Monster Music Deluxe CD + Audio DVD

yesterday saw on amazon some sort of disc, introduced as "Monster Music Deluxe CD + Audio DVD".
albeit it says ADVD, print on the cover stated "Hi Def Surround" which, if it's truly HiDef surround mix,
cannot be delivered in VIDEO_TS directory, used for Audio only DVD.
knowing that there are lots of misrepresented or false represented DVDs, i'm curious if anyone has
experience with such discs and what in the heck this really is?

here is a link to Anjulie (Monster Music Deluxe CD + Audio DVD)

Monster has done several "HDS" surround titles. They're DTS 96/24 2ch hi-res, but Dolby Digital for the surround. It's another case of "the large print giveth and the small print taketh away."

This was the first one of these I bought, expecting it would be DVD-A, not DVD-V:

0tto said:

yesterday saw on amazon some sort of disc, introduced as "Monster Music Deluxe CD + Audio DVD".
albeit it says ADVD, print on the cover stated "Hi Def Surround" which, if it's truly HiDef surround mix,
cannot be delivered in VIDEO_TS directory, used for Audio only DVD.
knowing that there are lots of misrepresented or false represented DVDs, i'm curious if anyone has
experience with such discs and what in the heck this really is?

here is a link to Anjulie (Monster Music Deluxe CD + Audio DVD)

Click to expand...

The George Benson one (Songs & Stories, or something like that it's called?!) is excellent, mix-wise and fidelity, plus the content is lovely middle-of-the-road fodder.

As Linda says they're 24/96 DTS. I didn't get any of the others (there's a Lee Ritenour one I thought I might get but when I tried the sample clips on iTunes it doesn't sound like much of an album after all..).

There's also a Charlie Brown Christmas:

I have the Monster Music releases of Ray Charles' Genius Loves Company and the original Charlie Brown Christmas (not the 40th anniversary album). They're both DVD video. Both of them contain DTS 24/96 5.1 and PCM stereo at 24/96 in the DVD video portion. Audio_TS is empty.

Despite the lack of high res, I think they're nice discs and they can be had fairly cheap. The Charlie Brown disc has three different surround mixes while the Ray Charles disc has what I believe is the same mix that was released on SACD.

I had no idea the Anjulie disc even existed, but it looks like it was actually released in 2009. Guess I've got a new one to track down!

Wow, that response took me FOREVER to write. Stupid work. ;-)

It's another case of "the large print giveth and the small print taketh away."

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Ha! Too true. Also, I'm hoping that's intended as a classic Waits reference.

Waits married a girl I went to High School with. He also did a song about my hometown, Johnsburg, Illinois. It was 326 people when I lived there. My second house is there, though there are now 8,000 people. In the old days, "welcome to Johnsburg" and "you are now leaving Johnsburg" were on opposite sides of the same sign. This isn't a Waits quote.

Very astute in picking up the Waits quote analoguehost! Here's another: "You ain't got no spare, ain't got no jack. You don't give a shit, you ain't never coming back!"

Analogueghost said:

Wow, that response took me FOREVER to write. Stupid work. ;-)



Ha! Too true. Also, I'm hoping that's intended as a classic Waits reference.

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The Lee Ritenour album Monster Music released in 5.1 DTS is called "Six String Theory"..

does anybody here have it?

If so, does the mix raise the level of excitement of the material above the "elevator muzak" it sounds like from the iTunes preview clips..?!?

thanx Linda for disappointment
have canceled my order, albeit yesterday this one was for under $16

0tto said:

thanx Linda for disappointment
have canceled my order, albeit yesterday this one was for under $16

Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure the George Benson "Songs & Stories" is in DTS surround. It sounds great, fwiw, I recommend it.

These discs may not be advanced res, but they are worth owning!

0tto said:

thanx Linda for disappointment
have canceled my order, albeit yesterday this one was for under $16

Click to expand...

Analogueghost said:

I have the Monster Music releases of Ray Charles' Genius Loves Company and the original Charlie Brown Christmas (not the 40th anniversary album). They're both DVD video. Both of them contain DTS 24/96 5.1 and PCM stereo at 24/96 in the DVD video portion. Audio_TS is empty.

Despite the lack of high res, I think they're nice discs and they can be had fairly cheap. The Charlie Brown disc has three different surround mixes while the Ray Charles disc has what I believe is the same mix that was released on SACD.

I had no idea the Anjulie disc even existed, but it looks like it was actually released in 2009. Guess I've got a new one to track down!

Click to expand...

yeah, that's what i'm wondering. how they can mark lossy stream as an HiDef?
even 96/24 still lossy and not really hard to distinguish from lossless, particularly if it uses same source.
b.t.w. i do have "Genius Loves Company" on SACD. sound is ok. but surround mix at least weird for mix
from multiply master tracks. could and should be done better.

