neil wilkes
2K Club - QQ Super Nova
Please post your thoughts, comments & Observations on this new release
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DVD/DTS Poll Oldfield. Mike - Ommadawn [DD DVD+2CD]
- Thread starter neil wilkes
- Start date
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Spot on surround mix. Much more aggressive and discrete than the Boxed quad remix. Ommadawn was always great on any surround format, even fake surround. Now this carefully recunstructed mix not only wraps around you nicely, it also highlights lots of previously unheard spots, without being all too distracting.
One point off for being low-res dd 5.1 only!
One point off for being low-res dd 5.1 only!
as above, Its my first time with Ommadawn and Hergest ridge and I ahve to say i am looking forward to the rest of Mike Oldfields catalog in Surround Hope it happens. I would love to have 'Five Miles Out' in Surround.
I've never heard the Quad mixes, but Ommadawn is probably the work of Mike's I'm most familiar with.
Despite being incredibly sad about the lack of the surround mix being presented with any sort of fidelity I gave in and ordered both Hergest Ridge and Ommadawn to Canada from Amazon.uk and it worked out to about US$41, substantially cheaper than ordering them domestically from Amazon.com or .ca
The surround mix is almost flawless here, I really enjoyed listening to this with the TV off and the lights out. Who cares about watching still images of Mike with all his equipment, most of them are in the liner notes and you can look at them there. The only marks I found I take off:
1) In the raging guitar licks at the end of Part 1 they seem to be quieted compared to listening to the 2-channel CD, Simply Vinyl and original Virgin vinyl release. I actually found myself boosting my centre channel +4dB just for the end, don't know if anyone else felt this way, but that guitar represents the absolute climax of the song and isn't as present as I wanted it to be, despite being front and centre in the mix.
2) OUCH! The drums just fading so abrubtly at the end of Part 1? It really kind of smacks you in the face and says "okay, we're done here". Not such a good thing.
3) Dolby Digital 5.1 @ 448 Kbps. Are you kidding me? Again with this crap? Come on, you put in all the effort to do a brand new 5.1 mix based on the 2010 remastering and then give it to us in .mp3 quality? I'm upset. This should be on DVD-A, SACD hybrid or BD+CD. I hope this is rectified at some point in the future, the sooner the better. I think the time is here where many people who love music would be happy to pick up a Blu-ray+CD version for $5 more and I certainly know there are numerous people that would be over the moon with an SACD hyrid release. But seriously, how much would making this DVD have a DVD-A layer have added to the cost? Seems to me the majority of the work was already done. MLP encoding (if it's 24/96) and authoring right? Bah!
Kind of hard to knock any marks off the actual surround mix, it really is that good...but I have to take off 3 points for the Dolby crap. In 2010 that is just not on. I had to listen to these because I love the music so much, but I've already listed both of my copies on eBay now and will wait with fingers crossed for an eventual high resolution release.
7/10
Despite being incredibly sad about the lack of the surround mix being presented with any sort of fidelity I gave in and ordered both Hergest Ridge and Ommadawn to Canada from Amazon.uk and it worked out to about US$41, substantially cheaper than ordering them domestically from Amazon.com or .ca
The surround mix is almost flawless here, I really enjoyed listening to this with the TV off and the lights out. Who cares about watching still images of Mike with all his equipment, most of them are in the liner notes and you can look at them there. The only marks I found I take off:
1) In the raging guitar licks at the end of Part 1 they seem to be quieted compared to listening to the 2-channel CD, Simply Vinyl and original Virgin vinyl release. I actually found myself boosting my centre channel +4dB just for the end, don't know if anyone else felt this way, but that guitar represents the absolute climax of the song and isn't as present as I wanted it to be, despite being front and centre in the mix.
2) OUCH! The drums just fading so abrubtly at the end of Part 1? It really kind of smacks you in the face and says "okay, we're done here". Not such a good thing.
3) Dolby Digital 5.1 @ 448 Kbps. Are you kidding me? Again with this crap? Come on, you put in all the effort to do a brand new 5.1 mix based on the 2010 remastering and then give it to us in .mp3 quality? I'm upset. This should be on DVD-A, SACD hybrid or BD+CD. I hope this is rectified at some point in the future, the sooner the better. I think the time is here where many people who love music would be happy to pick up a Blu-ray+CD version for $5 more and I certainly know there are numerous people that would be over the moon with an SACD hyrid release. But seriously, how much would making this DVD have a DVD-A layer have added to the cost? Seems to me the majority of the work was already done. MLP encoding (if it's 24/96) and authoring right? Bah!
Kind of hard to knock any marks off the actual surround mix, it really is that good...but I have to take off 3 points for the Dolby crap. In 2010 that is just not on. I had to listen to these because I love the music so much, but I've already listed both of my copies on eBay now and will wait with fingers crossed for an eventual high resolution release.
