HiRez Poll O'Jays, The - SURVIVAL & FAMILY REUNION [SACD]

[rtbluray]

Please post your thoughts and comments on this 2020 Multichannel SACD release from Dutton Vocalion of the albums "Survival" and "Family Reunion" by the O'Jays.
This Multichannel SACD contains the first release of the original Quadraphonic mixes for both albums for the first time in over 40 years!

Survival
LP KZ 33150 (1975) STEREO/ZQ 33150 QUADRAPHONIC
1: GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT (Gamble; Huff)
2: LET ME MAKE LOVE TO YOU (Sigler; Felder)
3: SURVIVAL (Gamble; Huff)
4: WHERE DID WE GO WRONG (Gamble; Huff)
5: RICH GET RICHER (Gamble; Huff)
6: HOW TIME FLIES (Gamble; Huff)
7: WHAT AM I WAITING FOR (Sigler; Tyson)
8: NEVER BREAK US UP (Huff)


Family Reunion
LP PZ 33807 (1975) STEREO/PZQ 33807 QUADRAPHONIC 9: UNITY (Gamble; Huff)
10: FAMILY REUNION (Gamble; Huff)
11: YOU AND ME (Sigler; Bishop)
12: SHE’S ONLY A WOMAN (Whitehead; McFadden; Carstarphen)
13: LIVIN’ FOR THE WEEKEND (Gamble; Huff; Gilbert)
14: STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN (Gamble; Huff)
15: I LOVE MUSIC (Gamble; Huff)

Remastered from the original analogue tapes by Michael J. Dutton


Multi-ch Stereo
All tracks available in stereo and multi-channel


SA-CD
This hybrid CD can be played on any standard CD players

CDSML8566

 

[fredblue]

an absolute delight from start to finish.
even after one listen through of the MCh this new SACD means i can happily retire all my old Quad LPs.

sound quality throughout is superb but particularly good on "Family Reunion" i thought, delicate and detailed on the slow burn stuff and gutsy and ballsy on the big numbers.

i know these two albums in Quad so well, with two copies of the SQ Quad LP of "Survival" and three copies of the SQ Quad LP of "Family Reunion".. all in the pursuit of the best playing and decoding copies of the Quad LPs of both albums.

the liner notes are excellent, befitting two classic Number 1 R&B albums.. but for
me the big thrill is to hear these beautiful records in all their discrete multichannel majesty at last!

the channel separation is exceptional! it feels like you can really experience what the engineers were hearing in surround in the studio; call and response and harmony vocals are panned around the room in a seamless way, the layers once buried now brought to the fore.

in sheer monetary terms the value the new release represents is to me a serious bargain.

the 5 Quad LPs i picked up over the last few years, with international shipping on 2 of the LPs, set me back just over £100 quid (!) in total. here the SACD is £11.99. yes, the decimal points in the right place!

this is such a joyous reunion, like seeing an old friend who's doing better than ever after many years and just having a total blast with them. i never wanted it to end.

"I Love Music" as the song goes.. well, just as long as its this kinda music that's groovin'! i love, i love, i love, i love, i love this music, i do!

instant "10" status. it doesn't get better than this.

 

[Ninecats]

I so need this! Again an amazing blend of the two album covers.

 

[beerking]

What Adam said and some!!
10 ain't doing it any justice.

 

[jefe1]

Party at Adams house!
Get down!

 

[Goona]

What Beerking and Adam said these are among my fav albums from the 70,s. Just need the first 2 Spinners albums and im in heaven.

 

[humprof]

I can't match Adam's review. But he's spot-on, as usual. Great separation in these mixes, which are more than just by-the-numbers. In terms of fidelity, this may be the cleanest, best-sounding release of any of the recent Dutton reissues. Even though my wife is the big Philly Sound fan in our house, MFSB's "TSOP" was one of the first 45s I ever bought--and I have fond memories of being home sick from school, lying in my parents' bed (so my mom could keep a closer eye on me), and hearing "Back Stabbers" cycle through the local radio station's playlist about a dozen times over the course of the day. Despite all that, the O'Jays don't hit me right in the pleasure-center like EW&F does. But I can still recognize this as some grade-A soul.