I just loaded up the Monster Music George Benson album "Songs & Stories" and my Yamaha receiver tells me it's 96/24 DTS @ 1536kbps.

It sounds.. absolutely gorgeous!

Sadly, you can mark anything as whatever you want. Miller Nevada marked their DTS CD's as "High Definition Surround" when they were first introduced in CD-size cases. They NOT lossless.

Caveat Emptor!

0tto said:

yeah, that's what i'm wondering. how they can mark lossy stream as an HiDef?
even 96/24 still lossy and not really hard to distinguish from lossless, particularly if it uses same source.
b.t.w. i do have "Genius Loves Company" on SACD. sound is ok. but surround mix at least weird for mix
from multiply master tracks. could and should be done better.

Click to expand...

0tto said:

yeah, that's what i'm wondering. how they can mark lossy stream as an HiDef?
even 96/24 still lossy and not really hard to distinguish from lossless, particularly if it uses same source.
b.t.w. i do have "Genius Loves Company" on SACD. sound is ok. but surround mix at least weird for mix
from multiply master tracks. could and should be done better.

Click to expand...

it's not genuine Hi-Def, no, that's just marketing bull.. but I wouldn't get too hung up on all that, in this instance.

The one Monster disc I have is really, really well worth getting. It is extremely well-recorded in the first place, to my ears, which helps!

In fact, I'd go so far as to saying its one of the best-sounding, if not THE best-sounding, non-Hi-Res/Adv.Res surround discs I own ..and as contentious as it may be, I'll stick my neck out and say it sounds as good if not better than a good many of the SACDs & DVDAs I have.

Quad Linda said:

Sadly, you can mark anything as whatever you want. Miller Nevada marked their DTS CD's as "High Definition Surround" when they were first introduced in CD-size cases. They NOT lossless.

Caveat Emptor!

View attachment 5977

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so very true, Linda!

a fair few of those Brad Miller DTS CDs do sound really great, though, regardless of them being "non hi-def" DTS.

The two Ohio Players discs for example are just.. superb!

fredblue said:

I just loaded up the Monster Music George Benson album "Songs & Stories" and my Yamaha receiver tells me it's 96/24 DTS @ 1536kbps.

It sounds.. absolutely gorgeous!

Click to expand...

yeah Fred, i understand. whatever, the truth is, you can't have relatively honest fidelity,
when you shrink the stored in digits information about captured sources of the sound.
take a look this way. every bit contain the piece of data about sound.
PCM at 96/24 contains about 12mb per second
DTS at 96/24 contains as you mentioned, 1536kbps, which is just slightly over 1mbps.
so, during conversion of source, DTS encoder have thrown out about 90% of the data.
sure, there can be some bits with silence but obviously not 90%
i agree, some DTS streams can sound nice, but that's mostly music with electrical instruments
and due to this, with lots of distortions of the sound.
secondly, all such streams have been quite heavily artificially enhanced for some elements of the
sound, to compensate lost ones.
but if you will listen more closely to acoustical elements, such like voice or an acoustical instrument
with wide range - you'll hear how poorly they sound.
perhaps some people don't pay attention or just don't care. but to make example, when you cannot
ignore absence of data - take the movie, cut off 9 from every 10 frames, glue together those what
remains and try to watch this movie. pretty much same happens with sound.

Fred clearly you must be wrong! You just thought what you heard was gorgeous - but the designation of 96/24 DTS indicates evidently that what you're hearing is an aural mirage. See, your ears tell you one thing, but when your eyes read 96/24 DTS - all bets are off - not gorgeous @:

FWIW, I own several of the Monster Discs - Benson Songs & Stories, Benson & Jarreau and the Lee Ritenour (not muzak by any stretch of the imagination) - all very discrete mixes & wonderful to listen to - oh wait a second, I'm wrong they're terrible - they say 96/24 DTS - therefore they suck

elmer said:

FWIW, I own several of the Monster Discs - Benson Songs & Stories, Benson & Jarreau and the Lee Ritenour (not muzak by any stretch of the imagination) - all very discrete mixes & wonderful to listen to - oh wait a second, I'm wrong they're terrible - they say 96/24 DTS - therefore they suck

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sorry, i'm unconsciously turned again to my crusade for quality of the sound.
b.t.w. have you ever wondered, why such wonderful format, as DTS is, have never gained any interest
from producers of classical music? probably just inexcusable ignorance on their part. isn't?

I highly recommend the Charlie Brown one. There are two versions: one is the album done in covers by other artists. Stay away from that one. You want the original soundtrack.