt]

Shouldn't someone out there own the Q8 and can post some waves, not that they are for sure proper track layout. But it would be interesting.

Some of the writing in this thread I find hard to follow. Extra long paragraphs, I must be fading or something, it's just me never mind.

 

[steelydave]

Listen especially to the fast ascending pizzicato that ends this track just as it's fading out.

in the front channels of the SACD, it goes flying off to the right
in the rear channels of the SACD, it goes flying off to the left

in the front channels of the SQ decode, it goes flying off to the left
in the rear channels of the SQ decode it goes flying off to the right


i.e., 'X' panning in both formats...but reversed....@:

I can't speak to the SQ decode, and I don't think you can use SQ decodes as definitive arbiters of anything simply because the quality of the decode is down to the mathematical formulae the decoder (or script) used. SQ decoding uses all kinds of tricks including phase related cancellation and 'pumping', ie temporarily increasing the volume of the dominant channel to create an artificial perception of discreteness, because their mission is to make quad sound good, not accurate. Who knows what the decoder or script was doing on the SQ version you have, I think it's entirely possible it was throwing info from the front right in to the rear left and vice versa as the result of some kind of decoding error (or oversight). I also can't name one quad mix where they did a separate mix for the SQ version and discrete version, so I think it's safe to assume that the SQ version is matrixed from the discrete master. If you're hearing things in the front speakers from the rears and vice versa, it's because SQ is only capable of 25dB (ish) of front/rear separation at best and the rest is leakage. In fact, you can tell that they did the discrete mixes with matrix encoding in mind because none of the Columbia mixes have anything center panned in the rear speakers, and this one is no exception - the drums are stereo panned across the rears but the bass drum is off to one side and the snare off to the other. I don't think they'd bother following that kind of protocol if they were going to do the mix again for a separate SQ-only mix.

In the picture I posted of the waveforms that ssully quoted recently you can see the channel swap with your own eyes, the bottom two tracks are almost identical to the top two tracks, just lower in volume, and inverted - which indicates the swap.

As far as the Q8 goes, I owned it about 10 years ago and my recollection is the snare drum in One Word did a circular pan. I sent it off to Tab Patterson for Fostex DTS CD conversion and when I got it back the DTS CD had the drums panning in a circle. I sold the Q8 shortly after that so I don't have it to check, but I do still have the DTS CD. Given that Tab transferred something ridiculous like 700 titles to DTS CD I think he was probably intimately aware of channel swaps and would have corrected them if necessary.

It's entirely possible the original vinyl had some kind of channel swap as well, fredblue tells me that SQ vinyl of both the Isley Brothers 3+3 and The O'Jays Ship Ahoy both have the rear channels swapped, ie the same swap as the SACD which I maintain is wrong. To me, the preponderance of the evidence says that the rear channels are swapped, and that's good enough for me. I'm thankful that the swap has a very small impact on this album (it only affects 2 tracks in any noticeable way for me) because the quality of the quad mix and the transfer that AF did are stunning in every other regard.

 

[quicksrt]

I can't speak to the SQ decode, and I don't think you can use SQ decodes as definitive arbiters of anything simply because the quality of the decode is down to the mathematical formulae the decoder (or script) used. SQ decoding uses all kinds of tricks including phase related cancellation and 'pumping', ie temporarily increasing the volume of the dominant channel to create an artificial perception of discreteness, because their mission is to make quad sound good, not accurate. Who knows what the decoder or script was doing on the SQ version you have, I think it's entirely possible it was throwing info from the front right in to the rear left and vice versa as the result of some kind of decoding error (or oversight). I also can't name one quad mix where they did a separate mix for the SQ version and discrete version, so I think it's safe to assume that the SQ version is matrixed from the discrete master. If you're hearing things in the front speakers from the rears and vice versa, it's because SQ is only capable of 25dB (ish) of front/rear separation at best and the rest is leakage. In fact, you can tell that they did the discrete mixes with matrix encoding in mind because none of the Columbia mixes have anything center panned in the rear speakers, and this one is no exception - the drums are stereo panned across the rears but the bass drum is off to one side and the snare off to the other. I don't think they'd bother following that kind of protocol if they were going to do the mix again for a separate SQ-only mix.

In the picture I posted of the waveforms that ssully quoted recently you can see the channel swap with your own eyes, the bottom two tracks are almost identical to the top two tracks, just lower in volume, and inverted - which indicates the swap.

As far as the Q8 goes, I owned it about 10 years ago and my recollection is the snare drum in One Word did a circular pan. I sent it off to Tab Patterson for Fostex DTS CD conversion and when I got it back the DTS CD had the drums panning in a circle. I sold the Q8 shortly after that so I don't have it to check, but I do still have the DTS CD. Given that Tab transferred something ridiculous like 700 titles to DTS CD I think he was probably intimately aware of channel swaps and would have corrected them if necessary.

It's entirely possible the original vinyl had some kind of channel swap as well, fredblue tells me that SQ vinyl of both the Isley Brothers 3+3 and The O'Jays Ship Ahoy both have the rear channels swapped, ie the same swap as the SACD which I maintain is wrong. To me, the preponderance of the evidence says that the rear channels are swapped, and that's good enough for me. I'm thankful that the swap has a very small impact on this album (it only affects 2 tracks in any noticeable way for me) because the quality of the quad mix and the transfer that AF did are stunning in every other regard.

I still think that a look at the wavs from the DTS Tab conversion would be interesting and could be enlightening.

 

[keenly]

So which version is correct?

 

[quicksrt]

We've been told that none are so far as matching the stereo positioning of instruments in front and rear of the stereo mixes.

 

[quicksrt]

The drum roll pattern or what have you makes no difference to me in that I can imagine Billy Cobham playing a zig-zag or x-cross pattern rather than a circular thing around the speakers so nice and neat.

 

[ar surround]

The drum roll pattern or what have you makes no difference to me in that I can imagine Billy Cobham playing a zig zag or x cross pattern rather than a circular thing around the speakers so nice and neat.

Yes, let's face it, mixing engineers have been panning drums across the stereo spectrum for years. That too isn't real unless you have two very coordinated drummers on both sides of the room. So both circular or X pattern panning in quad isn't real either but sounds way cool.

 

[Clint Eastwood]

Yes, let's face it, mixing engineers have been panning drums across the stereo spectrum for years. That too isn't real unless you have two very coordinated drummers on both sides of the room. So both circular or X pattern panning in quad isn't real either but sounds way cool.

Sounding "way cool" trumps realism everytime for me on these recordings..I'm not critical about where sounds originate from...just as long as they sound good

 

[clg1977]

We've been told that none are so far as matching the stereo positioning of instruments in front and rear of the stereo mixes.

I've found you can't always use the stereo positioning as a guide for what should be proper with a quad mix. On Jackson Browne's Late For The Sky the stereo version features David Lindley in the left front channel. In quad his fiddle is located in the rear right speaker.

 

[ssully]

I still think that a look at the wavs from the DTS Tab conversion would be interesting and could be enlightening.

Me too.

 

[ssully]

I've found you can't always use the stereo positioning as a guide for what should be proper with a quad mix. On Jackson Browne's Late For The Sky the stereo version features David Lindley in the left front channel. In quad his fiddle is located in the rear right speaker.

But how do you know that's not a mistake? ;>

 

[fredblue]

It's a curious thing to note in this Poll, there's about 3 comments on this AF disc itself and about 96 talking about potential mix fuck up's on SQ vinyl, Q8, etc.. the last 90 or so possibly deserve their own thread..? ...just sayin'