10 WORST 5.1/Quad Mixes - What's yours?

Bringing back another one of these fun old threads back...

Here's 11 (sorry) in my collection that always really bugged me:

Steely Dan- Pretzel Logic (QS/Q8) - this one really drives me up a wall because the other two Steely quads are so discrete AND there is an Elliot Scheiner mix rotting in a vault somewhere.

Beatles 1+ (Blu-Ray) - does this really count as a surround title? Some cuts are not even real 3.1, the center seems to be a sum of the two fronts! I understand the early tracks being so lacking, but they could've tried a lot harder on the later stuff. Giles did end up turning in a much better mix for Sgt. Pepper.

Chicago II (DVD-A) - I suppose this could be controversial. Good fidelity, but this is really just double stereo/reverb with isolated guitar licks in the center. The quad mix is FAR superior. The 5.1 of V is also pretty conservative but seems to have more discrete elements than this.

Yes- Fragile (DVD-A)- one of the absolute worst Warner DVD-A mixes. WAY too much center, too little rears, not much discrete placement. SW's 5.1 so wipes the floor with this.

Bon Jovi- Have A Nice Day (Dualdisc DVD-A) - possibly the worst fidelity of any disc in my collection. There seems to be a major EQ difference between the fronts and the rears. Mix has some discrete elements but awful sound just ruins it.

Allman Brothers- Eat A Peach & At The Filmore (SACD)- mostly ambient. Pale in comparison to quad versions.

Wings- Venus & Mars (Q8/DTS)- another fidelity disaster. The mix is spotty- some cuts have good separation, others don't

The L/C/R Titles (Doors S/T, Kind Of Blue, Time Out)- these are kind of tricky. We all know the Doors could have made a good quad mix based on the "Best Of" quad tracks. The two jazz titles are ok for what they are, but they probably should've been marketed as 3-channel and not 5.1. I think it's fun to listen to these in "triangle surround" (C upfront, L&R as rears), but your results may differ...

I think one of the worst Surround releases of 2017 was the Bill Bruford box set “Seems Like A Lifetime Ago”.
Only Dolby Digital audio?! Are you kidding me?! Absolutely terrible!
Same thing can be said about “In the Land of Grey & Pink” by Caravan and several of the Mike Oldfield 5.1 DVDs.

The original 5.1 Surround mix of “Fragile” by Yes is really bad. Steven Wilson’s 5.1 surround mix is so much better!
George Harrison’s “Live in Japan” is a very uneventful 5.1 mix. I’m pretty sure they just took the original stereo mix and fed the audience into the Surround channels after each song, cause I hear no difference between the stereo & 5.1 Surround mixes of that album.
I’m also not a big fan of some of Bob Dylan’s SACDs like “Another Side of Bob Dylan”, “Love & Theft”, and the Live 1964 SACD from Audio Fidelity.
I also think the “Layla” and “461 Ocean Boulevard” 5.1 SACDs are vastly inferior to the Elliot Scheiner 5.1 Surround mixes found on the respective DVD & Blu-Ray releases.

Finally, even though the Quadraphonic mix is really good, the fidelity on the “Paranoid” DVD disc is beyond awful! Maybe one day, we’ll get a new master that actually sounds good!

rtbluray said:

I think one of the worst Surround releases of 2017 was the Bill Bruford box set “Seems Like A Lifetime Ago”.
Only Dolby Digital audio?! Are you kidding me?! Absolutely terrible!
Same thing can be said about “In the Land of Grey & Pink” by Caravan and several of the Mike Oldfield 5.1 DVDs.

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Ditto on Steve Miller's "Fly Like An Eagle" 5.1.

I’m also not a big fan of some of Bob Dylan’s SACDs like "Another Side of Bob Dylan”, “Love & Theft”, and the Live 1964 SACD from Audio Fidelity.

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The thing that bugs me the most about the Dylan's is that they omitted the quad mixes of "Nashville Skyline" and "Desire". So aggravating! Especially since "Desire" is confined to SQ LP.

Finally, even though the Quadraphonic mix is really good, the fidelity on the “Paranoid” DVD disc is beyond awful! Maybe one day, we’ll get a new master that actually sounds good!

