Rick Wakeman - Six Wives and Arthur

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I'm listening to King Arthur now. The quad tracks are all encoded as 5.1 (DD, DTS 24/96 and MLP 24/96) but the centre channel is completely silent, it's the original quad mix.

If you check the "Thanks" section on the inside back page of the booklet for both this and Six Wives, you should notice a familiar name (I'll leave you in suspense while you check).
 
If you check the "Thanks" section on the inside back page of the booklet for both this and Six Wives, you should notice a familiar name (I'll leave you in suspense while you check).

Steven Wilson? :eek:
(I hate being left in suspenders! :D ..I was hoping mine would turn up today since Amazon were falling over themselves to get it out asap from the gist of their email but sadly not.. ah well, tomorrow is another day!).

What's the sleeve notes like? Is packaging the usual Universal "Deluxe Edition" foldout digipackaging affair with plastic sleeve or "ribband"?
 
I think 'Arthur' sounds much better than this title, which I find to be bright. That being said I think the music on 'Wives' is much better!
 
I think 'Arthur' sounds much better than this title, which I find to be bright. That being said I think the music on 'Wives' is much better!

You have both of the Deluxe Editions already? :yikes
(Amazon said King Arthur's not in stock yet in their email to notify me of despatch of Six Wives, the useless articles that they are! :mad:@: )

Edit: Just noticed Owen Smith's got Arthur too. This is the last time I buy these new releases from Amazon!
 
You have both of the Deluxe Editions already? :yikes
(Amazon said King Arthur's not in stock yet in their email to notify me of despatch of Six Wives, the useless articles that they are! :mad:@: )

Edit: Just noticed Owen Smith's got Arthur too. This is the last time I buy these new releases from Amazon!

Since Saturday! Burning shed!
 
FYI - Both titles shipped from Amazon UK for me... You must have got in late Adam... :D
 
What's the sleeve notes like? Is packaging the usual Universal "Deluxe Edition" foldout digipackaging affair with plastic sleeve or "ribband"?

Packaging is a foldout digipack, which I hate (the covers wear). What happened to jewel cases? It came with an adhesive thing round it to hold it shut, which was a complete pain to remove as it left adhesive on the digipack. And the entire thing comes shrink wrapped so no need for the adhesive strip.
 
I have permission from OD to post this. King Arthur quad is a CD-4 rip by Oxford Dickie. It lists Richard OD Ford in the Thanks section. He had nothing to do with the stereo.

EDIT: he ripped the CD-4 at 24/48, so the 96KHz is upsampling done by the record company (as is the silent centre channel).
 
Packaging is a foldout digipack, which I hate (the covers wear). What happened to jewel cases? It came with an adhesive thing round it to hold it shut, which was a complete pain to remove as it left adhesive on the digipack. And the entire thing comes shrink wrapped so no need for the adhesive strip.

Ugh.. That's the "ribband" thing I was taking the piss out of!

I first encountered this shitty strip of sticky plastic on either one of the Mike Oldfield Deluxe Editions (Ommadawn?) or Caravan/Land Of Grey & Pink Deluxe or Rush/Moving Pictures Deluxe w/DVD--A.. I can't remember which came first now but pretty sure it was one of them (that's what 5 years ago now?)..

..prior to that I found Universal would mostly package these Deluxe Edition fold out packages in much nicer plastic slipcases which not only protected the card case but felt more "premium" to me..

I was hoping they'd abandoned these sticker strips altogether since the Primus Sailing Seas Of Cheese BD-A only had a little "Deluxe Edition" sticker on the front.. but no, they're back!

A tip if you want to avoid a sticky residue.. you can leave the strip on and still get to your discs if you very carefully & gently just score the surface of that plastic strip in the gap between the folds of the two bits of card with a sharp craft knife and hey presto you get a clean cut, no sticky mess, the case folds out and all the heavenly glory of what's inside is there for the listening! :D
 
Ugh.. That's the "ribband" thing I was taking the piss out of!

I first encountered this shitty strip of sticky plastic on either one of the Mike Oldfield Deluxe Editions (Ommadawn?) or Caravan/Land Of Grey & Pink Deluxe or Rush/Moving Pictures Deluxe w/DVD--A.. I can't remember which came first now but pretty sure it was one of them (that's what 5 years ago now?)..

..prior to that I found Universal would mostly package these Deluxe Edition fold out packages in much nicer plastic slipcases which not only protected the card case but felt more "premium" to me..

I was hoping they'd abandoned these sticker strips altogether since the Primus Sailing Seas Of Cheese BD-A only had a little "Deluxe Edition" sticker on the front.. but no, they're back!

