Please welcome Bob Vosgien to QQ, the mastering engineer of the CTA Quad DTS Disc!!

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JonUrban

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I am pleased to announce that Bob Vosgien from Capitol Studios & Mastering has joined QQ! His latest project, the Rhino "Quadio" Chicago Transit Authority DTS disc, has created quite a buzz around here and that actually caught his attention.

Bob told me in a PM that "...it is completely true that Rhino is waiting to see what kind of sales they get on this disc before ANY others are completed... There are over 60 titles that could conceivably be released if all goes well."

He also said that "You can let the forum know that we spoke and I'm available for some questions from time to time. Some of the other titles we're discussing are "The Captain and Me", "Paranoid", "Close to the Edge" and "Aqualung." Warners is checking the vaults at the moment.(keep your fingers crossed)."

I initially asked him how close the CTA disc was to becoming a DVD-Audio disc. He replied, "The DVD-A label on the package was a typo. Warners is not supporting DVD-A anymore and they also wanted this disc to be more compatible with the general public. I pushed for the DTS 96-24 stream and I can assure you it sounds VERY close to my original 96k/24bit files. The next series (if it happens) will most likely be Blu-Ray... so there you go....

All the best,
Bob


Wow! Isn't that amazing news. :yikes

I would suggest that if you have questions or comments for Bob, you make them in this thread and Bob will respond from time to time. Let him know what you like and what you would like to see in future Quadio releases.

Sounds like fun, eh? :phones
 
It does, Jon! :D And welcome, Bob! :)

If I had a main question, it's pretty much what I would ask Steve Hoffman at his place when he works on a project, mainly: What was the condition of the master tape? Any special 'things' you had to do to get the best out of it? Anything unusual or interesting about the project? Technical stuff for us duffers, but I've always enjoyed reading about such things, esp. with music that I've enjoyed for so many years.


Also, thanks for the work you did on CTA!

ED :)
 
Welcome Bob, this is exciting and let's all hope sales do justify further releases. I have a large collection of Warner DVD-A and quite a few DVD-V surround titles but I am absolutely ready for Warner to move on to Blu-ray. My only hope is that the upcoming releases if Warner chooses to continue are new titles, not previously available on a digital surround format, but of course that is because I already own those DVD titles. The titles mentioned above are all great candidates for the next release.

Chris
 
Thank you Jon and welcome Bob! The Chicago disc is fun to listen to and I hope to enjoy more in the series. My question would be are we limited to that which was officially quad before or can we dare dream of announced but never released titles: ELP - Trilogy, Todd Rundgren - Initation, Allman Brothers Band - Brothers And Sisters, James Taylor - Sweet Baby James, etc. ?

If the former, here's a few I'd absolutely have to have:

Chicago VII, Chicago X (mixed for DVD-A 5.1 never issued), Alice Cooper - Muscle Of Love, Doobie Brothers - What Were Once Vices Now Habits, Randy Newman - Sail Away, Seals & Crofts - Summer Breeze, Carly Simon - Greatest Hits, Paul Simon - There Goes Rymin' Simon,

PS - Since James Taylor and Carole King are doing a 40th Anniversary tour - wouldn't the long rumored Sweet Baby James make a perfect quad release? :)

Thanks for this opportunity! Tim
 
Yikes....do we need another Captain and Me??
So many surround mixes unreleased, why double dip?
Still great that Rhino is releasing these mixes
 
Welcome Bob, we look forward to more of your work.

Close to the Edge? Is this some unreleased quad mix, or a new mix? I thought the multi-tracks were lost.
 
Welcome Bob, we look forward to more of your work.

Close to the Edge? Is this some unreleased quad mix, or a new mix? I thought the multi-tracks were lost.

I was going to ask the same question. Also, is the unreleased quad mix of Emerson Lake & Palmer's "Trilogy" under consideration?

Thanks for participating here, Bob!

J. D.
 
The next series (if it happens) will most likely be Blu-Ray... so there you go....

Though I'm not a proponent of music on Blu-ray (yet another format) at least it's hi-rez.

If the titles exite me, and don't cost too much ($30 max) then I'd be prepared to jump into the fray.
 