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The conversion from reel out there absolutely destroys this. Why couldn't they use that?
Happy to hook you up if you haven't heard it.

Devils & Dust by Bruce Springsteen is by far the worst surround disc I own.

I guess this forum has prevented me from even accumulating an actual top 10 of worst mixes. Of course, there are a bunch of disappointments but few that justify the category bad. The fact that around ¾ of my surround collection are albums which I first ever heard in surround might play a part as well, when it comes to expectations.

* Beastie Boys - Hotsaucecommitteeparttwo
* Wyclef Jean - The Preacher's Son
* Some of the early Depeche Mode SACDs sound rather bad/jarring to my ears because of a lot of messed up samples in the reconstruction. The mixes themselves are good, without the original versions as reference.
* Art of Noise - Reconstruction
* Bowie - Station to Station (does that thing even count?)
* Almost every live 5.1 mix ever

Doesn't actually matter fwiw.

As long as it's in surround it's ok by me.

I think that Chicago II 5.1 mix is the worst surround mix ever (my vote might be tainted a bit because the Quad version is so so good!). The from the front row series of discs from Silverline sucked as well, but i never expected too much form them. Also I didn't care for Alice Cooper "Billion Dollar Babies" for the same reason.

sjcorne said:

Bringing back another one of these fun old threads back...

Here's 11 (sorry) in my collection that always really bugged me:

Steely Dan- Pretzel Logic (QS/Q8) - this one really drives me up a wall because the other two Steely quads are so discrete AND there is an Elliot Scheiner mix rotting in a vault somewhere.

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I would not consider the "Countdown" album discreet by any measure.

quicksrt said:

I would not consider the "Countdown" album discreet by any measure.

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Going to be as civil as possible here- can't really see how you'd think that.

Every track has extreme separation, with individual instruments isolated in the front or rear channels. If you kill the fronts the vocals disappear. Some tracks feature DF's high and low harmonies split front and rear. The "My Old School" guitar solo is isolated to the right rear. All of the piano and guitar in "Bodhisattva" is isolated to the rears. "Show Biz Kids" backing vocals only in the rears.

I could break down instrument placements in every track if you'd like, with sound samples and waveforms.

This mix is extreme- akin to a Columbia Q8 type presentation. Its not perfect though- there are differences vs the stereo as noted in the poll thread ("King of The World" missing synth part, "Boston Rag" missing vocal improvs, etc).

My observations are based off the Romanotrax Q8 conversion (happy to share). I have the QS vinyl too, which obviously isn't as good as the Q8 but has plenty of separation through the Involve unit. The vinyl doesn't have the greatest sound though.

Great album though- hope we can agree on that

quicksrt said:

I would not consider the "Countdown" album discreet by any measure.

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Politely disagree. Would love to see a proper digital release of them. Pretzel is horrible.

The only literally unlistenable 5.1 track I can think of is Jakko's horrendous botch job on 'Karn Evil 9 , 3rd Impression' from his remix of Brain Salad Surgery. For taht matter every studio album 5.1 mix of his I've heard, except for THRAK (which IIRC Fripp is co-credited on), is wildly variable in mix quality from track to track. That's Trilogy, Brain Salad, and the two Bruford albums.

I was very let down by how Steven Wilson's Relayer 5.1 mix ended up. I had such high hopes. Speaking further of Yes, both remixes of 'America' -- first on the old Fragile DVD-A, then Wilson's attempt at it -- are terrible. Then there's Wilson's inexplicable emasculation of Keith Emerson's Hammond organ sound on the title track of Tarkus.

The first round of Genesis remixes -- the post-Gabriel set -- represent a sadly lost opportunity, where subtlety and taste were largely cast aside. Their 'modernized' mix sound works best with Duke, the exception

The Wish You Were Here surround mixes, new 5.1 *and* old 4.0, only leave me wishing someone would finally do it right.

