New Pixies box set: Minotaur (Deluxe Edition)*

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by crimpies, Apr 21, 2009.

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  1. dobyblue

    dobyblue Forum Resident

    That is incorrect - on Blu-ray Disc you can have up to 24/192 5.1 PCM and up to 24/96 7.1. Audio on Blu-ray has a maximum transfer rate of 27.648 Mbps (or 24/192 5.1 PCM).

    There are already several 24/192 5.1 recordings on the market on Blu-ray Disc, notably the 2L recordings from a DXD source.
     
  2. Music Geek

    Music Geek Confusion will be my epitaph

    Location:
    Italy
    Yes you are right. I was confusing it with DVD-A. Thanks for bumping the thread.... maybe we finally get someone who has listened to this bluray to comment!
     
  3. dobyblue

    dobyblue Forum Resident

    I still think it's crazy for AIR to not offer some individual titles.
    I'd pick up the blu-ray by itself for $49.99 which sounds a lot for a single BD disc but seems appropriate for getting 4.5 albums.

    I'd really like a high-rez digital version of Trompe le Monde. MOFI seem in no hurry to consider it.
     
  4. The Keymaster

    The Keymaster Forum Resident

    Location:
    So Cal, USA
    Any word on this? I just heard the MoFis of "Surfer Rosa" and "Doolittle" today and they sound absolutely phenomenal.
     
  5. Guardian

    Guardian Forum Resident

    Location:
    NYC
    Anyone want to comment on this? The Mofi's sound awesome. How does the Minotaur set compare?
     
  6. laynecobain

    laynecobain Active Member

    Location:
    Lake Tahoe / Reno
    I have no idea why anyone would want to listen to The Pixies in surround sound?? I'm not putting down anyone who does, but The Pixies are MADE for stereo. I even have their two of their SACD's from MFSL.
     
  7. c-eling

    c-eling They're made of light,We never would have guessed

    The DTS Master in 2.0 sounds great in my system, nice to have the complete album collection in one box,one very large box, I have the mofi's which sound great also, if your into Oliver art and like gold cd's this box is a must, yeah I agree with Layne, Pixies are for stereo, but it's interesting to hear how they attempted the 5.1
     
  8. gmoney80

    gmoney80 Forum Resident

  9. countingbackward

    countingbackward Forum Resident

    Location:
    Montreal, QC
    The boxes seem to have dropped in price everywhere...on the Artists in Residence website, the regular price for these is now $350 and $95, with pricing a bit less on some online outlets.

    http://www.ainr.com/item_pixies.html

    This is getting a bit more tempting...I usually only buy albums and box sets for the music in them, but getting the full-fledged Minotaur for $300 seems pretty interesting, given that I'd expect the COP and TLM vinyl issues to be better than what I have, and the Blu Ray seems like it should be good too - all that with the fantastic display-level packaging and signed by the whole band...sometimes audiophile sound isn't everything...
     
  10. spillred

    spillred Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pacific NW
    I managed to snag a copy of the box set from Amazon for $45, a no-brainer at that price for me. I thought it might be one of those "too good to be true" deals, but it arrived today so, yay me.

    Their price has bounced back up to $82, but it might be something to keep an eye on to see if it drops again.
     
  11. 007james

    007james Forum Resident

    Location:
    nyc
    $45 is a great price, I'm sure I paid close to $100, I should really listen to it in full someday...
     
  12. countingbackward

    countingbackward Forum Resident

    Location:
    Montreal, QC
    A few comments on the "big" box...

    I haven't listened to the whole thing yet, but what I've listened to sounds excellent. The LP's of albums that MoFi hasn't reissued on vinyl (Come On Pilgrim and Trompe Le Monde) are by a country mile the best I've ever heard those albums sound. Trompe has always sounded thin in the past, not so here. And COP has always sounded like it *could* sound good but something was a bit off...now it's not. If nothing else, this should provide an indication that if MoFi releases these 2, they'll likely sound great.

    Doolittle sounds excellent, similar in quality to the MoFi, but not better - just different. A bit less goosed-up bass, so a more natural mid-bass tone but a loss of physicality compared to the MoFi. Both are similarly good, just difference.

    The vinyl is a bit noisy on these unfortunately, but that's more a "between songs" issue than a "during songs" issue.

    I ripped COP and Surfer Rosa 24/48 Dolby Digital versions to my server and played them through my DAC - and they sound quite different from the CD's or records. Where the records have fantastic dynamics, and the CD's sound a bit thin/harsh (I'm talking the normal CD's - haven't listened to the Minotaur gold discs yet to check if there's a difference, but I doubt there is), the 24/48 files have a very smooth, open presentation. It feels like a different way to listen to the music, which is cool.

    I haven't tried out the BluRay yet, as my home theater is in a separate system (which isn't close to being as good as the alpha system), but plan to check it out at some point to check out the 5.1 24/192 mix.

    Overall, this is the coolest/nicest box set I've ever seen - it's really on another level compared to anything else I've seen. The box itself is incredible - the art books are really nice too. I'm planning to wall-mount the box and get maximum effect out of it, to maximize the relatively large investment it represents.

