New Led Zeppelin "Song Remains The Same" 2CD/4LP/3DVD Super Deluxe Set Plus Separate Blu-Ray release

Received the BD-A last week and dove into it over the weekend. I'm enjoying it immensely, and have ordered HTWWW BD. For those of you listening in 2 ch, do you prefer the DTS-MA 2.0 or the PCM?

 

There’s no audible difference between the two, they’re both lossless stereo audio.

 

As a musician, I don’t get 5.1 mixes for music at all. It’s not practical to how music is presented to an audience. And you don’t really hear it that way on stage either. My main instrument is drums, but I have done gigs playing guitar and singing at the front of the stage. A musician on stage relies on a directional monitor speaker or in ear monitors to hear themselves and or the other musicians. As a drummer, the monitor wedge is usually pointed at your ear. There isn’t a sensation of anything coming from behind really. If you’re at the front of the stage, the monitor is in front of you and you’re more focused on that than hearing a lot of what is happening behind you. The only way 5.1 could really be practical is if you sat a person in the middle of a circle of a band with everyone’s amplification facing inward.

 

It’s a novelty to me. A fun one but a novelty. You are correct though. A LIVE show is basically in mono for an audience.

 

You've never used the isolated channels to learn instrumental parts that you just couldn't pick out of the stereo mix? Hear pieces of classic recordings that you've never heard before?

Insisting that recorded music perfectly represent the live audience experience died the day the Beatles stepped into Abbey Road and decided they were going to make music that couldn't be performed live. Why would you insist that it has to be limited in such a way?

As a musician myself, I don't understand why you don't seek the creativity that a full 360 degree audio experience can offer.

 

I would say 5.1 is mostly just for a fun different way of experiencing things, not necessarily for recreating how it is in terms of literal sound from a concert - which is what the stereo mix would be for. It's just another way to have a cool listening experience

 

You’ve got a good point about The Beatles creating music that couldn’t be performed live in 1966/1967 although it could be re-created now. But I’m not insisting on limiting 360 degree creativity. I didn’t insist on anything. What I am saying is that the practical physics of performing music and the experience of watching and listening to musicians performing in a real world situation along with the sensory connection of the eyes and ears doesn’t really lend itself to 5.1. It doesn’t make sense to my brain so I simply prefer a good stereo mix. When I put on Live At Leeds I’m able to visualize The Who on stage in front of me because John would be on stage right (left to the listener), Keith and Roger in the center, and Pete on stage left. And if I’d run up on stage and try to sit in the middle of that, Pete would hit me upside the grape with an SG!

 

I mean, fair, being that this is thread is about a live release. But you said "music at all" I hear the same arguments made about 5.1 mixes of studio recordings and it kinda drives me a little nutty

 

You’re right. I did say I don’t get 5.1 for music at all.
So, it’s 1971 and you have found yourself at Headley Grange and Zep is about to track When The Levee Breaks. Bonham is set up in the foyer of the mansion and for the sake of my question, we’ll say that Page’s and Jones’ amps are in the same room, Plant’s vocals are being fed through a P.A. and no one is using cans. You’re allowed to sit anywhere in the room.
So are you sitting in the middle of the room with your back to??? Bonham??? You choose not to see that performance??? Page? Jones? Plant? Who is it you’re going to orient yourself so that your eyes and ears can’t make a connection to the sound you’re hearing because that musician is behind you?
Or... are you going to position yourself in the room in such a way that you’re able to see everyone by simply shifting your eyes?
And in reality, the musicians were wearing cans because the amps were in other parts of the building to create isolation and Plant’s vocals were only audible via the cans, so now, are you wearing cans to hear the vocals along with some feed from the mics on the cabinets, or are you sitting there without cans, hearing mostly drums and whatever distant bleed there is from the amps and headphones the musicians are wearing and no vocals?

 

[att="dcd2112, post: 19817616, member: 15632"]You choose not to see that performance??? Page? Jones? Plant? Who is it you’re going to orient yourself so that your eyes and ears can’t make a connection to the sound you’re hearing because that musician is behind you?
Or... are you going to position yourself in the room in such a way that you’re able to see everyone by simply shifting your eyes?[/QUOTE]

Again, there is no requirement that the 5.1 mix match any kind of physical arrangement that makes visual sense.