Some 'bad' 5.1 mixes were only highlighted when later compared to an older quad mix. The official DVD-A of Six Wives of Henry VIII pales in mastering quality and discreteness to the Q8 conversion I later obtained. The modern Machine Head (Deep Purple) and Spectrum (Billy Cobham) remixes sound weak versus the older quad mixes.

(To be clear, in all cases this is about the actual mixing choices and actual EQ/dynamic range compression choices. Compared to the effects of those choices, I don't give a rat's ass about the lossyness or not of the format it was released in. Rereleasing the Bruford 5.1 mixes in 192/24 PCM or octuple-rate DSD isn't going to make them sound better.)

I sold it years ago, but the 5.1 Snakes and Arrows form Rush was by far the worst surround mix I have ever owned.

himey said:

Politely disagree. Would love to see a proper digital release of them. Pretzel is horrible.

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Pretzel’s mix is under-appreciated. Like a modern stereo mix, it relies more on time differences than hard panning to achieve separation. I think the mix is sublime.


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ssully said:

The Wish You Were Here surround mixes, new 5.1 *and* old 4.0, only leave me wishing someone would finally do it right.

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I enjoy them. What isn't "right"?

markshan said:

I enjoy them. What isn't "right"?

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The way they sound?

Really, if you need a list of each moment where I think 'nope', that's gonna be an long post and too much work for me.

But for the 5.1 at least, I can say that there's overall too much 'same in front and back', i.e., not discrete enough.

EDIT: DKA back in 2011 said much of what I feel too about these two mixes
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...-Blu-Ray-Audio&p=136329&viewfull=1#post136329

in fact that whole thread is worth reading if you seek instances of QQers who feel neither mix got it quite right.

ssully said:

But for the 5.1 at least, I can say that there's overall too much 'same in front and back', i.e., not discrete enough.

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Agreed. Guthrie's adventurous side kinda-sorta kicks in for "Welcome To The Machine" but it's still not particularly impressive.

I like the quad for the most part. One thing that always bugged me is the mix on the title track. The intro section that lasts over a minute is just stereo...I think they could've spread that out a little more. The quads of DSOTM and AHM are better.

The 5.1 "Meddle" really kicks ass. If only more people could hear it....

ssully said:

The way they sound?

Really, if you need a list of each moment where I think 'nope', that's gonna be an long post and too much work for me.

But for the 5.1 at least, I can say that there's overall too much 'same in front and back', i.e., not discrete enough.

EDIT: DKA back in 2011 said much of what I feel too about these two mixes
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...-Blu-Ray-Audio&p=136329&viewfull=1#post136329

in fact that whole thread is worth reading if you seek instances of QQers who feel neither mix got it quite right.

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I'll have to listen to it again. The new surround system is still new enough that most things have only been heard once or twice. I know I enjoyed it at the time (unlike Pepper and a couple others), but I'll listen again with the comments in mind.

FWIW: the votes are mostly 10s and 9s.

ctoelle said:

I sold it years ago, but the 5.1 Snakes and Arrows form Rush was by far the worst surround mix I have ever owned.

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A Review of Snakes and Arrow's 5.1 remix: https://mikeladano.com/2014/10/01/review-rush-snakes-arrows-2007-mvi-5-1-version/

Groovy Daniel said:

Pretzel’s mix is under-appreciated. Like a modern stereo mix, it relies more on time differences than hard panning to achieve separation. I think the mix is sublime.


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Under-appreciated and nobody likes it are two very different things. But if you get enjoyment from it, that is great. Thank God that this type of multichannel mixing didn't become the standard! I will stick to the excellent sounding SACD in standard two channel mode for Pretzel.

himey said:

Under-appreciated and nobody likes it are two very different things. But if you get enjoyment from it, that is great. Thank God that this type of multichannel mixing didn't become the standard! I will stick to the excellent sounding SACD in standard two channel mode for Pretzel.

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The part that's so bizarre is that all three Steely quads are credited to the same engineer (Roger Nichols). I can't see why he would suddenly change to a more subtle mixing style after doing two really aggressive quads. This album has just as much surround potential as the other two.

Was it just a weak effort? Did the mastering engineer somehow screw up? Did ABC purposely botch it to try and kill quad?

Grasping at straws here...