9 / 10 / 8 => 9

 

[steelydave]

The Earth, Wind & Fire disc seems to be getting most of the attention from this latest batch, but for me personally, this disc is the real showstopper.

I've heard various decodes (Tate, Surround Master, etc.) of these two SQ LPs over the years, and they barely even hint at the majesty of these mixes. It seems kind of a cruel irony that as quad mixes got better and more nuanced that the SQ system was less and less able to reproduce them accurately. I remember the first time i heard a Tate decode of Family Reunion, I actually spent several minutes moving from speaker to speaker trying to figure out if it was a legitimate quad mix (or just an upmix) because it seemed like several of the instruments (especially the hi-hats) were in all four speakers at once. Hearing these discrete for the first time, it's remarkable just how bad a rendering of the actual mix the SQ decode was.

At the risk of repeating what I said in the thread about D-V's reissue of the MFSB Philadelphia Freedom quad mix, I think that the Sigma Sound mixes of the PIR catalog are amongst the finest ever done, and this release has only strengthened that belief. It's almost hard to fully describe how perfect these mixes are - there isn't an instrument or vocal element out of balance compared to the stereo mix, and the cleverness with which they've used the surround soundfield makes the stereo versions entirely redundant. These quad mixes are so accomplished that I honestly think they probably could've simply issued the albums as single-inventory quad LPs - there's no subtlety of the stereo mix that isn't replicated (or improved upon) in the corresponding quad mix, which isn't something you can say about very many SQ quad mixes. I'd honestly put these up there with anything any modern surround mixer has done (including forum deities Steven Wilson and Elliott Scheiner) and I think you'd be hard-pressed to differentiate them them from the best 5.1 mixes ever done, aside from the fact that they don't have center channel information. It's a shame that Sigma guys like Jay Mark and Arthur Stoppe didn't get a chance to do more quad mixing (or make the leap to 5.1 mixing when it came in to fashion) because these two albums show they were just hitting their collective stride when the format took a nosedive.

I also mentioned in the announcement thread about this lot of discs that the sound quality of the digital reissues of these two albums is a mixed bag - up until this point it was a kind of a 'pick your poison' choice between overcompressed modern reissues from the US or UK that had a really shrill tonality, or mid-90s Japanese reissues that had the full dynamic range, but which had a kind of lifeless midrangey sound quality, and which commanded a pretty penny on the secondary market. I can happily report that this disc knocks every one of them into a cocked hat - like pretty much everything that D-V have done on SACD, this disc just sparkles. After years of "making do" with the 2008 remaster of Survival, it's almost revelatory hearing the album breathe like it should - tracks like Give the People What They Want, Rich Get Richer and the title track (some of the grittiest, most aggressive music the group ever recorded) finally have the low-end 'funk' that's been missing from every digital version to date. And Family Reunion fares even better from a sonic perspective - the ascending harmonised "You and me now - me now - now"s in the rear channels on You and Me are a 'hair on the back of the neck stands up' moment, and there are a bunch more of those that follow, especially on Stairway to Heaven and Livin' for the Weekend.

I don't give a lot of top marks on these poll threads but for me this disc is is an easy 10, all day long and all night strong. If you're into surround and have even a passing interest in 70s soul and R&B, your collection isn't complete unless you own this one.

 

[J. PUPSTER]

Butta!

 

[fredblue]

The Earth, Wind & Fire disc seems to be getting most of the attention from this latest batch, but for me personally, this disc is the real showstopper.

I've heard various decodes (Tate, Surround Master, etc.) of these two SQ LPs over the years, and they barely even hint at the majesty of these mixes. It seems kind of a cruel irony that as quad mixes got better and more nuanced that the SQ system was less and less able to reproduce them accurately. I remember the first time i heard a Tate decode of Family Reunion, I actually spent several minutes moving from speaker to speaker trying to figure out if it was a legitimate quad mix (or just an upmix) because it seemed like several of the instruments (especially the hi-hats) were in all four speakers at once. Hearing these discrete for the first time, it's remarkable just how bad a rendering of the actual mix the SQ decode was.

