I am sadly giving this a "6" for the surround mix.
My unofficial vote on the whole deluxe edition is an "8"
As almost everyone else has pointed out so far, the mix is a rather large disappointment. I agree with what
@sjcorne commented on in the Blu-Ray post. While there are some discreet moments, they are few and far between. Mostly prominent on backing vocal parts but strangely inconsistent across the whole release.
I had to drop the center channel and pump up the rears to really get some audible balance to the surround mix. Unfortunately, I couldn't pump the rears up too much as I started to experience a phasing type problem where the rear reverb like sound started to screw with the balance of the front speakers.
I did not experience the bass problem that
@MCDave reported either on PCM or DTS. On the contrary, the bass lines are much more prominent on the 5.1 & stereo mixes than the original '80s mix. I never really heard before how detailed some of the bass lines were. Perhaps MCDAve meant that the low end output wasn't lighting up his subwoofer?
I think the mix's biggest sin is not being adventurous in the rears. That is kind of strange because they certainly have played with some of main vocal lines in panning them to the extreme right & left channel way more than the original mix ever did. I can't believe that they didn't even take advantage of the easy surround moments. The phone call at the end of "
He Knows" is stuck in the center channel and they do nothing with the ambient nature and party sounds at the beginning of "
Garden Party".
Another weird thing to me is that the mix seems to focus on center speaker. That discrete bass line I was talking about (on the title track) is firmly centered. Rothery's solos are also crammed into the center speaker.
The two atmospheric tracks, "
Web" & "
Chelsea Monday" would have been magnificent with an immersive mix but they choose to keep it more in the big stereo vein.
They finally get it going in the right direction with "
Forgotten Sons" but it is a little to late.
On the plus side. The fidelity of the remix is phenomenal. A tremendous improvement over the original '80s mix.
The documentary is enlightening to even long time fans and the inclusion of the video "
Recital" is awesome. A very nice transfer from an old video source. I would have appreciated to hear "Grendal" in even this lackluster surround mix but it wasn't to be.
I will not write off the whole package completely given the awesome fidelity clean up and that the surround mix isn't the worst thing in the world.
