HiRez Poll Various Artists - THE COLLECTION [SACD]

An uneven, though interesting listen. I feel like I just paid for a catalog. lol
Maybe AF should have offered this free to those who could show proof of purchase for, like, 10 or more MC titles or something like that.
Reward patronage. Give the dog a bone.

Finally got a first listen to this album. There's a heck of a lot of music for the money on this disc!

Grazing in the Grass can be tweeked to sound much better by adjusting the balance significantly towards the left side. I wonder if it was mixed this way or if something went wrong during the production process. Wish they would fix these sort of things.

Without You in quad does come across differently than its corresponding stereo version. The quad definitely has less reverb and lacks the "big" sound of the stereo. However, it is less compressed and sounds cleaner...you can really crank up the volume on the quad version.

Still processing how I feel about this disc..
I doubt I'll play approx half the tracks again (Santana, Herbie Hancock, O'Jays, Isleys, Jeff Beck, Mahavishnu Orchestra) as got them in other forms.. couple of the others are lousy mixes and/or poor sound (Friends Of Distinctiom, Nilsson) so will probably skip those in future too.. so what am I left with?
There's the Dylan track that sounds nice, the Miles Davis is great, the EWF is fab, the Mancini is a joy, the Blue Öyster Cult is a winner too and the set is almost worth it to me for the Harold Melvin alone.
So that's 6 winners, 2 clunkers and 6 redundant thru duplication etc (and these new versions of Isleys/O'Jays/Herbie H don't sound any better or worse to me than the existing SACDs). Right now I'm teetering on a "6" or "7" but will give it a few more plays before making final decision. The highlights are high, don't get me wrong

ar surround said:

Finally got a first listen to this album. There's a heck of a lot of music for the money on this disc!

Grazing in the Grass can be tweeked to sound much better by adjusting the balance significantly towards the left side. I wonder if it was mixed this way or if something went wrong during the production process. Wish they would fix these sort of things.

Without You in quad does come across differently than its corresponding stereo version. The quad definitely has less reverb and lacks the "big" sound of the stereo. However, it is less compressed and sounds cleaner...you can really crank up the volume on the quad version.

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When I saw the songlist on this disc my favorite was Grazing In The Grass...now I'm not going to say this disc is a sonic marvel...because it isn't...BUT...the amount and TYPE(great songs) of content that actually does have good sound quality is outstanding...and even though Grazing isn't as good as I had hoped...it's still a revelation in one sense...I had never heard it in multi channel...and it certainly sounds different presented that way...and it probably sounds as good as it can...at this stage...so I'm not disappointed in this disc...I would buy it again and it will get some air time at my place...I love these compilation discs...you can usually find some songs that you love..."back in the day"...I used to buy LP's if they had 2 good songs on them...this disc has many more and will provide me with a lot of smiles..

fredblue said:

Still processing how I feel about this disc..
I doubt I'll play approx half the tracks again (Santana, Herbie Hancock, O'Jays, Isleys, Jeff Beck, Mahavishnu Orchestra) as got them in other forms.. couple of the others are lousy mixes and/or poor sound (Friends Of Distinctiom, Nilsson) so will probably skip those in future too.. so what am I left with?
There's the Dylan track that sounds nice, the Miles Davis is great, the EWF is fab, the Mancini is a joy, the Blue Öyster Cult is a winner too and the set is almost worth it to me for the Harold Melvin alone.
So that's 6 winners, 2 clunkers and 6 redundant thru duplication etc (and these new versions of Isleys/O'Jays/Herbie H don't sound any better or worse to me than the existing SACDs). Right now I'm teetering on a "6" or "7" but will give it a few more plays before making final decision. The highlights are high, don't get me wrong

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Yes you have those songs on other discs.... but here you have them at your fingertips on one source...doesn't get any easier than that...and perhaps this way you will play these songs more(or not in your case)

Clint Eastwood said:

Yes you have those songs on other discs.... but here you have them at your fingertips on one source...doesn't get any easier than that...and perhaps this way you will play these songs more(or not in your case)

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Very true I'll factor that in when I cast my vote in zee Poll.! You may be nudging me closer to an "8"..

I decided on giving this one an 8 in the polls...at least 6 great sounding songs and if you don't count the one's already released in other forms there are even more...how often do you get that many songs on a release that are quality?...instead of knocking the score for the songs that didn't live up to expectations...I'm going to reward the one's that did...we all assume everyone has the "duplicate" releases...but that's not the case...so an unbiased look at this "collection" of songs should reward the disc for how many good sounding songs are on this disc and compare them with other releases that have 3 or 4 good songs on them...I even entertained giving this a 9...because if you count the "so called" duplicates...there is a LOT of quality on this disc...and I'm not sure it's fair to compare compilation discs with conventionaly sourced discs...much more difficult when you have so many different sources and time periods...I'm glad I purchased this disc

fredblue said:

Very true I'll factor that in when I cast my vote in zee Poll.! You may be nudging me closer to an "8"..

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I know this is a poll thread...BUT...I'm glad to see you back

fredblue said:

Very true I'll factor that in when I cast my vote in zee Poll.! You may be nudging me closer to an "8"..

