HiRez Poll Spinners, The - SPINNERS [Blu-Ray Audio]
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Umm... I'm looking at the files, and I think the front left channel may be 6dB to 8dB too quiet in the mix. I'll give it a further look and let y'all know more in a bit.
I noticed the lead vocals coming from right of center, and very little coming from front left. You may be on to something.
It's too late at night for me to play anything on my soundsystem, but these are my estimates for how much the front left ought to be amplified by for each track. I was working with the assumption that the lead vocals would be the same loudness in the front left and front right channels.
Tracks 01, 08, 09: Amplify Front Left by 5dB
Tracks 02, 03, 06: Amplify Front Left by 8dB
Track 04: Amplify Front Left by 6dB
Track 05, 10: Amplify Front Left by 3dB
Track 07: Amplify Front Left by 4dB
Tracks 01, 08, 09: Amplify Front Left by 5dB
Tracks 02, 03, 06: Amplify Front Left by 8dB
Track 04: Amplify Front Left by 6dB
Track 05, 10: Amplify Front Left by 3dB
Track 07: Amplify Front Left by 4dB
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That's quite a level raise. It is easy to check out the old quad mix even on a undecoded CD4 LP since the problem is related to one channel only, if vocal are centered on LP we know how to fix the mix.
Wonder what happened during the transfer...
Wonder what happened during the transfer...
I don't know about the measurements you've taken and the corrections, at least on my system. So I started with tracks 1, 3, & 6 which you prescribe the strongest correction to. So after making the 8db correction boost and listening to each track of those three, I find them far too lopsided to the left. Took them down to 6bd hike and still too much left, 4db same. Finally only a 2db raise in the left and it did then seem (I think) perfectly balanced.
I'll do some home listening tests further on the other tracks but if these are the most extreme off balance then it must not be much at all on the other tracks.
I did a sample listen to another track and found that the strings were mixed nearly exclusively to the right, thus giving the impression of more level on the right when it was rather the content placed there in the mixing, a mix choice rather than anything else. Also some lead vocals are stronger on the right with backing vocals stronger on left, so there is that consideration as well. More listening and measurements of course. And thanks for voicing your first impressions.
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Someone mentioned perhaps in another Spotlight thread that sound quality in general is not so high here. So I did some listening to each channel separately on a few of the key tracks, or personal faves. I am under the impression that Thom Bell's productions (as well as many R&B tracks from this era of the 70s) have a very warm sound that is void of the crystal sparkle top end of the later 70s and into the 80s recording and mix jobs. Things like Bill Withers, and Al Green are good examples or very warm style tracking and mix. I gather it is intentional.
Listening to "Don't Let The Green Grass Fool You", rear channels only - reveals some nice clean sparkle behind the R&B. "One of a Kind" as well, drums percussion and strings back there in rear channels is all about 70s analog fidelity. Piano in front as well on this track, lovely clarity there. So no, nothing wrong with this R&B sq in my opinion, it sounds exactly like what it is supposed to sound like. But it is a different animal than say the Aja album where the piano and attrack are set up to ring in your ear above everything else.
If I had anything to rate this less positive on its that there are about three songs that are not as interesting to me as the other stronger ones.
Listening to "Don't Let The Green Grass Fool You", rear channels only - reveals some nice clean sparkle behind the R&B. "One of a Kind" as well, drums percussion and strings back there in rear channels is all about 70s analog fidelity. Piano in front as well on this track, lovely clarity there. So no, nothing wrong with this R&B sq in my opinion, it sounds exactly like what it is supposed to sound like. But it is a different animal than say the Aja album where the piano and attrack are set up to ring in your ear above everything else.
If I had anything to rate this less positive on its that there are about three songs that are not as interesting to me as the other stronger ones.
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do the waveforms for the first track resemble this at all?
(my unfutzed with CD-4 LP demodulated needledrop)
channel balances are within +/-0.5dB of one another, other than the Front Left which is approximately -1dB lower level than the other 3 channels.
everything feels properly balanced to me, including Phantom Centre imaging on lead vocals upfront.
also if you check out the Rears in isolation throughout the mix, you should have a very low level bleed of the lead vocal on most tracks.
the exception to this is the first track, which is mega discrete, with no lead vocal reverb/ambience in the Rear channels at all.
i can send a sample clip to anyone who's interested
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This is the waveform on the Blu-Ray, with everything amplified by 3dB so it's easier to make comparisons:
And this is how things look if you amplify the front left channel by an additional 5dB:
And this is how things look if you amplify the front left channel by an additional 5dB:
ohh..
it does indeed look like something went quite wrong with the volume level on the Front Left channel 
I am ripping the disc now. I'm getting the same waveform anomaly on track 1 as Dynamic Editor...Not good. (Note: Rip made using MakeMKV and DVD AudioExtractor.)
i'll dig out my Q8 files and see how that all looks, although i seem to remember my tape annoyingly having wrongly assigned channels from the outset!
two wrongs dont make a right of course but as we know they got some of this stuff wrong back in the day too which makes checking out the reissues that little bit more.. fun!?
i imagine we're all kinda fanatical here about the impact of setup (speaker placement, distance, delays, etc) on phase and timing of the Front L&R in particular and quite a bit of old Quad stuff doesn't image properly unless that's all dialled in, so i'm pretty sure we'd have noticed if the Quad mix was skew-wiff like this on the old CD-4 LPs, Q8 8-tracks, reels, etc..!?