First a very WELCOME to Bob, it's amazing to see these people "lurking around" here.
Second, better concentrate on "unreleased" mixes from the quad days: for sure ELP Trilogy or Yes CTTE would be two Killer titles to boot from. I won't dislike also a Deep Purple Machine Head, since the USA quad mix is very different from the UK sq/q8/sacd one, and imho a really better one.
And please, check out carefully the quality of the transfers. We had already two and half very disappointing titles - japanese Tomita "the planets" on dvd-a sourced from a ticky cd4, universal "Paranoid" done *very badly* from a cd4 (and for both of these titles there were commercial quad reel at 7 1/2ips releases which were a LOT better source for a transfer) and the useless Diana Ross "last time i saw him" where Universal located the quad mixes in japan and folded it down to stereo cd only (bummer!). No wonder that, in the first two cases, some "homemade" transfer sounds better than the ones officially released.
We're not "pro mastering eng." here but we can do already a decent work from the original quad sources, so... do something better than what some of us has already done, and you're sold. After all, you have access to the master tapes, we don't; the best commercial quad media were reels, then cd4, then 8 tracks, then all matrixed sysems (sq/qs) which only in these few last years have found a way to be decoded closer to a real discrete source as they was meant at start and badly delivered for decades. Despite all odds some of us can make even the lowly quad 8 track tapes sounds good.
 
initially asked him how close the CTA disc was to becoming a DVD-Audio disc. He replied, "The DVD-A label on the package was a typo. Warners is not supporting DVD-A anymore and they also wanted this disc to be more compatible with the general public. I pushed for the DTS 96-24 stream and I can assure you it sounds VERY close to my original 96k/24bit files. The next series (if it happens) will most likely be Blu-Ray... so there you go....


Arnt they contradictory statements first DTS 96/24 for maximum compatibilty, then Blu Ray for smaller not fully surround market ?
 
Arnt they contradictory statements first DTS 96/24 for maximum compatibilty, then Blu Ray for smaller not fully surround market ?

I don't know what you mean by not fully surround market, but I believe a much higher percentage of Blu-ray owners have surround setups than DVD owners, probably many times the percentage. Blu-ray is growing at a healthy pace and if you accept that DVD-A is dead for Warner, the choice is between DVD-V and Blu-ray. Blu-ray players are cheap and the market is going to continue to grow so I believe the correct decision for Warner is to move to Blu-ray for surround releases like these. I think a lot of Blu-ray owners passed on the CTA DVD-V, but would have purchased it if it had been Blu-ray, assuming the same price.

Chris
 
I'm surprised they wouldn't do a DVD-Audio disc, which always included a compatible DTS or Dolby Digital component also - so it would still be compatible with the "general public". Regardless I love the CTA surround disc and hope for more, although the Captain and Me was already released on DVD-A, so why do that title again. Pick titles which haven't been re-issued a million times on different formats.

I would love Blu-Ray, but if Bob (and welcome by the way), says they want to be "more compatible with the general public"... how would Blu-Ray fit in? Wouldn't a DVD-Audio disc (with a DTS and Dolby Digital track) be more compatible with the general public than a Blu-Ray disc. Again, I have multiple Blu-Ray players - so they can give me these discs in any format they want and I will buy them - although I would prefer a hi-rez in lossless format the best.
 
I don't know what you mean by not fully surround market, but I believe a much higher percentage of Blu-ray owners have surround setups than DVD owners, probably many times the percentage. Blu-ray is growing at a healthy pace and if you accept that DVD-A is dead for Warner, the choice is between DVD-V and Blu-ray. Blu-ray players are cheap and the market is going to continue to grow so I believe the correct decision for Warner is to move to Blu-ray for surround releases like these. I think a lot of Blu-ray owners passed on the CTA DVD-V, but would have purchased it if it had been Blu-ray, assuming the same price.

Chris

I am not so sure the sales would be different if this were Blu-Ray (probably less sales) than a DVD-V. I still don't understand why, even though Warner's considers DVD-Audio a dead format to them, they can't make exceptions (change their marketing and business approach) and bring it back for these Quad releases?
 
Blu-ray has a serious flaw at present time: car playback.
 
Welcome Bob. Thanks so much for the Chicago release. We're all hoping it will garner enough sales to keep the project going. For what it's worth, I'd bet both "Close to the Edge" and "Aqualung" will outsell it.
 
I think this disc is a great start, but it's a bit of a stab in the back to the folks that supported Warners DVD-A product of the past 10 years. Why would it have hurt to have a DVD-A section on the CTA disc? It still would have played in the same players it can play in now.
 
I think this disc is a great start, but it's a bit of a stab in the back to the folks that supported Warners DVD-A product of the past 10 years. Why would it have hurt to have a DVD-A section on the CTA disc? It still would have played in the same players it can play in now.

One would guess cost. The disc as is about 3 gig and that fits fine for a DVD 5 disc, since it was a double album/Q8 track to begin with, but it would be an added cost to get the "lossless" layer to fit on a DVD 9 disc. Perhaps there are other issues that factor in as well - like testing the waters to see how well it sells. We are all lucky to have this disc in any form at all, and I'm very happy with the sound with 24/96 DTS. We need to support this title so more will come. Perhaps some sort of "lossless" versions along with DTS/DD are to come in the future, but only if we buy, buy, buy this title. Heck, I might buy a second one just to have around for save keeping.
 
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