At the risk of repeating what I said in the thread about D-V's reissue of the MFSB Philadelphia Freedom quad mix, I think that the Sigma Sound mixes of the PIR catalog are amongst the finest ever done, and this release has only strengthened that belief. It's almost hard to fully describe how perfect these mixes are - there isn't an instrument or vocal element out of balance compared to the stereo mix, and the cleverness with which they've used the surround soundfield makes the stereo versions entirely redundant. These quad mixes are so accomplished that I honestly think they probably could've simply issued the albums as single-inventory quad LPs - there's no subtlety of the stereo mix that isn't replicated (or improved upon) in the corresponding quad mix, which isn't something you can say about very many SQ quad mixes. I'd honestly put these up there with anything any modern surround mixer has done (including forum deities Steven Wilson and Elliott Scheiner) and I think you'd be hard-pressed to differentiate them them from the best 5.1 mixes ever done, aside from the fact that they don't have center channel information. It's a shame that Sigma guys like Jay Mark and Arthur Stoppe didn't get a chance to do more quad mixing (or make the leap to 5.1 mixing when it came in to fashion) because these two albums show they were just hitting their collective stride when the format took a nosedive.

I also mentioned in the announcement thread about this lot of discs that the sound quality of the digital reissues of these two albums is a mixed bag - up until this point it was a kind of a 'pick your poison' choice between overcompressed modern reissues from the US or UK that had a really shrill tonality, or mid-90s Japanese reissues that had the full dynamic range, but which had a kind of lifeless midrangey sound quality, and which commanded a pretty penny on the secondary market. I can happily report that this disc knocks every one of them into a cocked hat - like pretty much everything that D-V have done on SACD, this disc just sparkles. After years of "making do" with the 2008 remaster of Survival, it's almost revelatory hearing the album breathe like it should - tracks like Give the People What They Want, Rich Get Richer and the title track (some of the grittiest, most aggressive music the group ever recorded) finally have the low-end 'funk' that's been missing from every digital version to date. And Family Reunion fares even better from a sonic perspective - the ascending harmonised "You and me now - me now - now"s in the rear channels on You and Me are a 'hair on the back of the neck stands up' moment, and there are a bunch more of those that follow, especially on Stairway to Heaven and Livin' for the Weekend.

I don't give a lot of top marks on these poll threads but for me this disc is is an easy 10, all day long and all night strong. If you're into surround and have even a passing interest in 70s soul and R&B, your collection isn't complete unless you own this one.

it ain't no crime to repeat yourself! what you say is all true,!its well worth saying again!

i would say the lack of a dedicated Centre channel is unimportant in these kinds of mixes, the use of the Centre Front position and phantom imaging therein is so well executed by the engineers i doubt anyone would miss a Centre channel and often for elements in the Centre Front you'd think your Centre speaker was on and in use!

i don't know if its available to them but if Vocalion can secure licencing for the one remaining O'Jays studio Quad that's not seen release on SACD to date, 1976's Message In The Music, i think people who haven't heard that one in Quad before (its uncommon in SQ LP form and super scarce on Q8) will i believe be utterly blown away by the mix; it is to me without a doubt the most modern Quad mix i've ever heard, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was the finest example of a modern day 5.1 presentation. fingers crossed for a good outcome!

 

[ar surround]

There was no way I could afford all these quad albums (or plain old stereo for that matter) back in the early mid-70’s. So I am hearing most of these gems for the first time. What a windfall, in hi-res quad no less!

 

[humprof]

The Earth, Wind & Fire disc seems to be getting most of the attention from this latest batch, but for me personally, this disc is the real showstopper.

I've heard various decodes (Tate, Surround Master, etc.) of these two SQ LPs over the years, and they barely even hint at the majesty of these mixes. It seems kind of a cruel irony that as quad mixes got better and more nuanced that the SQ system was less and less able to reproduce them accurately. I remember the first time i heard a Tate decode of Family Reunion, I actually spent several minutes moving from speaker to speaker trying to figure out if it was a legitimate quad mix (or just an upmix) because it seemed like several of the instruments (especially the hi-hats) were in all four speakers at once. Hearing these discrete for the first time, it's remarkable just how bad a rendering of the actual mix the SQ decode was.

