Jethro Tull 5.1

And per your profile, we're BOTH from a world of black and white / 3 channels / usually a pair of pliers on top of the TV, to change the channel with...

The world sure has changed...

 

Yup. I remember the Sunday night Ed Sullivan etc etc. Not much to chose from then. I still don't watch much TV. Actually less now than I did back then.

 

I like the way they marketed the Rush 5.1 release. CD/Blu-Ray and CD/DVD-A. This way, everyone wins. They guys with the DVD players win. The guys with the DVD-A players win. The guys with DVD-A players in their cars win. And those who want Blu-Ray also win.

This gets surround out to the widest possible audience. No matter how hard you may wish, Blu-Ray players are, as Chris points out, only in 20% of homes, and of those homes, how many use them for music?

DVD-A is in hundreds of thousands of cars, including many on the show room floor today, and regular DVD players can access the DTS mix on the DVD-A, so you can't relegate DVD-A/V to the "has been" bin.

UMG did great with Rush. Let someone else follow their lead.

 

Dam I'm way behind.... still got a basic wide screen tv that sticks out further at the back then it does across the front, surround sound amp that the rear and center channels have gone awol, no BD or SACD

Maybe its time I spent some money on new kit

But I do like listening to Tull even if its only in 2 channel.But sat in a dark room and listening to Locomotive Breath in 5.1 would be awesome.

 

+1

 

I really hope the mixes will be better than Rush's Moving Pictures. Also, I'd love to have worth extra material. There's virtually no footage from the 1971-1972 concerts out there so it would be a deal

Never liked the Thick As A Brick anniversary edition. Hope they'll take note about Steve Hoffman's Aqualung and Thick as a Brick

 

I have a potential 4.0 system, i.e. a PC/Pro Tools/Active Monitors/Electronic Drum Kit-based semi-pro studio stereo rig (I'm a musician myself, and this hobby can eat a lot of money, although I bought my gear while having a "permanent" job, which I don't have these days), which can be connected to a universal player (still pretty new) and an opposite standing vintage Pioneer stereo rig, but I'm mostly a pretty lazy headphone guy, so this connection can wait...

...also, my family possess a CD boom box and a semi-faulty DVD player in the kitchen, so I can already assemble my personal small replica of Empire State Building without adding any blu-ray bricks (instead, recently I added a wheelchair to my hardware collection, this was more demanding task)...

...and last but not least, classical music comprises 70% of my CD/SACD/DVD-A collection, and I'm very picky about it. Many great performances were recorded in mono or early stereo at best, so blu-ray label means nothing for me if the performance is sub-par.

Or, to make it short: it's a matter of money, space, taste and habits.

EDIT: oops, I forgot to mention that my feelings after occasional visits to a pretty modern surround-sound cinema weren't that overwhelming either...

 

If Steven Wilson is involved it will probably be dvd-a. Or maybe it will be released in both dvd-a and blu-ray like Rush Moving Pictures.

 

And like Porcupine Tree Anesthetize live video.

 

The DVD-A link also lists most of the Blu-Ray concerts that have been released. Very few DVD-A's released over the past few years as suspected.

 

About ****ing Time! This is a must purchase and I hope they get it right!

 

I have a number of BR's of classical concerts. My favourite is the 6 Brandenburg Concertos done on period instruments. Second favourite is Barenboim playing Beethoven's 5 Piano Concertos. Razed sharp video and audio. Much better than attending the concert IMO.

The thing "mystical" about BR is that you get the razor sharp video with the 24 bit audio. Much better in my basement than going to see it at the cinema. Especially with concerts. I have the wall of sound.

Maybe you haven't experienced BD over a large number of discs for a long period of time. It's then that you realize just how great BD is for music. Concerts or just plain music without the video.

None of my older DVD-A's or SACD's are coasters. As I say, I play them with the BD's. It's all good. It's great to have all these options.

 

This is one of my favourite Rock Concerts. The 24 bit audio is incredible.

 

Ditto, discussion closed.

As for BD picture quality - it's an apples vs. oranges situation in a music-related thread like this. Nevertheless, BD picture quality alone may be the main selling point for me - and I never told the opposite.

