Surrounded On Sundays - 5.1/quad reviews and summaries

Depeche mode - violator
Bruce Dickinson- balls to picasso

 

Barclay James harvest - everyone is everybody else
Alice cooper- billion dollar babies

 

Be bop deluxe - Futurama
Bob dylan - love and theft

 

Peter gabriel - up
Jethro tull - thick as a brick

 

Marillion - misplaced childhood
Sting - nothing like the sun

 

Motorhead - ace of spades
The fixx- 1011 woodland

 

Emerson lake and palmer - tarkus
Chicago v

 

Yeah, I kinda don't see hating Futurama happening.

 

This is a job for "search". There's reams of comment here on this album, being both AF 2016 SACD on the stereo, as well as Sony Jpn 2017 SACD quad both of the original mix, and remastered with the extra tracks in attendance. Then there's the CD itself, at least once released with the SQ matrix used at the stereo source, which can be played in DPL II/Neo:6 modes for some approximation of the full soundstage. I'd suggest you try at QQ first, though.

 

TAAB

 

I listened to Black Sea last week and it's mostly great. What's the deal with "Generals and Majors?" The powerful lead guitar seems to be MIA on the surround version. It's in the stereo remix, though.

 

I'll have to relisten ... I didn't actually notice it missing, and I am sure I would have noticed that

 

So far it is really looking like a Tull/ Gabriel weekend lol

 

Re: Lotus (Complete Edition)
Well-stated perspective on the surround mix and the historical context.
The added 35 minutes documenting the entire concert, and the replica packaging of the elaborate triple disc 11-panel album cover exceed its attractiveness as a discrete active rears quad experience.

Nitpicking nerd alert:

Most assuredly, Carlos quotes Third Stone From The Sun at length, a major invocation to the departed Jimi Hendrix.

Understandable mis-fire after deep immersion in a Jeff Beck record immediately prior.
I hadn't noticed before, but to be fair, there are similarities in the melody of the descending riff.

 

Sorry, yes.... on the fly

 

On my system, I wouldn't say "no bass", but certainly a lack of deep and sub bass.
I experimented with maxing out bass enhancement, subwoofer level, and bass tone control on my system, and couldn't get the walls shaking.
Agreed, very little there in the bottom octave

This release was not a re-mix, but a 4.0 re-master.
Comparing it to modern Steven Wilson 5.1 re-mixes of studio recordings is apples to oranges.

Concert sound in those pre-subwoofer years was much less bass-heavy. You never felt the kick drum.
The ubiquitous Ampeg SVT bass guitar amp used ten-inch woofers in a sealed cabinet.
According to Aspen Pittman's book, that rolled off the low fundamentals, which couldn't project and be heard in the audience in those years, but resulted in more definition in the low midrange that PA's of the time could throw efficiently.

 

Mark, you did a commendable job with Fear of Music, in light of your admission that it may not be your Heads go-to album.

When this album came out in ‘79, it was such a departure from their previous 2 LPs, that my buds and I were saying, “what the F is this??” That was especially true with I Zimbra, which we wondered if Eno dragged over from his work on Bowie’s Lodger. If Heads fans were expecting something like Psycho Killer, or Take Me To The River, I Zimbra is a smack upside of the head....no pun intended.

But the famous rock critic Robert Christgau, the self-proclaimed “Dean of rock critics,” wrote a lengthy piece in one of the respected mags at the time, and urged people to have patience, give it a chance, and you’d be rewarded. I distinctly recall him saying something along the lines of, “Maybe David Byrne knows something; maybe we DON’T know **** about the air.”

He re-visits his thoughts on the album here, if anyone would like to read some Thesaurus-wanking:

Robert Christgau: The Geek Who Came In From the Cold

But he was right, it did take time to absorb, and it’s easy to look back now and see that the whole album, I Zimbra in particular, pointed the way toward the even more experimental, but brilliant, Remain In Light. And they HAD to come out in that order; it wouldn’t have worked the other way around.

To this day, Fear of Music and Remain In Light represent, to me, an amazing 1-2 punch, and their high water marks as a band. And both have aged very well.

Plus, thanks for pointing out a link for this one on Discogs. It has remained elusive and expensive to track down on eBay, as I just can’t justify buying the brick. But I’m certainly looking forward to getting one I ordered from the link.