On my system, the vocals from the front are too quiet and the drums from the rear are overpowering
Fully agree. Turned up my left front by 4.5 db and the it sounded much better. Pretty disappointed with this transfer issue even though I enjoy the sound quality overall.
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/threads/4-more-quadio-titles-coming-in-october.34736/page-52
If you look at post #1030 on the referenced page, Foraging Rhino responded to the concerns about the channel levels on this title. It seems that what we have gotten on this disc was “as found” on the tapes, discussed internally at Rhino, and determined to go with it as is.
If you look at post #1030 on the referenced page, Foraging Rhino responded to the concerns about the channel levels on this title. It seems that what we have gotten on this disc was “as found” on the tapes, discussed internally at Rhino, and determined to go with it as is.
well then something is up somehow because i just pulled up my Q8 files from 2017 and there was nothing wrong with the channel balances at all.
in my notes i wrote that i had to move the channels around by 1 position/speaker clockwise because the channels on the tape were wrongly assigned (something i encountered on other WEA Q8 tapes).
so Front Left became Front Right, Front Right became Rear Right, Rear Right became Rear Left and Rear Left became Front Left.
thereafter, the Centre Front phantom imaging's uncannily realistic. you won't get that with an 8dB (!!) difference between the Front channel levels.
waveforms to follow
in my notes i wrote that i had to move the channels around by 1 position/speaker clockwise because the channels on the tape were wrongly assigned (something i encountered on other WEA Q8 tapes).
so Front Left became Front Right, Front Right became Rear Right, Rear Right became Rear Left and Rear Left became Front Left.
thereafter, the Centre Front phantom imaging's uncannily realistic. you won't get that with an 8dB (!!) difference between the Front channel levels.
waveforms to follow
back then i used to record in each of the Quad 8-track tapes programmes as 2 complete tracks.
Programme 1;
Programme 2;
Track 1; ("Just Can't Get You Out Of My Mind")
Programme 1;
Programme 2;
Track 1; ("Just Can't Get You Out Of My Mind")
even then, it turns out i was wrong in 2017! 
i just compared the Q8 recording i did 6 years ago to the CD-4 needledrop i did only yesterday
(if you zoom in on the waveforms of the CD-4 LP btw, it is astonishing how close the CD-4 gets to the Q8 tape!!
)
(my CD-4 definitely has the channels correctly assigned btw, as i had only recently got it all up and running again on a conventional pivot arm turntable with an MM cart, after my failed Ortofon Moving Coil and Linear Tracking experiments for CD-4.. but that's another story!)
as you can see, both Front and Rear's on the Q8 tape needed flipping - even after i moved everything around clockwise!!
so FR swapped with FL and RR swapped with RL get it to replicate the CD-4 vinyl.
phew. we got there in the end!
Q8 tape, Track 1, channels reassigned;
CD-4 LP, Track 1;
ultimately, all the Q8 channel assignment business aside (!) the actual channel levels themselves are of most interest and relevance to this Quadio Blu-ray and, as you can see, the 4 channels do not have a significant imbalance from one another; neither on the Q8 tape nor the CD-4 LP, far from it in fact, it's a beautifully balanced Quad mix.
i just compared the Q8 recording i did 6 years ago to the CD-4 needledrop i did only yesterday
(if you zoom in on the waveforms of the CD-4 LP btw, it is astonishing how close the CD-4 gets to the Q8 tape!!
)(my CD-4 definitely has the channels correctly assigned btw, as i had only recently got it all up and running again on a conventional pivot arm turntable with an MM cart, after my failed Ortofon Moving Coil and Linear Tracking experiments for CD-4.. but that's another story!
)as you can see, both Front and Rear's on the Q8 tape needed flipping - even after i moved everything around clockwise!!
so FR swapped with FL and RR swapped with RL get it to replicate the CD-4 vinyl.
phew. we got there in the end!
Q8 tape, Track 1, channels reassigned;
CD-4 LP, Track 1;
ultimately, all the Q8 channel assignment business aside (!) the actual channel levels themselves are of most interest and relevance to this Quadio Blu-ray and, as you can see, the 4 channels do not have a significant imbalance from one another; neither on the Q8 tape nor the CD-4 LP, far from it in fact, it's a beautifully balanced Quad mix.
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