7/10
Almen
500 Club - QQ All-Star
I also noted this; first I actually checked my settings, since I don't have a center speaker. For me, they sound too low.
neil wilkes
2K Club - QQ Super Nova
In answer to the "how much extra would it have cost" question, the answer is "not nearly as much as you might think".
If only they (Universal) would do this, but they will not.
The DD encoding spoils all 3 of these for me, as I know only too well how good it should have sounded.
duncan_england
Active Member
Hi there. I've been an Oldfield collector for years so I'd like to think I know my stuff!! I got both Ridge and Ommadawn Deluxe sets last month. Not dissapointed at all.... it just sounds like Mike has inserted extra guitar parts, remixed and added other bits to the originals. On Part 1 of Ridge, Mike has almost wiped out the beautiful oboe part!! On Ommadawn the lost sections sound surprisingly new!! The best thing is that on the Ridge set, Mercury include the mysterious Spanish Tune. Amongst hardened Oldfield collectors, we have always known that Spanish tune was a cut demo from Hergest Ridge. So basically everybody always had Spanish Tune on the album. Nice Glider footage though!!!
I can't rate it, as I refuse to buy it if the fine people over at Universal can't be bothered to even give us a dts track. If they won't listen to my words, I'll speak with my wallet.
I second that emotion.
While I would have found a 1.5 Mbps dts track more palatable, in 2010 it's still totally out of order to present this 2010 5.1 mix in a lossy format.
At the very least this should have been presented with a DVD-A layer and as Neil has already pointed out it would have added minimal cost. As far as I know the only notable cost in doing a high resolution mix (especially on DVD-A) would be the studio time it takes to do the mix, and that was already done.
At the very least this should have been presented with a DVD-A layer and as Neil has already pointed out it would have added minimal cost. As far as I know the only notable cost in doing a high resolution mix (especially on DVD-A) would be the studio time it takes to do the mix, and that was already done.
neil wilkes
2K Club - QQ Super Nova
There is also the authoring to consider.
DVDA authoring is harder than DVD-V authoring, and the resulting Video_TS has some severe limitations imposed upon it.
Still, it is far from prohibitively expensive - ask Steven Wilson, Porcupine Tree, No-Man, Martin Russell (Dorothee Munyaneza) & King Crimson!!
What sort of limitations are imposed? If it helps in your assesment, the current VIDEO_TS folder is about 2GB.
As I wrote yesterday on another thread: the Ommadawn surround mix sounds great -- in terms of mix choices AND sound quality. The bitching about DD here is audiophile prejudice; to refuse it a listen because it's not DTS or DVD-A or SACD, is mind-bogglingly silly.
ingresman
300 Club - QQ All-Star
Just to get back on track......
I love Ommadawn in its orignal, SQ , QS and 2010 versions.
I had it on last night and it takes me back to being 16 again !
I'm nearly 50 , been to too many loud concerts (so hearing going) and so have to love the music not the technology I'm afraid.
But what I do defend (and love this borard for ) is for these kind of discussions long may they live, before the interweb where could you converse in nearly real time with people from all over the world ??
Keep going guys (just not here !)
I love Ommadawn in its orignal, SQ , QS and 2010 versions.
I had it on last night and it takes me back to being 16 again !
I'm nearly 50 , been to too many loud concerts (so hearing going) and so have to love the music not the technology I'm afraid.
But what I do defend (and love this borard for ) is for these kind of discussions long may they live, before the interweb where could you converse in nearly real time with people from all over the world ??
Keep going guys (just not here !)
I was pleased with the new mix. The sound balances seemed better, and I'm glad they shortened the drums fading out at the end of part 1. You know, we should be happy they're releasing any surround at all. It hwasn't been a commercial success, and the market for it is very small. Adding a DVD-A layer certainly would be possible, but how many players are still out there to support it? And with MP3 and other lossy compressed formats...all far more lossy than DD or DTS...who would really care, besides us? I also made a QS downmix of this one to play in my car, and to use as a demo at work. Still sounds great!
There's been way too much quibbling...totally unnecessary...in this thread. OK, so some of you aren't pleased that the disc was only released in Dolby Digital. I, too, would have liked to see it done in DTS, but remember that DTS is also lossy compression. Yes, it's not as compressed as DD, but I reiterate what I said in my earlier post that we should be happy that they're releasing it in surround at all! Maybe there will be a BD-A release sometime down the road, but can't we just be happy with what we got? DVD-A would have been a nice touch, but for whatever reason the Universal folks had, it wasn't to be. So I'll accept the DD and be grateful for it. I don't think the comparison of DD to .mp3 is fair; typically, .mp3 is not used for surround sound, and there is a significant difference in sound quality, more than between analog or PCM compared to DD, that is like nails on a chalkboard to me. Let's not be so nitpicking. Let's just enjoy the music as they present it.
LOL - wow. Took me a while to scroll down to the bottom. Anyway, I've had this a few months now. I'm pretty pleased with it. I gave it a 7 in terms of mix. Still, for what it is....I'm glad to have it and pop it in ever once in a while.
