HiRez Poll Pink Floyd - WISH YOU WERE HERE [Blu-Ray Audio]

[winopener]

Seeing the spectral in the PDF above, it is clear that there is NO dsd-source for any WYWH channel, 2.0, 4.0 or 5.1, however they messed up something on the 5.1 LFE channel - it does have also a weird upper-scale noise from 5 min to 10 min (roughly). Quite sloppy.

 

[neil wilkes]

That LFE is insane - should be filtered to 80Hz.
Filter artifacts can be prevented by using 2 shallow slopes too - instead of the recommended 48dB/Octave, try using 2 in series at 24dB/Octave instead - adds up to the same thing

I'm also not at all convinced by the 5.1 version - it sounds terrible compared to the quad for me.
Not at all discrete, like "big stereo" - and I really do wonder just how discrete it actually is (or something, somewhere is out of phase, maybe).
Try flicking between the streams 1 & 3 on the BD - the differences are huge in just the imaging & the quad sounds discrete on SOYCD.
Sure, things start to sound more discrete in WTTM, especially those synths, but I am going to sit me down & compare.....

Remember just who mastered this, and some of the screw-ups he has presided over, and wonder if this could be another one.
(Dare I mention WIngs BOTR DTS-CD, or the Bowie 30th Anniversary edition of Ziggy with both discs having L&R channels swapped, count-ins cut, reverb tails chopped off before they decayed etc)

 

[grill]

Seeing the spectral in the PDF above, it is clear that there is NO dsd-source for any WYWH channel, 2.0, 4.0 or 5.1,....

I'm not absolutely sure about that (some filtering cannot be excluded) but you might be right.

 

[winopener]

I'm not absolutely sure about that (some filtering cannot be excluded) but you might be right.

Just check out the spectral for DSOTM Blu-ray 5.1 mix, which was DSD-sourced from the 2003 5.1 master; the difference is huge, there is no black on the upper part of the spectrum.

Side note. I don't know too much on how the DSD filtering scheme works, from what i've read the high-freq noise is a result of the heavy filtering that does push the 1-bit noise over the 24KHz range. This is using normal (88.2) sampling rates.
What i've wondered is: what will happen if i do convert the DSD stream at 705.6KHz as sampling rate? Will the 1-bit quantization noise be pushed over and over and over? I know, this is a *insane* sampling rate, and i don't know if it is even possible with the current tools. Anyway, in theory, that will lead to a 352.8 frequency response, and even if the upper 2/3 are filled with noise, there will be the possibility to filter it out and get back a DSD-noise-free 96/24.
Opinions?

 

[ssully]

Yes, if you sample at ~706 kHz, everything up to ~353kHz will be captured.

Since SACD players usually have a 50 or 100kHz lowpass filter active at output, to keep all that ultrahigh frequency junk out of your playback chain, you should ask yourself, "why do I want to preserve it"?

 

[winopener]

Yes, if you sample at ~706 kHz, everything up to ~353kHz will be captured.

Since SACD players usually have a 50 or 100kHz lowpass filter active at output, to keep all that ultrahigh frequency junk out of your playback chain, you should ask yourself, "why do I want to preserve it"?

Just a way to get out a clean 96/24 from DSD and pass it clean to the PCM world.

 

[mandrix]

I give this a 9 overall. Don't know what is going on with the rear channels in the quad mix but I had to make some adjustments to the AVR channel trim to open up the front vocals.
Not sure what I was expecting with the 5.1, but I like it. It could have been mixed 100 different ways and I'm sure some of those I would like better,
but this one gave me a new perspective on the music.
I'm ready for Animals now. Now! ....before I get too old to hear and enjoy it.

 

[byrdman7]

I can only comment on the Blu-Ray disc I made a trade for. I really like the 5.1 mix, not real aggressive except WTTM, my favorite tune, but a pleasure to listen to as a whole. The Quad sounded good, but I miss the LFE that some quad transfer have. I give this fine disc a 10.

 

[ssully]

Just a way to get out a clean 96/24 from DSD and pass it clean to the PCM world.

The way to do that would be to just....sample at 96/24. If done right everything above 48 kHz is filtered out.

 

[ssully]

I'm ready for Animals now. Now! ....before I get too old to hear and enjoy it.

A couple of amateur upmixes Of Animals are out there. One of them is very good indeed -- a testament to how good upmixing technology has gotten.