    So...for anybody wondering about this...it is a quality product. The price is still high, even at discounted recent pricing, but you do get your money's worth (if that's possible at this price).
     
  13. KALEX

    KALEX Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ohio
    I was able to pick up the Deluxe Minotaur box for $83 on Amazon a few months ago. In a word, I'm disappointed.

    The Brixton DVD is nice to have and this mastering improves on the bootleg I've had for a while. As an aside, the quality of the original video and audio elements did not, IMO, warrant the Blu-Ray transfer included here. The DVD would have more than sufficed. Also, the Gold CD's are not remasters. They're the same mastering as my early 90's discs. The only slight exception is that Minotaur's Surfer Rosa has "You F'n Die" appended to the neighboring track.

    Being primarily interested in stereo listening, the 5.1 mixes weren't a sales point for me. I was really holding high hopes for the advertised 24 bit/192 kHz 2.0 DTS HD Master versions of the five albums on the Blu-Ray. Here's where my disappontment lies.

    In comparing the hi-res stereo tracks of Surfer Rosa, Doolittle and Bossanova from the Blu-ray to their Mofi SACD counterparts on my universal player, I preferred the Mofi's in all cases. The Mofi's had a much better tonal balance and sounded far less "digital" to me.

    I was curious to see what was "under the hood" of these Blu-ray tracks. I went through considerable effort to properly extract the full-resolution DTS HD Master audio files (not just the DTS cores, mind you) to 24/192 WAV. This included tracking down an older Arcsoft decoder no longer included with their current "crippled" media player.

    Spectral analysis of the 24/192 waves showed no frequencies above 23kHz for any of the files. So it appears the stereo tracks on the Blu-ray were upconverted from 48kHz files. I don't know how to tell if the word length was also upconverted but, even if they are true 24 bit, I still find it disappointing.
     
  14. Music Geek

    Music Geek Confusion will be my epitaph

    Location:
    Italy
    If you upload a snippet of a track in WAV format somewhere, I can run it through a software utility called "eac3to" and I might be able to tell you if the real word length is 16 or 24....
     
  15. That seems surprisingly common on 24-bit/192kHz audio files. I just wish MFSL would release the last Pixies' album on SACD to finish off the set.
     
  16. KALEX

    KALEX Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ohio
    I actually used eac3to and more GUI for the dts > wav conversion. Is there a fuction in it that can give an indication of the actual word length?
     
  17. dobyblue

    dobyblue Forum Resident

    Any chance you can check if the same anomaly occurs with the 5.1 mixes even if you're just extracting the left and right channels? This one has been on my list of "to gets" for ages but it's cost prohibitive.

    I have the MOFI SACD of Doolittle and it sounds very nice. Unfortunately Trompe le Monde is my favourite, so I'm very disappointed that it appears sales were not high enough for them to bother with this one. Last time I e-mailed they said:

     
  18. dobyblue

    dobyblue Forum Resident

    Stop the presses, was just on the MOFI FB page and saw someone ask about it because it's listed in the Weezer insert. MOFI's response:

    A release estimate is not currently available however we hope to release Trompe Le Monde on both SACD and LP before the end of this year!

    Booyaa!
     
  19. KALEX

    KALEX Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ohio
    I'll try to get to this at some point. It's been a while since I ripped the stereo versions. I'm currently swamped with other projects so it may take a while before I'm able to report back on it.

    BTW, that's encouraging news about TLM. At least it's still "on the table." However, I am a little doubtful of a 2012 release.
     
  20. nolazep

    nolazep Burrito Enthusiast

    Nice!!!

    I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for them to do Come On Pilgrim as well on vinyl. 45 rpm?
     
  21. Chauncey

    Chauncey Forum Resident

    Location:
    Cleveland, OH
    I am about to do the same thing with my Minotaur Blu-Ray disc. I've been trying to use eac3to and more GUI but can't figure it out. Should I demux the dts-hd stream first and use that as the input file in eac3to?
     
  22. guidedbyvoices

    guidedbyvoices Old Dan's Records

    Location:
    Alpine, TX
    Im on a huge pixies kick right now.

    So any opinions on Minotaur vs MFSL versions? Minotaur is $85 on amazon right now, but if the cd versions, despite being gold cds, are the same masterings as the common cd copies, then I'll pass. While its nice having the blu ray version, most of my listening is via ipod or cd
     
  23. MFSL answered our pleas and is about to release Trompe Le Monde on SACD. We can now all complete our Pixies' collection in high-quality Hi-Rez.

    http://www.sa-cd.net/showtitle/8954

    Every impression I've gotten about the Minotaur boxset is that it wasn't prepped by audiophiles and inferior to the SACDs.
     
    c-eling likes this.
  24. Bender Rodriguez

    Bender Rodriguez RIP Exene, best dog ever. 2005-2016

    The MFSL versions are hybrid SACDs, not gold CDs.
     
  25. c-eling

    c-eling They're made of light,We never would have guessed

    Just did a EAC on Boss 4ad/Elektra and the gold they match
     
    guidedbyvoices likes this.
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