A tip if you want to avoid a sticky residue.. you can leave the strip on and still get to your discs if you very carefully & gently just score the surface of that plastic strip in the gap between the folds of the two bits of card with a sharp craft knife and hey presto you get a clean cut, no sticky mess, the case folds out and all the heavenly glory of what's inside is there for the listening! :D

I think it was Caravan... I'm still annoyed at ruining the cover by trying to take the plastic off...

Mike Oldfield was slipcases - IIRC.

My Rush has no slipcase (at least on the DVD-A).
 
A tip if you want to avoid a sticky residue.. you can leave the strip on and still get to your discs if you very carefully & gently just score the surface of that plastic strip in the gap between the folds of the two bits of card with a sharp craft knife and hey presto you get a clean cut, no sticky mess, the case folds out and all the heavenly glory of what's inside is there for the listening! :D

I don't like the presence of the strip covering the artwork. I also don't like album covers defaced with stickers saying "Contains xxx hit single" or other crap. It's even worse when they stick these dratted things on with adhesive that won't peel off, and you only find out after you've started removing the sticker making matters even worse.
 
I don't like the presence of the strip covering the artwork. I also don't like album covers defaced with stickers saying "Contains xxx hit single" or other crap. It's even worse when they stick these dratted things on with adhesive that won't peel off, and you only find out after you've started removing the sticker making matters even worse.

So be happy you don't live in Germany cause here has to be on every DVD or Blu-ray a sticker that tells the suitable age for this disc, even if it's free for children of 0 years (not kidding). These stickers are glued so permanent, it's literally impossible to remove it without corrupting the case.
 
I think it was Caravan... I'm still annoyed at ruining the cover by trying to take the plastic off...

Mike Oldfield was slipcases - IIRC.

My Rush has no slipcase (at least on the DVD-A).

Must have been Caravan then (worst of all it's not a FLUKKIN DVD-Audio but Dull-by bloody Dirge-it-All.. !!!!) ..I'll check out my Deluxe's later and see what's what.
 
I don't like the presence of the strip covering the artwork. I also don't like album covers defaced with stickers saying "Contains xxx hit single" or other crap. It's even worse when they stick these dratted things on with adhesive that won't peel off, and you only find out after you've started removing the sticker making matters even worse.

I hear ya.. (y)

Anyway, packaging woes aside..

..how do we find other aspects of these?

Discs themselves all ok?

Very nice looking onscreen menu's from the pics.. functionality good? Everything works as it should? Any extras included?

Are there QQ Polls for these two yet?
 
..how do we find other aspects of these?

Discs themselves all ok?

Very nice looking onscreen menu's from the pics.. functionality good? Everything works as it should? Any extras included?

I only have King Arthur, I don't like Six Wives. I've only played the quad, that's my interest. No obvious extras on the DVD-A/V, it just has options to select Quad or Stereo and for Quad MLP 24/96, DTS 24/96 or DD. The stereo is MLP 24/96 if I remember the menus correctly, didn't try it.

The menus are good in that they do the job and don't get in the way. Compared to, say, Queen A Night At The Opera where the DVD-A menus are a complete nightmare full of bugs.

As others have stated, the quad transfer is clearly from vinyl as there is surface noise and some occasional clicks or crunches. But I've heard considerably worse CD-4 transfers and very few that I consider genuinely better, and it does depend on the quality of the CD-4 and it's pressing originally. Some CD-4s are beyond rescue the pressings were so bad.
 
If you want to see the equipment list for the CD-4 transfer, there's an Equipment page on Oxford Dickie's current blog, which for CD-4 says:

Turntable: Pro-Ject Debut Carbon Esprit SB (modified)

Cartridge: Audio Technica AT20SLa

Demodulator: JVC 4DD-5 (modified)

Interface: M-Audio Delta 1010LT
 
I only have King Arthur, I don't like Six Wives. I've only played the quad, that's my interest. No obvious extras on the DVD-A/V, it just has options to select Quad or Stereo and for Quad MLP 24/96, DTS 24/96 or DD. The stereo is MLP 24/96 if I remember the menus correctly, didn't try it.

The menus are good in that they do the job and don't get in the way. Compared to, say, Queen A Night At The Opera where the DVD-A menus are a complete nightmare full of bugs.

As others have stated, the quad transfer is clearly from vinyl as there is surface noise and some occasional clicks or crunches. But I've heard considerably worse CD-4 transfers and very few that I consider genuinely better, and it does depend on the quality of the CD-4 and it's pressing originally. Some CD-4s are beyond rescue the pressings were so bad.

The quad is a needle drop?!
What about the 2.0.....
This set just moved onto my "skip it" list
 
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