HiRez Poll Merchant, Natalie - TIGERLILY [DVD-A]

[fredblue]

Yuck. A generous "6".

The 5.1 is almost non-existent! It all sounds pleasant enough but the music, the sound quality and the surround mix just do very little for me.

Actually I'm regretting that 6. A "5" would be more appropriate to sum up how I feel about this.

1 for the music, 1 for the mix, 2 for it being a DVDA, 1 for it being cheap (!)

 

[Jeddia]

Not a huge fan of hers, but I like this album. That said, after listening to it and reading through this thread, I was surprised at all the high marks. I found the mix lacking, and the sound quality itself is a bit mid-heavy. Going to hold off on a vote until I give it another listen... Perhaps I'd had too much scotch...

 

[Franklin]

Track 6 is approx 1:50 shorter on the 5.1 mix.

 

[skherbeck]

Great music. Sound quality is OK. Mix is basically double stereo for most tracks. 5. (Sorry, baggy)

 

[edisonbaggins]

Great music. Sound quality is OK. Mix is basically double stereo for most tracks. 5. (Sorry, baggy)

Hey, my friend! No need to apologize. We all have different sets of ears and different tastes.
I do find a "5" vote astounding, but oh well. FWIW, you're in disagreement with some pretty good sets of ears, per the poll.
I feel very nicely surrounded by this album. FWIW, I think this mix is similar to (and slightly better than) Misplaced Childhood and you just gave that an 8.

So, my vote. I'll knock off a 1/2 point for no dedicated stereo mix. And I'll knock off a 1/2 point because the mix is somewhat tame.
The mix is not double stereo. I hear all kinds of supportive elements, somewhat discretely, in the rears:
background vocals, cymbals, percussion, acoustic guitars and electric guitars. A few of the tracks are tamer than others, but even these, such as "River" have discrete moments (background vocals, acoustics and cymbal shimmers, once the track gets going).

This album is such a masterpiece that it gets 3 points for content. The sound quality is superb. A dramatic improvement over any stereo source I've heard: LP, CD & radio.
So, another 3 points there.

A strong 9 from Baggy.

 

[somethingcleveridunno]

This album was a middle-aged rediscovery for me a few years ago when I really started to listen to Jennifer Turner's guitar work more than Natalie's vocals. Zero offence to Natalie Merchant, my point is that Jennifer's playing is just immensely tasteful, playful, and I love the articulately overdriven tones she gets out of that PRS. The songs and the performances all around quality work from professional musicians, and the audio quality is strong, an excellent job by John Holbrook and his team on the recording.

The surround mix is not great, but it's not terrible. It plays conservative by putting too in both a front and surround channel, but it's also not doubled stereo, no by a long shot. To break down the album's peak, "Wonder," Natalie's voice seems to be the biggest issue, putting her in enough channels that her voice lacks any directionality. It's a weird feeling of her being right where your own head is.. But vocal overdubs very much live in the right surround channel. The crash cymbal lives in the left surround, the hi-hat is dead center. Holbrook's Hammond organ also lives in the left surround. And Jennifer wanders around the room seemingly to wherever there's space for her to shine, which is good because she's too low in the mix for being so featured. Also the bass is hard to pick out of the mix, that's maybe the one thing I can point to that's maybe more a technical than an artistic issue. Some might say "Well someone has to get lost in the mix" but, nah. There are too many examples of records with more moving pieces where you can still pick out everyone all the time.

My head says a very strong 7, but my heart wants a solid 8. This is probably going to be in the upper half of surround albums I'm going to listen to in the future, and there's basically nothing with less than a 7 average in the polls that I will bother listening to more than once. So with that grade inflation that treats 7 as the threshold for enjoyable in mind, I have to give it an 8.