HiRez Poll Petty, Tom - MOJO [Blu-Ray Audio]

[JonUrban]

OK. Time to vote.

First off, I cannot vote it a 10. That's not bad. EVERYTHING cannot be a '10'.

The 24/48 audio sounds great. Clean and uncompressed, can't knock that, so that's a '3'.

The surround mix is good but not great. It's not a "WOW!" surround mix. I would probably give it a 1.5, as there are some good use of the surrounds, but it's nowhere near as discrete as something worthy of a '3'.

As for the material, I like some of the tunes. I have not grown to like it "all the way through", which IMHO would be a full '3', so, because there are some songs I like a lot, I'll give that portion a '2'.

Then, the floater point, I'll give it the whole thing because although the packaging is a bit flimsy, the fact that it got a 5.1 mix and released in a modern surround format is worthy in my book.

So, my vote is '3' + "1.5" + "2" + "1" which is a 7.5, and that rounds up to an '8'.

Nothing wrong with an '8'. THEY CAN'T ALL BE TENS!!!!

 

[elmer]

If I were to rate this purely on whether or not TP met his objectives for this release fidelity wise, it would be a 10. A perfectly realized recreation of the band playing live in the studio. I'm less critical of the relatively conservative mix - if it were more aggressive then it would sound less like the band playing live in the studio - the fidelity is superb and BD Audio is something to get excited about. The packaging is somewhat flimsy but I can live with it. I give it an 8. My biggest criticism is somewhat paradoxical - while it should be all about the music, if you're going to compete for your share of the entertainment $ then you need to give more bang for the buck - a static image of the album cover on the screen just ain't gonna cut it with the non-believers out there - especially on a 25 gigabyte disc at $24.95 list. I'm not talking about the desperate members of this board who are grateful for a few scraps of newly recorded hi def surround - it's the Luddites out there that are going to make BD Audio a success - you need to feed them some bonus content - and I'm not talking stale interviews and EPK's. It's time for the labels to stop dipping their toes in the water - make some noise - wow them. I like Tom Petty and am pleased with this disc but it needs to be so much more. It's a positive start but it is just as likely to find itself in the format graveyard. I hope the former rather than the latter. A great example of the potential of BD Audio is the unfortunately rather dry but extremely comprehensive and feature packed Virtual Haydn on Naxos Classical.

 

[Gimme 4]

Don't have a Blu-ray player, but I bought the LP, and playing it through my QSD-1 in surround mode..wow! sure sounds good! Excellent separation and imaging, and audio quality.

 

[Almen]

Saw a comparison between 16/44.1 and 24/48. It seems that the CD version is quite heavily compressed whereas the BD is not. Nice.

PS Is it possible to display the picture a little bit bigger?

 

[Brett]

I'll give it a 9. I like the music and the sonics are good. I would have preferred a more involved surround presentation. The surround is good, just try listening in stereo after listening in surround, it's just it's not a very involved mix. From the Sound and Vision article I read about the surround version I'd say Tom Petty and crew accomplished exactly what they wanted.

 

[haikubass]

My pre-order with Amazon.ca arrived today - oh yeah, value for money

First listen and instant 9. I'm overwhelmed and hooked easily. The sound from my PS3 (dts core signal fed via HDMI to Yamaha) is flawless & warm; great bass drum. Even the mix seems more adventurous than I've expected based on this thread. I say: give me more surround music on Blu-Ray, please!

Will wait until my Oppo BDP-80 arrives to experience the dts-HD track in full before placing my final verdict.

 

[hipp]

I seem to be in the absolute minority, but I found this blu ray audio to be poorly mixed with inconsistency of sound amongst the tracks. Heard a few tracks on radio which sounded pretty good, "I should have known it" hooked me. However the vocals have too much echo and are laid back to the point of non existent on half the tracks. Candy was the one track that showed some MTS HD potential. The bass generally was to my ears anyway, a bit woolly. I immediately compared it to the Dire Straits dvd audio, and even a DTS 5.1 of BTO. No comparison, with this. Disappointing to me, I'll give it a 3, although it seems to be getting good reviews on this forum.

 

[kvsawilson]

I always figured it would be an audio release that would get me to finally bite the Bluray bullet, but when this came out it didn't seem to be the title to push me into it. Then I got a player as a gift a few weeks back so ordered this and Damn the Torpedoes right off the bat. Had I known how much I was going to like this one, I'd probably have got a player sooner.
The surround mix is definitely tame, but I think it's a great sounding disc. Seems made to be played loud and has a great response top to bottom.And more than that, it's a great album. I've been listening to this one a lot more than DtT and figure it's my favorite Tom Petty album and best release of the year. Sure hope they keep putting out more of his back catalog in this format.
And yeah, the packaging sucks.