But let's face the facts on the DVD-A site, which, to my pleasure, also contains info on BD releases, DualDiscs (which can be considered a variety of DVD-A/V, not BD) and HDADs (again, a still in-print hi-rez format based on DVD, not BD). Pages are arranged chronologically, i.e. when you open the site you can see the 15 most recent releases and check if they suit your tastes or not.

I checked the last 30 releases, and here are my finds:

1) There are only two classical releases, both are BDs (sic!), one is a standard and uninteresting collection, the other (Pachelbel) is a 24/96 baroque disc of a moderate interest. (OTOH, many OOP DVD-As are still easily available, very often at sale prices. And several dedicated state-of-art labels produce dozens of classical SACDs each year.)

2) I've bought 3 releases from those 30 myself (Anathema, Porcupine Tree, King Crimson) and all are DVD-As.

3) I will definitely buy at least one more DVD-A (King Crimson), but there's also at least 5 more worth of checking (Jakszyk/Fripp/Collins, Bowie, Gavin Harrison & O5Ric, Caravan, Barclay James Harvest - on the major EMI!), which drastically increases my buying field. Add to this 3 more DVD-As from King Crimson, which are a bit redundant, since I alredy have alternative (CD/LP) versions, but pretty tempting, nevertheless.

4) Now to BDs, which I do really want. There's actually only one - Anesthetize from PT (the set also contains DVD-V for compatibility). BUT. There's also a plain DVD-V version, which is half the price of the BD combo. Considering this, I may choose the DVD and additionally buy (well, it will cost a bit more) a fine hi-rez download-only release from a different concert of the same tour (BTW, I caught them on that tour, in perfect sound from the first row, so these live discs are mostly pure nostalgia, since I have all the songs on studio DVD-As). Apart from this lonely BD I might add that Pachelbel disc, the Rush disc plus the Social Network soundtrack, which is quite lovely (although I also might buy it dirt cheap on a used CD).

5) It's in no way a last nail in the one's coffin, but there's no jazz BDs at all among those 30! Still, there's a jazz DVD-A and a jazz HDAD (plus a lot of jazz SACDs from Analogue Productions and, of course, Japan).

So, what about "pure statistics"?

But, as I said above, to each their own.

 

You should not regard that list as the complete list of BD Concerts released. It's very sketchy and not even close to being a complete list. This site has pretty much everything available listed on it.

http://www.blu-ray.com/

 

As well as you should not regard that list as the complete list of BD alternatives - add sa-cd.org and some hi-rez download services for that. Remember - we are talking music, not video here.

(As for blu-ray.com, it's a cool site but why does it lack a dedicated menu for music blu-rays, be it video or audio-only releases?! A promising "policy"... It's a miracle that I could find two Chopin releases on Naxos among all those recent film reviews. )

 

Tom Petty "Damn the Torpedoes" is mighty fine on blu ray and Don Grusin "the Hang" is a great jazz DVD-A disc.

I am a big Tull fan, used to play flute in high school and we did some of their songs in my high school rock band. I never really considered them "progessive rock"

??????

 

There is no way it is feasible to always release both a Blu-ray 5.1 and a DVD-A 5.1 like UMG did in this case. That had to have been nothing more than a way to gather more market research information to determine which one of the two should be used. Retailers aren't going to mess with carrying both, it will be hard enough to get them to carry one and we already know they won't carry DVD-A, no stores I shop at will carry DVD-A now. I hope the Blu-ray outsells the DVD-A version 10-1 and the nonsense will come to an end. Dueling formats does not work, didn't work with DVD-A vs. SACD, didn't work with Blu-ray vs. HD DVD and it won't work with Blu-ray vs. DVD-A. Blu-ray videodisc sales have grown ten times or more since HD DVD bowed out.

I still say we have one chance for high resolution surround to find a market big enough to matter and that is for all music companies to get behind one format, Blu-ray. Panasonic never made an SACD player and Sony never made a DVD-A player, those are the two largest consumer electronics in the world and the two largest supporters of Blu-ray. That in itself ought to be enough to leave SACD and DVD-A behind and try something that makes sense.

You might note the individual that made the claim I was ignorant with my estimates of DVD-A sales didn't actually provide any information indicating DVD-A has sold better than I suggested. Everything I have seen makes me believe DVD-A releases have averaged 5,000 sales or less before the cutout bin or destruction and it isn't going to get better at this late date.

