Surrounded On Sundays - 5.1/quad reviews and summaries

I'll take whatever they offer lol, Pyramid is good too.. I just like music, I try not to specify lol

 

I can certainly hear that it could be better, but I am pleased to have it. It isn't by any means terrible to my ears

 

I think there is one mix on dvd-a and bluray.
There are two mixes of A Farewell To Kings. One on individual bluray and the Steven Wilson mix in the box set

 

That´s my way of looking at music, as well. I like what I like, and I don´t worry what genre it belongs to, or whether other people tend to like it. I do notice the opinions that are flung about, but I take no notice of them.

On a tangent: I teach music for twelve year old pupils this year, and I am amazed how open they are to new or unusual music. At the end of the lesson last week, they got to choose three songs that we listened to and talked about. Their choices were two Elton John songs - "ROCKET MAN" and "I´M STILL STANDING" - perhaps not that surprising after the biopic - and "SEPTEMBER" by Earth, Wind & Fire! Good to see that they discover music on their own now and then.

 

oh absolutely! we've heard far worse! i have to be careful what i say but the Stereo on that DE was said to be from a transfer of the mastertapes, done at Abbey Road and afaik the Quad was a software decode of an SQ LP done by a character going by the handle Oxford Dickie, who was at one point very active on the surround scene but now appears to have withdrawn from it?

 

I appreciate the input and respect your need for care in disclosure

 

Well, here's my score for the day:

Six Wives: Have It
Rough Mix: Have the CD, guess that's enough
Blow By Blow: Have it, but I can't listen to it right now.
Green: Have It.
Moving Pictures: Have the CD, just ordered the DVDA. Those are the easiest to rip, just saying.

About Green: Really liked REM when they first appeared. Their first album is still probably my favorite. But I cooled off on them after about four albums, i.e. about the time they started getting really popular. So I heard them plenty, but stopped buying the albums. But when the DVDAs came out I snagged five of them. Monster is my favorite of those, but Green is good too. Losing My Religion is my favorite song though, and that's on Out of Time. I find the multichannel mix to be merely adequate.

 

In total agreement about Green, it's a stunning piece of work and as for the surround mix...Elliot Scheiner, as ever, can do no wrong.

 

Cool thread. I worship surround sound. Sunday review like never before;>)WarChild 5.1 reminds me of Pepsi.

Minstrel in the Gallery 5.1 reminds me of Coke.

I'm serious.

 

Exactly

 

Okay, this arrived yesterday. Actually in a real CD jewel case, with that damned spine sticker I had to cut, then slowly peel to remove, but once I got it open, great music in surround was inside.

4 Audio options :

2.0 LPCM Stereo 24/48
5.1 DTS-HD MA 24/48
Dolby Atmos (reads as 7.1 on my Oppo)
Dolby Atmos Headphone Mix ( I have no headphones, so I have no clue )

I've tried both the Atmos, and the DTS, and prefer the DTS. Mix uses all 5 speakers, and the sub, and is aggressive and enjoyable from start to finish. Highly recommended.

 

For Neil Young's Harvest, you'll have to fix the surround mix first. According to several members on QQ, this is the proper channel reassignment:

Channel Reassignment Recommendations

Neil Young HARVEST [DVD-A]
Recommendation 1: You should swap the front and back channels to the tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 (6 tracks out of the 10 tracks) and you'll find the original mix.
LF > LR
RF > RR
LR > LF
RR > RF
C > C
LFE > SW

I totally agree with this fix, because the mix makes you feel like you are in the middle of the band, with drums on the left, which is a strange mixing choice!

 

Interesting.
I've always felt it was not quite right.
Appreciate the heads up.

 

I'll just live with Harvest as is. Changing all the inputs on my setup just isn't worth the result.

 

Rough Mix is one of the great under-rated surround albums out there. Very enjoyable music and a nice surround mix.

I'll be spinning my copy tonight!

 

It was a wonderful surprise.
I had no idea what to expect.

 

It'll sound much better

 

Yes, the Quad on the 2015 DVD release comes from a needledrop. If I remember correctly, this is the video that explains it:

I do like the album though, and I'd recommend this purchase anyway!

 

Thanks for the review... I've been keeping this on hold, but I've now decided to pull the trigger. Are there any differences between the DVD-A and the Blu-ray? If not, I'll just get the DVD-A, which is much cheaper. Also because I'd only get this release for the surround mix, not the stereo remaster which I don't like.

 

I enjoy it. I know it could be better, but it is enjoyable enough.

 

I believe they would be the same.
I'm annoyed at myself for avoiding it... something made me annoyed at the Rush 5.1's and I guess over the course of this thread I'll figure it out

 

Good part, I like the stereo on the Harvest DVD-A.

 

You're clearly referring to the sorta-recent Analogue productions SACD, yes? There is a prior version that had some kind of phase error in the rears which should be noted, and avoided. Though, in all honesty, if that wasn't publicized here I wouldn't have thought anything was wrong.

What I'd really like to know is if anyone has the also-recent Japan issue (with the fancy packaging) and has compared to the AP. Different? Exact same? The reason I ask, in addition to surround, the Japan issues of Rough And Ready and Wired sport superior stereo layers. Those two also contain faithful-to-1970s quad mixes.

Not that I'm chomping at the bit to spend for another. I've got 6 copies of BBB as it is.

I'm not especially proud of that.

 

your source of annoyance may be that the mixes aren't great!

got both BD-A & DVD-A of MP on day of release but only opened one of the versions/formats at the time and can't remember which one now, i'll check later and see if there's any differences in content etc.

 

for me the mix snaps into focus when discrete, unsurprisingly so perhaps but the Q8 & CD-4 give a superior sensation of surround to any SQ decode i've heard and i've heard a few people have a crack at the SQ LP through different methods of decoding, including having a go myself through the Surround Master and it was borderline rubbish, not necessarily anything wrong with any of the decoding more that i doubt the Quad was mixed to make the most of SQ and its limitations (unlike, for example, the CBS Quads that were almost always mixed to make the most of and mixed to accomodate the good and the bad of their own SQ system).