K

 

[Bill Houston]

I, too, was a bit underwhelmed by this release. Perhaps, a bar blues style recording with a conservative mix was not the best marketing decision to be first out of the gates and announce BD Audio's potential. Especially when it is only at 24/48. Great way to NOT grab new potential listeners while simultaneously un-nerving those who are already fanatical about the format.
The album sounds great! Very open. The various instruments have room to breathe (especially the keyboards). I also thought the rears were too low in the mix (this just after listening to Pet Sounds which has the exact opposite problem) and thought they were under-utilized not that I was expecting any Flaming Lips/NIN style wizardry. I thought there were missed opportunities to engage the listener more with the mix despite the limitations of being a predominantly bar blues album. I found the bass to be solid. Then again I have a sub.
Disliked:
1. This album was stocked in the "movie" section of my local record store. Do the labels even want hi-rez/surround to succeed? Unfortunately, I see the exact same marketing problems that plagued DVD-A/SACD rearing their heads all over again. I have no hope of BDA being any more than an artist driven niche market. Most consumers have no idea what 24 bit 48khz even means (Never mind the fact that it is sometimes listed backwards to further confuse matters). The labels don't seem willing to educate people in regards to physical formats. Yet the average joe knows what 1080p means in the world of HD. It can be done.
Where I think hi-rez does have a chance of succeeding is through downloads. People seem to be slowly understanding 320 bit rates, FLAC, Apple Lossless only because the labels/downloading community have finally started administrating some quality control and varying price rates. Too bad most of the download community gets things for free!
2. I paid $30 for this. Too high. I can understand paying $20.
3. Agreed the disc need some sort of plastic holder it clicks into.
4. 24/48? I read Ulyate's reasoning. Find a recording console that records at the 96Khz sampling rate. Why underutilize the potential of a format especially when this is its FIRST release?
Liked:
1. Finally some new surround music!
2. The sticker and producers note emphasizing this album was in surround and sounds much better than a cd.
3. That there is a DTS-MA logo visible on the packaging. This lets me know that there is a quality standard. I say this because the world of DVD-A was one of the most poorly marketed and confounding formats ever. Most of the time the DVD-A logo was never even advertised on the packaging. Progress is being made.

Album: 6
Mix: 6
Sound: 8.5

 

[Don C]

I've listened to this one enough now to be quite familiar with it,the same as is it were a classic album. This is better than most people here seem to believe, it has great songs and absolutely amazing sound quality. Give it another listen. It's a ten.

 

[The Rang]

The first Petty recording I've bought in 20 years (the last was Southern Accents).
Really like the music, very natural organic feel to it.

As noted by others here the surrounds are rarely noticed, other than some discrete rear Left channel stuff on a couple of songs.
Hard to judge the recording quality because this is the first time I've listened to surround music through my Sony Blu-ray player.
The vocals seemed somewhat recessed and the the overall sound not quite as open as most MC recordings on SACD or DVD-A when played through my Denon, so I don't know whether to blame the player or the recording.

I gave it an 8.

 

[dr8track]

I am always appreciative of any artist who releases multi channel audio these days, so once I got my Blu ray player I was anxious to hear the Petty blu ray audio discs. I've listened to Mojo a couple of times and it is growing on me. It's difficult to keep your level of interest in the music out of the evaluation. I'm not knocked out by the album itself. It's pleasant enough to listen to, but I certainly enjoy the classic Petty release of Damn the Torpedoes far more. As others have mentioned, the surround is subtle, but I don't know that a more aggresive surround mix would have made me like the music any better. All in all, I'm glad an artist like Petty is an advocate for multi channel music. It's an enjoyable listen and I'd give it a 7.

 

[fredblue]

A "7".

I prefer TP's Torpedoes blu ray in every regard.

 

[salsdali]

9

nice fidelity, deep and rich

nice sound stage

great songwriting

Very bluesy, southern

All of TP's blu-rays are great


My voting:

Mojo blu-ray: 9

Hypnotic Eye blu-ray: 8

Anthology blu-ray: 9

Damn the Torpedoes blu-ray: 9

 

[Ninecats]

Good album, especially the stereo mix. The surround mix is a huge disapointment. Some tracks are simply not made for surround, but even when there are tracks with more depth and layers then the surrounds are simply too tame. What a shame, I love the packaging, the album is good stereo wise, solid song writing... but what a boring surround mix. A very generous 5.

(I'm currently experimenting with Music Media Helper to adjust the levels, especially in the back)