At the risk of repeating what I said in the thread about D-V's reissue of the MFSB Philadelphia Freedom quad mix, I think that the Sigma Sound mixes of the PIR catalog are amongst the finest ever done, and this release has only strengthened that belief. It's almost hard to fully describe how perfect these mixes are - there isn't an instrument or vocal element out of balance compared to the stereo mix, and the cleverness with which they've used the surround soundfield makes the stereo versions entirely redundant. These quad mixes are so accomplished that I honestly think they probably could've simply issued the albums as single-inventory quad LPs - there's no subtlety of the stereo mix that isn't replicated (or improved upon) in the corresponding quad mix, which isn't something you can say about very many SQ quad mixes. I'd honestly put these up there with anything any modern surround mixer has done (including forum deities Steven Wilson and Elliott Scheiner) and I think you'd be hard-pressed to differentiate them them from the best 5.1 mixes ever done, aside from the fact that they don't have center channel information. It's a shame that Sigma guys like Jay Mark and Arthur Stoppe didn't get a chance to do more quad mixing (or make the leap to 5.1 mixing when it came in to fashion) because these two albums show they were just hitting their collective stride when the format took a nosedive.

I also mentioned in the announcement thread about this lot of discs that the sound quality of the digital reissues of these two albums is a mixed bag - up until this point it was a kind of a 'pick your poison' choice between overcompressed modern reissues from the US or UK that had a really shrill tonality, or mid-90s Japanese reissues that had the full dynamic range, but which had a kind of lifeless midrangey sound quality, and which commanded a pretty penny on the secondary market. I can happily report that this disc knocks every one of them into a cocked hat - like pretty much everything that D-V have done on SACD, this disc just sparkles. After years of "making do" with the 2008 remaster of Survival, it's almost revelatory hearing the album breathe like it should - tracks like Give the People What They Want, Rich Get Richer and the title track (some of the grittiest, most aggressive music the group ever recorded) finally have the low-end 'funk' that's been missing from every digital version to date. And Family Reunion fares even better from a sonic perspective - the ascending harmonised "You and me now - me now - now"s in the rear channels on You and Me are a 'hair on the back of the neck stands up' moment, and there are a bunch more of those that follow, especially on Stairway to Heaven and Livin' for the Weekend.

I don't give a lot of top marks on these poll threads but for me this disc is is an easy 10, all day long and all night strong. If you're into surround and have even a passing interest in 70s soul and R&B, your collection isn't complete unless you own this one.

Dave's reviews (see also his post on Mirror Image/New City) always do what the best music writing does: they help me hear an album differently by telling me what to listen for, directing my attention to things I hadn't heard (or hadn't even thought to consider or pay attention to). And by supplying context: his ears are so big--and so finely tuned--and he knows so much about music history, band histories, quad history, production history, and mixing and production technique, that he winds up supplying a dozen other points of reference for re-calibrating my evaluation criteria. Anyway: like those old female blues singers, I'm still not sure he should be givin' it away for free. But in the meantime, I feel like I should print these reviews out on glossy 12x12cm and glue them into the D-V booklets!

 

[fredblue]

Dave's reviews (see also his post on Mirror Image/New City) always do what the best music writing does: they help me hear an album differently by telling me what to listen for, directing my attention to things I hadn't heard (or hadn't even thought to consider or pay attention to). And by supplying context: his ears are so big--and so finely tuned--and he knows so much about music history, band histories, quad history, production history, and mixing and production technique, that he winds up supplying a dozen other points of reference for re-calibrating my evaluation criteria. Anyway: like those old female blues singers, I'm still not sure he should be givin' it away for free. But in the meantime, I feel like I should print these reviews out on glossy 12x12mm and glue them into the D-V booklets!

they say “nobody likes a smartass“, i however love a proper smarty pants it’s supersexy when someone is so clued up and if knowledge is power does our steely ever know his stuff, to the nth degree! he’s a surround Superman and my Rosetta Stone to cracking the code of Quad, I’m always pestering him for information and if he doesn’t know it then nobody does so I just make it up instead!
he‘s got the ears, he’s got the brains, he’s got the looks and he’s got the charm! he should definitely write the brief encyclopedia of surround music, sooner rather than later, none of us are getting any younger!

 

[The56Kid]

The Earth, Wind & Fire disc seems to be getting most of the attention from this latest batch, but for me personally, this disc is the real showstopper.

