David Bowie, Scary Monsters

Was Scary Monsters ever released in an offical 5.1 mix? I seem to be getting conflicting info on this.

No. Stereo SACD only.

That my understanding except for this:

**The digital remastering for the SACD release was done by Peter Mew with Nigel Reeve at Abbey Road studios in London in 2002. Multi channel layer mastered by Peter Mew at Abbey Road Studios in London in 2003. Multi channel layer re-mixed for 5.1 surround sound by Ken Scott and Paul Hicks at Abbey Road studios in London in January 2003.

http://bowiezone.com/#/scary-monsters/4549553011

and:

DIGITAL REMASTERED BY:
PCM and DSD stereo layers digitally remastered by Peter Mew with Nigel Reeve at Abbey Road studios, London 2002. Multi channel layer mastered by Peter Mew at Abbey Road Studios, London 2003. Multi channel layer re-mixed for 5.1 surround sound by Ken Scott and Paul Hicks at Abbey Road studios, London, January 2003.

http://www.algonet.se/~bassman/album/sacd/sm.html

Cyber 1 said:

That my understanding except for this:

**The digital remastering for the SACD release was done by Peter Mew with Nigel Reeve at Abbey Road studios in London in 2002. Multi channel layer mastered by Peter Mew at Abbey Road Studios in London in 2003. Multi channel layer re-mixed for 5.1 surround sound by Ken Scott and Paul Hicks at Abbey Road studios in London in January 2003.

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That text came from Ziggy Stardust. I just checked. Mew huh? Hmmm...

No mention of Mew on Scary Monsters or any reference to multi-channel.

Hmmm... my copy is SACD/CD Stereo only

My understanding is Scary Monsters is stereo only. The 5.1 copies are only imaginary at this point.

click the second link, it is a review of scary monsters, at the bottom:

ADDITIONAL INFO:
Word said it was only playable on SACD players, this is wrong. It is a Stereo Hybrid SACD which can be played on any standard cd player. It's necessary to have a SACD player in order to get the 5.1 sound mix.


So what gives?

It's wrong. Sounds like whoever wrote it is confusing the meaning of Hybrid. You need a SACD player to access the high resolution version. But it IS stereo in this case.

As for the 5.1 mix credits (Ken Scott + Paul Hicks), someone probably just copy/pasted the information from the Ziggy Stardust SACD which does have a 5.1 mix. They did come out at the same time, along with Let's Dance (also stereo only).

That's my best guess.

-Shaun

One of my early additions to my SACD collection. Stereo but creates a great 3-d soundstage. This is one of his three greatest records. Lots of great guest artists including Townsend and frip.

yep it is a great album sure wish they would 5.1 it

Retail-wise, it's stereo-only. I repeat: Stereo-only.

DKA said:

Retail-wise, it's stereo-only. I repeat: Stereo-only.

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All true, sadly. Although given the track record with the Bowie 5.1 releases.........
I always thought the SACD stereo sounded terrible too. Come to think of it, the remasters from the 1999 EMI onwards are all pretty grim sounding.
Overcompressed & excessively toppy - worst of all is the 30th anniversary edition of Aladdin Sane (The 2003 remaster) which is the same mess on the Japanese Vinyl replica too, despite the different catalogue numbers. It's painful to listen to it - literally (it hurts my ears anyway)

neil wilkes said:

All true, sadly. Although given the track record with the Bowie 5.1 releases.........
I always thought the SACD stereo sounded terrible too. Come to think of it, the remasters from the 1999 EMI onwards are all pretty grim sounding.
Overcompressed & excessively toppy - worst of all is the 30th anniversary edition of Aladdin Sane (The 2003 remaster) which is the same mess on the Japanese Vinyl replica too, despite the different catalogue numbers. It's painful to listen to it - literally (it hurts my ears anyway)

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I actually liked EMI remasters best. Anything else, from special editions to SACDs to SHM-CDs, just don't have same warmth and level of detail to them.

I like the "Young Americans" mix. That, and "Heathen" are pretty much the only listenable things the labels have put out. The information is all there on the stereo of every single album to create a strong mix. It's like they intentionally handicapped themselves when they did the rest of them.

Eeek.
The 1999 EMI remasters are simply too bright & toppy. Exactly the same problem as on the Remastered box set of the Led Zeppelin studio albums.
They are not nearly as overdone compared to the dreadful 30th anniversary editions (all 3 that I have suck so badly it's not funny, with Ziggy being a total fuckup, Dogs just too bright and Aladdin Sane unlistenable) but the RCA editions still sound the best, and certainly the closest to the vinyl masters.

The surround mixes are strange, no doubt about it.
Ziggy sounds like it was bashed out in a day, and Reality is just not good studio-wise in stereo or surround with the CD/DVD edition having a live version of the album that sounds a lot better - the studio mixes are quite lifeless. Heathen is not bad at all - shame it was only an SACD as this was yet another lost opportunity given the amount of additional material that could have gone on a DVDA/V release but at least the mix is listenable. Young Americans is also good - Visconti is a lot better at 5.1 than some we will get to soon - but it is awash with reverb which is a mistake to me. The Reality Live DVD is much better than the studio one, but it's a tame mix and Dobly only really lets things down - the VH-1 Storytellers release at least has a DTS stream which begs the question why did Reality Tour not have DTS? There really is absolutely no excuse whatsoever for a music title being crippled by only having a shitty DD stream on it for the surround mix whilst the stereo gets LPCM. It shows you how far down the food chain we are.
What else is there? Oh yes. STS. Best thing you can say aboutthat release is "thanks for the flat transfer of the stereo at 24/96" and leave well alone as the 5.1 is unlistenable.
Quite literally the worst surround mix I have ever heard.

The amount of wandering vocal on "Ziggy" is inexcusable, especially when both that and STS have a vocal which can be easily centered when working with stereo. There's no acceptable reason for those mixes being as bad as they are except that they purposely set out to make an inferior mix.

DKA said:

The amount of wandering vocal on "Ziggy" is inexcusable, especially when both that and STS have a vocal which can be easily centered when working with stereo. There's no acceptable reason for those mixes being as bad as they are except that they purposely set out to make an inferior mix.

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Are we talking about the SACD of Ziggy here, or the equally dire Hammersmith Odeon show from 1973 - the 5.1 on that is a real dog too.
I didn;t mention the Glass Spider disc - it's an upmix, so whilst it is a case of "thanks for the DTS stream" it is equally a case of "why oh why did you do an upmix, and then why such a bad one"? Upmixes, whilst not a great idea in the best circumstances, can be good. No doubt about it. But the Glass Spider one - yuk.
Incidentally - and I might start a new thread on surround bootlegs - I have a great bootleg 5.1 mix, live from the Paris Olympia in 2002. That is very nice indeed.....