It's painting with sound. Or should be. At the very least, follow the basic scheme of the stereo mix and expand from there.

The Recording Academy's guide Recommendations For Surround Sound Production gives a good breakdown of the technical and artistic elements of recording in surround, including a historical note referring to previous attempts at "surround" sound:

as well as two different approaches to surround mixing:

and even a section detailing the challenges of imaging and panning in a surround environment, which takes up about two pages

Naturally, the document does stress that there is no "right" way to mix in surround, but for an audio mix that is a) not tied to a visual element) and b) not a record of a band on stage, where it would be expected that the band would be in front and the ambience behind, the sky is and should be the limit, barring anything that's too damaging to the sound to attempt (the notes do indicate that panning front to rear is impossible to truly execute and have the brain interpret it, for instance).

 

What does your being an amateur musician have to do with how others listen on playback equipment?

 

Well, firstly, I get paid for my work and have gotten paid for my work for over 30 years, so "amateur" isn't quite the right way to lead off the question. What does my being a semi pro musician (and recording engineer, for which I have also been paid for my work) have to do with how other people listen to music on their playback equipment?

Not a damn thing.

Did I in any way criticize people who listen to 5.1? Read my post carefully! I don't give a flying you-know-what about how other people like to hear their music. I simply said 5.1 makes no sense to me. MP3's make no sense to me either and neither does streaming and way the record companies destroyed commerce in music and the death of the album. None of it makes any sense to me. And my being a performing semi pro musician is only brought up to give context as to why 5.1 makes no sense to me. And I laid that out pretty clearly in my post.

Wow...

 

Just put him on block. he trolls a lot.

 

The Song Remains The Same (Super Deluxe Boxset) 90 GBP.

 

if you already have the 2007 Blu Ray of the film, wouldn't this 2018 Blu Ray Audio be redundant then? is it not essentially the same soundtrack (?) but I do understand that the resolution (24/96) is higher on the 2018 Blu Ray Audio disc.

 

I don’t think it would be redundant at all. The 2007 Blu-Ray of the film doesn’t have a lossless LPCM 2.0 hi-res audio track, it only has 5.1. The four videos on the 2018 have lossless 5.1 and 2.0 hi-res audio, the audio for those videos on the 2007 Blu-Ray was lossy 2.0 only, this alone is worth the price of admission. The mix is the same on the 2007 and 2018 is the same but the mastering is improved on the 2018 IMO.

 

I agree it is a novelty. I enjoy a good surround sound recording. Just a note, I attended a Yes concert probably 15-20 years ago in Madison Square Garden that was actually in surround sound. They had set up speakers in the rear.

 

Also not redundant because "Heartbreaker" in the film is intercut with footage of the hotel robbery -- with the blu ray audio, you get an uninterrupted song.

 

I'm probably being ridiculous, I know, but having grown up so much with the film version, I almost wish there was a released audio version on the new deluxe that was taken directly from the movie - complete with the hotel robbery voice-over (and Peter Grant's interview replies) layered over the track. And then the song kicks back in again and leads into "Whole Lotta Love" just like the film version.

Not that I'm unhappy at all with the more complete song version. It's just that I like soundtracks that faithfully reproduce the versions on film. It was one of the reasons I was happy when the expanded 2007 version came along. It wasn't a precise copy of the film versions but it was at least more aligned to it than the 1976 "soundtrack". Which even though it was great, wasn't really a soundtrack at all.

 

You could take the audio off the DVD or Blu-Ray of the film.

 

I probably could, somehow, but I'm completely clueless in doing such things! As the ole' joke goes...one would need to be smarter than the object they are working with...

 

I agree. I listen to everything in 2.1 and just crank the hell out of it.

 

My default position.

 

Yes, but I miss some of those original mixes from the 1976 original, like "Whole Lotta Love." The current mix chops about a minute or so out of the song. I miss the noodling and Plant's vocal sparring with Page before the theramin section. I took the remix version off my ipod and put the original in its place.


I held on to my original, have the 2007 remaster and the new blu-ray audio.

 

Finally pulled the trigger and ordered the Bluray 2018 of this show.