I've heard various decodes (Tate, Surround Master, etc.) of these two SQ LPs over the years, and they barely even hint at the majesty of these mixes. It seems kind of a cruel irony that as quad mixes got better and more nuanced that the SQ system was less and less able to reproduce them accurately. I remember the first time i heard a Tate decode of Family Reunion, I actually spent several minutes moving from speaker to speaker trying to figure out if it was a legitimate quad mix (or just an upmix) because it seemed like several of the instruments (especially the hi-hats) were in all four speakers at once. Hearing these discrete for the first time, it's remarkable just how bad a rendering of the actual mix the SQ decode was.

At the risk of repeating what I said in the thread about D-V's reissue of the MFSB Philadelphia Freedom quad mix, I think that the Sigma Sound mixes of the PIR catalog are amongst the finest ever done, and this release has only strengthened that belief. It's almost hard to fully describe how perfect these mixes are - there isn't an instrument or vocal element out of balance compared to the stereo mix, and the cleverness with which they've used the surround soundfield makes the stereo versions entirely redundant. These quad mixes are so accomplished that I honestly think they probably could've simply issued the albums as single-inventory quad LPs - there's no subtlety of the stereo mix that isn't replicated (or improved upon) in the corresponding quad mix, which isn't something you can say about very many SQ quad mixes. I'd honestly put these up there with anything any modern surround mixer has done (including forum deities Steven Wilson and Elliott Scheiner) and I think you'd be hard-pressed to differentiate them them from the best 5.1 mixes ever done, aside from the fact that they don't have center channel information. It's a shame that Sigma guys like Jay Mark and Arthur Stoppe didn't get a chance to do more quad mixing (or make the leap to 5.1 mixing when it came in to fashion) because these two albums show they were just hitting their collective stride when the format took a nosedive.

I also mentioned in the announcement thread about this lot of discs that the sound quality of the digital reissues of these two albums is a mixed bag - up until this point it was a kind of a 'pick your poison' choice between overcompressed modern reissues from the US or UK that had a really shrill tonality, or mid-90s Japanese reissues that had the full dynamic range, but which had a kind of lifeless midrangey sound quality, and which commanded a pretty penny on the secondary market. I can happily report that this disc knocks every one of them into a cocked hat - like pretty much everything that D-V have done on SACD, this disc just sparkles. After years of "making do" with the 2008 remaster of Survival, it's almost revelatory hearing the album breathe like it should - tracks like Give the People What They Want, Rich Get Richer and the title track (some of the grittiest, most aggressive music the group ever recorded) finally have the low-end 'funk' that's been missing from every digital version to date. And Family Reunion fares even better from a sonic perspective - the ascending harmonised "You and me now - me now - now"s in the rear channels on You and Me are a 'hair on the back of the neck stands up' moment, and there are a bunch more of those that follow, especially on Stairway to Heaven and Livin' for the Weekend.

I don't give a lot of top marks on these poll threads but for me this disc is is an easy 10, all day long and all night strong. If you're into surround and have even a passing interest in 70s soul and R&B, your collection isn't complete unless you own this one.

Damn, Dave, thems some strong words, brotha! Sure am glad my copy is on order!

 

[skherbeck]

Excellent, discrete quad mixes from start to finish. Excellent fidelity as well. Unfortunately for me, I'm just not connecting with the music/songs in this collection, so I won't cast a vote, but this is an easy 10 for anyone who likes the content. One thing I found amusing: whoever entered the info that shows up when you rip the disc put "Page/Plant" as the composers for "Stairway To Heaven", lol... this is definitely not that Stairway

 

[marpow]

I voted 8. I have listened 3 times. This was a hard vote for me, the music was not as fantastic as I was hoping or expecting, so in the end how many more times will I listen, I don't know. It does have a certain laid back vibe that does require a certain mood on my part.
The surround albeit an excellent quad discrete experience didn't have the wow factor due to the music itself. I probably liked the track Family Reunion the best, lyrics where outstanding.
When I listen again someday maybe my vote will change.

 

[wavelength]

I love this record!

 

[Quad Linda]

I've had this on SQ and SACD since their respective releases. Still, I just noticed that Levert & Williams' names are mislabeled in the pic on the D-V booklet's back cover! No, NOT the back of the case.