 

May I ask you to stay polite and as close to the "JT in multichannel sound" topic as possible? Otherwise, you'll end up as a sales dep wannabe (maybe, you're employed by a sales dep, but we can't check that, and anyway proclaiming a supposed superiority of a video-oriented, good ol' PCM-based format, which only potentially and rather bleakly - considering the actual number of releases - hints towards the promised audiophile greatness, over established audio-oriented ones doesn't make much sense in general and in this particular thread, for such attempts the hardware sub-forum exists). As for me, I never claimed that I have (or even pretend to have) any comprehensive marketing statistics regarding any sales, I just claimed that I have some tastes in music (30+ years old) and some buyer's experience. And they told me that I want my new JT on DVD-A(V) or SACD, that's all, period, end of word re-cycling.

 

There's a lot of discussion in this thread about the format of the 5.1 mix, a legitimate topic.

But at present, unless you own the mega-expensive DCC version (currently ~200.00 USD [and up! as per Amazon] for a used copy), there isn't an affordable stereo version of this album up there near the DCC's.

I don't care if they produce a quad, 5.1 mix, or 7.1 mix. Please, oh please, package it with a stereo remaster that rivals the DCC in sound quality.

Surely that is not too much to ask, given the historical importance of this particular Tull album.

I can already read the hand writing on the wall: they allot most of the money for the reissue to go into a new 5.1 mix, and can only make this reissue "commercially viable" by packaging it with an old, defective remastere.

You may now returned to your regularly scheduled debate over formats. Have a nice evening.

 

Not me. I'm off with my fingers crossed in anticipation of a better stereo remastering of the original mix.

 

Chris is a broken record with respect to Blu-Ray vs DVD-A. Every DVD-A release over tha past few years have caused him to post that "this is a fluke" and "there will never be another DVD-A".

Fortunately, he's been proven wrong.

 

Of course the OP loves this discussion. I love DVD-A, SACD + Blu-ray. I suspect dts.

Cheers!

 

Count me in! Just call me Mr. 27" CRT. I could give a s**t about huge LCD/Plasma screens. Yeah, they look good, but I don't spend enough of my life staring at a screen to have it matter. Maybe when I get rich I'll graduate to the 50+" elite. We are so spoiled in the USA..... WAAAH!

 

The dvd-audio version of the Beatles' LOVE album (which comes with a CD) which debuted in November of 2006, is still for sale to this day at almost every brick-n-mortar music store I visit. So EMI/Apple must know someone likes dvd-audio........and surround music. FYI: except for the menus, there is no video content on that disc, which also includes Dolby and DTS tracks for dvd systems.

Anyway......

I also place concert discs and music-only discs in different categories: 1) most of the time the concert's sound quality stinks and 2) many times during a concert the band decides to change the songs so much I don't like listening to them!

As strange as it may seem, a home-based theater system can sound better than a "real" theater system. That's because a theater has to make compromises because of all those rows of seats, and also the seats can waaaaay off to the side of the center of the screen. But at home, the speakers and receiver can be configured to reproduce the surround soundfield more accurately since there are much fewer seats to deal with. And low frequency performance at a real theater isn't always heard as it was recorded in the studio - that's because trying to reproduce for example a 25Hz note (a starship's FTL drive, an explosion, earthquakes etc) in such an enormous space would require large and very expensive subwoofers. But one can buy a Toyota-quality subwoofer that reaches to 25Hz or even lower for only around $400-$500, as long as their listening room isn't the size of Carnegie Hall.

Surround sound can be very enjoyable to listen to for many people, but it does require care in the configuration of the gear used to create it. And you don't need expensive equipment to do this either: my Technics/Pioneer/Boston Acoustics system is one of those systems that I think sounds better than most of my local cinemas.

Btw our 42" HDTV, while not super-large, is so much easier to "see" than our previous 27" CRT; same thing for our 20" widescreen computer monitor vs. the previous 19" "square" CRT. I believe this is happening not just because of the size difference but also the aspect ratio. There's something about a 16:9 screen that is just "easier on the eyes" than the stubby shape of a 4:3 screen.