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Adam, what was your impression of the Santana Track?" Do you have the SQ LP or DTS RBCD? If so, how does it compare. I was frankly disappointed by it.

4-earredwonder said:

Adam, what was your impression of the Santana Track?" Do you have the SQ LP or DTS RBCD? If so, how does it compare. I was frankly disappointed by it.

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Hey Ralph, I do have the DTS CD & SQ LP of Abraxas but not compared to the track on this new collection yet.. I wasn't knocked out by it on this SACD either way.. but personally wished that if AF can't/couldn't do any of the Santana Quads as complete albums that they had taken the opportunity to present a track from one of his other Quads (there's like 10+ albums or something, so plenty of choice) rather than one from Abraxas.. but it is what it is & I'm trying to look on the bright side of the positives of this compilation, as Clint is

I voted 7. Some great, some fair songs and mixes.

I have half the tracks on other discs, and bought it for the tracks I didn't have (I'd forgotten I've Abraxas on DTS!, and yep low Bass). So Loved the Miles Davis "Bitches Brew" track, The O'Jays, The Pink Panther theme, and the Bob Dylan, I was disappointed with mix on the the Blue Oyster Cult track, didn't connect with me for some reason. So content 7, mixes 6-7, sound quality is very good on some tracks not so on others (but we mustn't lose sight of how old these tracks, tapes etc. are) so 7. I'm giving this one a 7 overall. Its a fun disc rather than a serious one.

So could we ever see Miles Davis' Bitches Brew on an AF SACD? I hope so.

I listened to this tonight for the first time. Need to listen further for a full impression.
I played it to hear "Miles runs the voodoo down" in discrete quad for the first time. Great sounding.
I was startled how bad "That Lady" by the Isley brothers sounded.
I played the original 3+3 sacd and it instantly went to that track as if my Oppo 83 recognized that was the last track I played and the comparison was startling. Much more high end and not muffled like the version on the collection.
I am so excited about the Audio Fidelity releases but that one track is way off sound wise.
Other than that I am grateful to have this.

"Miles runs the voodoo down" is such an incredible track. Had never heard it before and didn't expect anything – totally blew me away. So glad I finally got The Collection after hesitating for quite a while. This track alone was worth it. Oh, how I'd love to hear the whole Bitches Brew album in quad.

haha, wow. This is one of the single discs I have avoided....because of all the bad comments. I don't agree. I love it. I voted a 9. Amazing....

Listened to this a few nights ago for the first time... great collection of songs, really good quad mixes, and mostly great fidelity. I wasn't thrilled when this was released, being a collection of singles (I really wanted the entire B.O.C, Santana and Harry Nilsson albums), but since I've started listening to surround tracks rather then entire albums, I've realized this kind of album is fantastic! Quite often on the old quad albums there might only be one or two songs that I want to hear, and this is a great way to get those songs! And the ones they've chosen for "The Collection" are generally winners (yes, I could have done without the few songs that have already been released on SACD, but whatever). Among the songs never released previously in hi-res, the only song that was a little lacking in fidelity was "Grazing In The Grass" (not one of my favorite songs, either, but still a good mix). I really wish we could get a few more "collections" like this one! 3 for the mixes, 2.5 for the content, and 2.5 for the fidelity. 8.

I really like this disc because some of these tracks are hits that are the only thing I'm interested in by certain artists, so this keeps me from bothering to search out an Isley's surround mix. 9

Having listened to the Collection a couple of times now I am voting an 8. As a general rule I don't care for compilations or best of type of albums I am more of a deep cuts kinda guy and prefer to listen to an album as a whole. So it loses 1/2 a point there (I mean hearing 7 screaming diz-busters and not the rest of the album, the nerve!). And I agree the consistency may be off between tracks (but to be honest it seems an inherent flaw for this type of compilation) I do feel most of it sounds pretty good but 1/2 point off for that. Also docking 1/2 point for the duplicated songs already released on the full SACD's. And just to be petty I docked it 1/2 point for AF not releasing Tyranny And Mutation in all it's complete and evil glory before they went QUADy bye bye. So there it is in a nutshell folks, an 8.

Which_One_Is_Pink said:

Having listened to the Collection a couple of times now I am voting an 8. As a general rule I don't care for compilations or best of type of albums I am more of a deep cuts kinda guy and prefer to listen to an album as a whole. So it loses 1/2 a point there (I mean hearing 7 screaming diz-busters and not the rest of the album, the nerve!). And I agree the consistency may be off between tracks (but to be honest it seems an inherent flaw for this type of compilation) I do feel most of it sounds pretty good but 1/2 point off for that. Also docking 1/2 point for the duplicated songs already released on the full SACD's. And just to be petty I docked it 1/2 point for AF not releasing Tyranny And Mutation in all it's complete and evil glory before they went QUADy bye bye. So there it is in a nutshell folks, an 8.

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I appreciate that. So, I guess, the parts where you dock......many are not really part of the recipe for voting. So, you "could" add back a whole point in that case. So, your vote could be a 9?

GOS said:

I appreciate that. So, I guess, the parts where you dock......many are not really part of the recipe for voting. So, you "could" add back a whole point in that case. So, your vote could be a 9?

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Quite logical Mr. Spock.....er, Mr. GOS!