 

Glad you got one

It's odd, I have probably listened to Fear, 3 times in the ten or fifteen years I have had it.
I actually really enjoyed it yesterday. I think because I hit Remain In Light first and was more familiar with the material anyway, Fear kind of came off as a poor cousin.
So what it all boils down to, is this thread is working for me

 

Noooooo! I'm surprised no one else has said it yet so I will - there are two completely different multichannel mixes of Billy Cobham's Spectrum, one of them superb and the other pretty awful, and unfortunately the one you happen to have there - the DVD-A - is the pretty awful one. The one you want is the original quadraphonic mix which was reissued on an Audio Fidelity SACD a few years back and which does full justice to this classic album.

Slightly off topic but that DVD-A mix, which has so little separation it's almost mono, was mixed down to two channels and sold by HDtracks (and probably other download sites) as a high-res stereo download. There's a thread about it here somewhere, though that's going back a few years now.

Also, just to say I've been lurking here since the beginning and can't thank you enough for all the work you've put into this project. There must be lots of people like me who don't say much but really, really appreciate it.

 

That's fair, like I say, it isn't a very surround mix. There are a couple of bits and pieces, but mainly up front, with some effects sends.

Glad you're enjoying it. Thanks for the heads up about the quad mix.

 

Back from the post office:

Jeff Beck Group - Rough and Ready. I can’t quite put R&R into the essential category (along with Truth and BBB) even though it is the better of the two JBG titles. The quad mix is a little disconcerting, but I’m OK with that because it still sounds great and different than the stereo layer which is also much better than my 80’s CD. 2/3

Talking Heads - Fear of Music I’ve always thought FoM was the first of the three great TH albums. It is more like the first two than the next two, but it’s the best of the bunch. The surround mix is also top notch. 3/3

Beatles - Abbey Road It sure is a great big box for the one little 5.25” disc that I really wanted. Was it worth $80? Well, it’s my favorite Beatles album, it sounds great, and I really needed an Atmos disc to test out my impending new system. That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway.

 

I have observations on the 2016 Spectrum 4.0 SACD mix, but first...

Let me say, neither am I.
When it comes to enjoying less well-regarded versions of surround releases, perhaps that makes us fortunate, Mark.
My prime example is the SACD of Layla reviewed last week.
I stupidly avoided it due to low opinions compared to the unobtainable & expensive mix in the box set.
Dumb move. High-res surround of a classic album I love, how could I go wrong grabbing it used at a good price?
Finally picked it up, love it.

Subsequently, I had a chance to hear the vaunted Scheiner mix.
I discern differences, but not the quantum mega improvement some SACD detractors perceive.
I wasted years I could have been enjoying Dominoes in surround, swayed by prevailing opinion.
Hope I learned something...

Similarly, from yours and other reviews, the 5.1 Rhino Spectrum mix has it's good points, and is preferred by some folks who've heard both.
4.0 lacking center and LFE channels, not everyone's cup of tea...
Silly to reject an affordable & available surround option out of hand, bound to be superior to stereo if you love the material.
Knowing there's a second, more sought after release, maybe someday it will manifest at a reasonable price for patient folks of good will...

 

Blown away the first time I heard this record upon release, never tire of it, owned in every format for 45 years, played hundreds of times...

I've not heard the 5.1 DVD version.

The 2016 Analog Productions 4.0 SACD is a reference mix for me, and it's release is what motivated me to find an affordable universal disc spinner that could play SACDs and move my AVR from living room to listening room & put together a music, not home theater, surround system expressly for the opportunity to hear this recording in the unreleased vintage quad version.

My wildest hopes were fufilled...






Track 1 ~ Quadrant 4
The sound field is bass FC, mini-moog LR, guitar RR, drums wide L-R.
Though the instruments are isolated & anchored, ambience puts you in the room.
Moving from the sweet spot or varying speaker levels changes perspective.

No panning from the mixing board.
Rather, the drumming traverses a wide trap set across the front & wrapping around the room, locating each drum & cymbal in space.
Moog vs. strat banter back & forth from the rear corners.

The first few seconds of the track that were on the LP were edited from the CD I bought 25 years later:
0:00 Fade up 60 Hz hum
0:01 LR Jan Hammer: "Everything you always wanted to know about Six"
(Reference to the 1972 Woody Allen comedy Everything You Always Wanted To Know About SEX)
0:02 RR: soft plucked harmonics as Leland Sklar checks his bass tuning
0:03 RF Billy Cobham: chuckles
0:05 LR: Sharp , resonant, distorted, bent Eb stab on Minimoog, with reverb tail
0:06 RF: "Let's go, one [sticks click] two... one-two..."
0:08 Fronts thunderous double-time on double-bass drum set...

