SH Spotlight Play the Kinks "Waterloo Sunset" in stereo, check and fix or improve your stereo playback with it!

I used this again today after getting a new audio cabinet and having to rearrange my listening room, took me 4 plays before I got it but thanks again for this tip. This is one of the greatest pieces of audio setup advice I can pass on to others, it works great with any format too I have used YouTube at times but I am still borrowing my friends tri color reprise it got warped in an unfortunate pairing of going on his honeymoon and his AC dying and coming home to a 100 degree apartment. It looks like it is on a boat but it plays through and allowed me an easy calibration with a refresher from this thread. Thanks Steve!

 

I have my stereo speakers positioned just as Steve has advised

between them on my wall is a copy of J.M.W. Turner's classic painting;
'The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up 1838'
(the painting of the 'bloody big ship' Daniel Craig's James Bond is observing in The National Gallery, London when he meets the new young 'Q' in 'Skyfall')

the scene is at sunset on the same 'dirty old river' River Thames and boy does The Kinks 'Waterloo Sunset' sound superb (with Dave Davies backup vocal so vital in creating a wistful vocal backdrop) and sounds so fitting when looking at Turner's painting which eerily reflects an 'End of Empire' feeling as the sun is going down just as does so much of Ray Davies nostalgic music especially on 'Waterloo Sunset' which is in atmosphere as hauntingly ghostly as is the image of The Fighting Temeraire in the painting....

 

How about Rasa Davies?

 

I haven't seen any of her paintings - any good ?

 

Does anybody know how many degrees out of phase the backing vocals are on this song? One of my favorite artists is working on a song with a psychedelic Mellotron part, and I think it would be really cool to mix that Mellotron like the backing vocals here so it sounds like surround sound in stereo. I haven't got space in my home to set up the speakers I don't have in this manner, though. That makes mixing it this way pointless, I realize but it would still be a neat trick to try.

 

Wonderful. Mission accomplished. Thanks!

 

I'd love to do this, but I live in a condo with a wife who prays the rosary three times a day and a boy who is scampering around like a mouse this way and that and I'm lucky to have any kind of stereo dynamics given the axis encroachment (my record collection in shelves all around me holding its ground) and I feel like a wobbly soldier with clammy hands on my trusty rusted rifle alive, awake, and at attention on the cold beaches of Dunkirk. I'm pushing a full-court press to forestall the anti-vinyl forces that sometimes pop out their heads out of the green like any of the robotic mole mugs from that interactive smash 'em and mash 'em Chuck E. Cheese game back in the early 1980s.

 

I can relate to that!

 

Actually, it can be pretty warm on the beaches of Dunkerque. Even in October. Last time I was there, I had some lovely mussels while sitting outside watching the kite surfers. Missed my music, mind.

 

I started a thread today even though I knew about this thread but forgot phase issues were mentioned. It said this:


“I was listening at work to Kink Kronikles through a JBL Clip 3 (so it’s folded to mono). The “Sha La Lahhhs” on Waterloo Sunset were almost inaudible. Has anyone heard of a phasing issue with that song? I know our host uses it to test speaker placement but I don’t know if that’s related.”

 

Makes sense if it's out of phase in stereo, which I guess it is to give it that holographic magic.

 

Well, I'm still waiting for this epiphany and I'm getting sick of the song trying. (Just kidding! )

But seriously, I have an NZ-pressed, 1967 PYE stereo copy and I just don't trust it.
At the intro, the band is so completely to the left, I thought my RHS power amp died. Then Ray comes in weakly on the right. The bassist is phoning it in from the pub. Being the last, innermost track really can't help things.
I have no wash of 5 and 7 o'clock backing vocals behind me, surrounding me.

On a trashy '80s LP stereo compilation it's the 3rd song. Things sound beefier and more centred but still no cigar.

Next up is an Old Gold stereo 3" CD single. The bassist is back now and the L-R spread is far more even but still no epiphany.

(Disclaimer - I do have an upright piano between my speakers and these aren't yet at my preferred height. I will need to move a few things before I can get them out into the room.)

 

FYI The last Kinks comp had Waterloo Sunset in stereo. I have two systems (only my 5.1 surround system is listed) and the smaller room set up, just STEREO, the epiphany is greater and easier to adjust. Good luck.

 

Definitely worth sticking with. Took ages to get it right in my room but once it is right it's unmistakable and beautifully eerie.

For a long time I could only hear the effect on the right and gave up. Happened to move the speakers one day (couple of inches back and to the sides in my case) and the full effect of the backing vocals to my left and right were revealed.

You're right that the instruments are clustered behind the left speaker. A nice grunt to the strummed guitar. Ray's vocal should be unmistakably prominent in the right speaker (painfully harsh top end on my cd comp version) and Dave's (think it's him) shared vocal on the chorus in the left speaker. There's also that occasional, high pitched "la, la, la" amongst the backing vocals that I found fun to hear shift around and sometimes disappear altogether depending on my speaker placement.

If you can stream Spotify through your system then the version on the 2020 remaster of The Kink Kronikles is useful.

One thing's for sure, I've come to know this song incredibly well over the last couple of years and it's still great!

Good luck

 

Surely the common 1972 version on the US Kink Kronicles is fine for trailing this method.

 

I don't know what the sources are for the various Waterloo Sunsets on Spotify, but as for Kink Kronikles it looks like only the 2020 remaster is on there. I wasn't making a judgement between that and 1972 as I haven't compared them.

By 'useful' I just meant that I found it much easier to do it this way than by putting the needle back to the beginning of the track each time you adjust the speakers.

 

Gotcha!
N.b. I was only fearing someone was going to say fake stereo!

 

I was able to finally hear this in my room - brilliant.
imagine has that effect too, at least in my room, just before the vocals kick in - waaaah (that’s me saying the sound has an enveloping quality.

 

Worked for me!

 

I'm sure I've heard more than one stereo 'mix' of this - it's either that or one of the mixes I heard was simply more 'narrowed' and didn't give the the '3D' effect - the one with the most '3D' effect is quite a 'wide' mix - can't remember off hand but I believe the castle CD of 'Something Else' and possibly an early incarnation of the castle compilation 'the ultimate collection' has the more '3D' mix:

The Kinks – Something Else By The Kinks (1989, CD)

The Kinks - The Ultimate Collection

 

The version I played (and worked) was on the ‘Ugly Pink’ CD.

 

The Sony ZS-RS60BT boombox-type stereo produces spectacular results. I guess its speakers are automatically in the optimal position. Very 3D, particularly for quadraphonic and 5.1 mixdowns of songs on YouTube. Example: There's a video of supposedly attempted Elton John Madman Across the Water quad mixes. When I listen, Elton's voice seems to be behind me. My stereo is positioned close to my bedroom wall, and the sounds "behind me" sometimes are directly in back, sometimes to the left and sometimes to the right.

 

Anytime I re-arrange the listening room, for whatever reason…and get to fine tuning…I do exactly this process. When you get it right, it’s glorious.