 

[Ge Someone]

As for the 5.1 mix it seems like James Guthrie had to obey the command "Thou shall not isolate anything" but got an exception for the radio sound (start of WYWH). Again, the quad mix, especially in the now available sound quality, is the more interesting surround mix. But the difference is not as big as with DSotM.

 

[Wagonmaster_91]

Forgive me if this has been addressed before: If the Immersion set features the 'original quad mix', why is it missing the extra synth bit at the end of side two after "Welcome To The Machine"?

 

[mandrix]

A couple of amateur upmixes Of Animals are out there. One of them is very good indeed -- a testament to how good upmixing technology has gotten.

I'm very intimately aware of one of them.

 

[DKA]

I'm very intimately aware of one of them.

It'd suck if he was talking about the other one.

 

[MyCuff]

I gave the quad a 9. I decided to vote on the version I like the most. If I had to vote on the 5.1 I would give it a strong 7, maybe an 8.

 

[emarkay]

Two - yes that's me. If I han not heard the "Hubbed" Q8 restoration I would have said Eleven... All the F-R separation is gone, the female harmonies and the pedal steel discrete parts are lost in this new mix. Yes, it is "clearer" and less "muddy", but as been mentioned around, it really does sound like some kid's FLAC upmix.

Now I am glad I there's no "The Wall" mix in surround for this year or so ("...riding the graaaaavy traaaaain!). It would have been the same as the past two immersion treatments of the Quad: "Oh I am so afraid of making it sound like 1975, where you were in the middle of the action, so I will just add some echo to the rears and some phasing to get a center channel and add a few thumps for the LFE - gotta make sure it sounds like all the other modern "surround remixes".

As Roger once said. "Pathetic!"; Syd was correct, they haven't got it yet.

MRK

 

[MyCuff]

This poll is messed up. Are people voting for the 5.1 or the quad, or both? I think to make the results correct we need to either separate, or vote for your preferred surround mix on the disc and say which one.

 

[georgeshannon]

Well, like the title states "Rate the Blu-Ray Surround Release of Pink Floyd - WISH YOU WERE HERE" with regard to surround, fidelity, and content. What emarkay has just voted shows that he doesn't like the quad version of WYWH or the content of the album, not to mention the new mix in 5.1. He just doesn't like Pink Floyd's WYWH at all. Since he mentioned he's heard the album before and yet he didn't like the content, why did he buy the blu-ray? Did he think the new format would improve the content? Yes, something is messed up, but its not the poll.

 

[DKA]

it really does sound like some kid's FLAC upmix.

If I thought you knew any better, I'd take that as an insult.

There are plenty of reasons why this doesn't sound like a stereo-to-surround mix. I can't achieve the crispness and clarity Guthrie achieved. I definitely could have squeezed more separation and effects out of the mix, but that argument is pretty pointless, as you know who else could have done the same? James Guthrie himself.

 

[DKA]

Well, like the title states "Rate the Blu-Ray Surround Release of Pink Floyd - WISH YOU WERE HERE" with regard to surround, fidelity, and content. What emarkay has just voted shows that he doesn't like the quad version of WYWH or the content of the album, not to mention the new mix in 5.1. He just doesn't like Pink Floyd's WYWH at all. Since he mentioned he's heard the album before and yet he didn't like the content, why did he buy the blu-ray? Did he think the new format would improve the content? Yes, something is messed up, but its not the poll.

......but people have been taking polls on here to mean whatever they want it to mean for years? I've seen excuses for everything like packaging to how you got the disc affect someone's score. On the other end, I've seen people raise their score because they hated the mix but liked the original album to begin with (there's even one guy here suggesting that someone who gave the mix a "1" switch their score to a "5" because the album itself is a "10.")

I think the worst is people who write a paragraph telling me what's wrong with a mix, but still give it a "10." Half the "10"'s on here, had I adjusted the score based on the mix of positive versus negative comments in the post, would be more like "7"'s and "8"'s. People want to see a lot of "10"'s because some mythical rep will see it and decide to release more titles if there's a LOT of "10"'s.

In the end, though, it doesn't matter. This is as unscientific as its gets and, if someone wants to give this a "3" because they thing Roger Waters is ugly, then so be it. I think I'd rather pound my head against my desk at seeing some silly rating than having too many guidelines around the polls.

For this title, I graded the quad and 5.1 separately, then averaged them out. I gave the quad a "7" and the 5.1 a "6," then decided on a "6" overall because I considered the quad to be a low "7" anyway.

DKA (gave it a "6," and proud of it.)