This record is so iconic as a definitive jazz fusion, it was subject to an in-depth breakdown in Guitar Player Magazine, November 2013, by Jesse Gress, linked & quoted below:
https://www.guitarplayer.com/technique/under-investigation-billy-cobhams-spectrum

Jesse Gress:
Hammer begins deceptively by playing C#-to-F# which implies the 5 and root in F#, but he quickly sets up shop in D minor pentatonic territory for three bars, developing an insistent, swinging rhythmic motif, and decorating key notes with half-step trills courtesy of his Mini Moog’s modulation wheel...

At 1:07, Hammer sets up the short Ab7 electric piano vamp to establish a groove for the guitar-and-synth melody that follows.
Bolin and Hammer enter in tandem two 8/8 bars later, with Bolin playing the Ab- pentatonic-major-plus-b3/ F-blues-based, six-bar (12-bar in 4/4) melody and Hammer playing it an octave higher embellished with occasional harmonies.

The bridge alludes to Cobham’s opening comment as Bolin and Hammer graft a repetitive four-note motif to eighth-note triplets beginning on the second eighth note.
The whole deal is superimposed over the 8/8 shuffle and a shifting Db-to-Cb bass line to create a mind-bending six-against-four polyrhythm that lasts for four bars and sets up a modulation to C# minor for Tommy Bolin’s incendiary solo.

Bolin commences his solo with fearless, Coltrane-like abandon.
Following the second bridge, Bolin sustains the last note, cranks the regeneration control on his Maestro Echoplex to the max, and yanks the playback head back and forth to unleash a barrage of signature, time-warped runaway repeats....

TBC...

 

Spectrum Pt 2

The AP 2016 4.0 SACD was reportedly sourced from a contemporary quad mix that languished in the Atlantic vaults unreleased for 43 years.

Like Ginger Baker, Cobham was playing just as fast with his feet as his hands, using two bass drums.
Doubling extended to entire set, twice as many toms & cymbals.
The booklet shows his Fibes set with the clear plexi shells in vogue at the time.

Jan Hammer with Mahavishnu had learned to play a minimoog so it sounded like an electric guitar on steroids.
An unmistakable signature tone that let him trade lead licks with McLaughlin & Beck, and pull the performance of a lifetime from Bolin.

Tommy, just 21, was a rock-based riffer who could jam hard over changes & experimented with jazzy tunes in Zephyr.
He couldn't read music like the other jazz studio guys on the session.
Nonetheless, Cobham, Hammer & Sklar were happy to take extra time in the studio to show him the tunes, cut in only a couple of takes once he'd learned them.

Track 3 ~ Anxiety -> Taurian Matador
0:00 Drum solo tour of kit in full surround
1:00 Tuning of kick drums clearly audible in slow passage, higher pitch L, lower R.
Kicks muffled, a floor toms tuned even lower, ringing like a orchestral kettle drum with long decay.
1:40 As Billy quiets to faint taps, 60 Hz hum is audible

Bass / synth unison riff sets the table for a feast of slurs, slides & bends in the rears...
Minimoog vs strat trade fours, mimicking each other in teasing good fun & displays of virtuosity...
Hammer lays out during Tommy's leads, Bolin comps tasty chords behind Jan's synth lines....

2:37 Jan introduces subtle wobbly modulation rapid-fire riffing, ends with big pitch bend. Tommy responds in kind on the Strat...
3:36 Hammer trills Moog with flick of the modulation wheel. Bolin replies with high-speed tremolo picking & huge whammy bends...

Back & forth dueling to outro, this time through Tommy answering the synth licks...

________________________________________

Some quotes from Greg Prato's biography of Bolin:

Carmine Appice: "The Cobham album is the thing that got Jeff Beck to move on to the Blow by Blow stuff.
I was with Jeff in BBA, I had Billy's album with Tommy on it & the Mahavishnu, we listened to Spectrum quite a bit on the road..."

Jan Hammer: "...you can hear after [Beck] saw and heard Tommy... a definite influence happened... "

Jeff Beck: "Spectrum changed my whole musical outlook. (It) gave me new life at the time, on top of the Mahavishnu records.
It represented a whole area that was as exciting to me as when I first heard ‘Hound Dog’ by Elvis Presley.
They were so inspirational to me that I started to adopt that type of music.
Tommy’s guitar playing on Spectrum is fantastic, while Jan can flatten you with the first few notes. "

 

Just listening to the Surround mix of Bruford's Feels Good To Me, which got its standalone release today. Sadly it’s only Dolby Digital and the use of the rears is disappointing. Very glad I didn't buy the boxed set!