HiRez Poll Yes - TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS [DVD-Audio/Blu-Ray Audio]

I just came from the SH site seeing a bunch of arguing about the SW stereo remix. Ugh!! I don't know anything about that as I will probably never listen to the stereo mix, but I'll say the surround version is friggin' awesome!

I've always loved this album and thought it to be an underappreciated masterpiece. Of course, I also understand that most people aren't going to sit through four 20 minute songs, but that's their loss. This might be the earliest album I ever remember buying as a new release and bringing home and putting on for the first time. During the summer of that year I had heard a friends copy of CTTE and went and bought Yessongs and had been playing it non-stop for months. I was 13 at the time and I loved it back then and still do. But I did always think it could have sounded clearer.

And now it does! What a difference the surround mix makes. I've thought all the SW Yes releases have been great and think this one is the best. Just such an improvement over the original. I hear so much more detail and it just seems to have so much more depth than ever before. The layers of voices and sound just have so much more room to breathe. Great stuff.

I'm sure hoping he can do the same for Going for the One. I know he says it's not in the cards, but a year ago we were being told this one wasn't coming, so??? Actually, as long as he keeps doing Yes albums, I'll keep sending them money. Their music is just a natural fit for surround sound.

K

One of the best things about not being very familiar with Yes's output prior to the 5.1 days of glory is that I'm not sentimental about a mix I remember from 40 years ago.

That's not a slam on people who are criticizing. I just don't know what the album sounded like when first released, so I'm not focused on it.

What a great album and a superb surround mix. I can't believe I had only heard it all before maybe one time as mp3s on the computer while working on something else! I knew Ritual from the YesYears box and the live version on YesShows. But not the other 3. Now in full surround and giving it all my attention, I can really say I love it!

And so many extras! Makes me wanna get all the other Yes blu-rays out there!

Only thing I'm wondering is why the flat transfer of the original is dts-hd instead of PCM? Can PCM go higher than 96 kHz?

Beelz said:

What a great album and a superb surround mix. I can't believe I had only heard it all before maybe one time as mp3s on the computer while working on something else! I knew Ritual from the YesYears box and the live version on YesShows. But not the other 3. Now in full surround and giving it all my attention, I can really say I love it!

And so many extras! Makes me wanna get all the other Yes blu-rays out there!

Only thing I'm wondering is why the flat transfer of the original is dts-hd instead of PCM? Can PCM go higher than 96 kHz?

Click to expand...

Yes, it can. It can go to 192kHz for example. DTS-HD is a form of lossless compressed encoding of PCM, I'm guessing they used to it to save space. It's the same situation on the BluRay Relayer too.

My 2 cents (as if anyone cares). I was never a fan of this album, it followed on the heels of 3 straight yes artistic masterpieces and when released (for me) it was a highly anticipated letdown, to my ear this album was a return to the plain white bread music style of their first 2 obscure albums, fluffy marshmallow music, unfortunately a down shift from which they never recovered. Album 2 side 2 of this record illustrated the artistic drive as still present but sadly it was the final death throw. After revisiting this work in 5.1, I can honestly say some new life has been breathed into it. This was an enjoyable listen and what could be SW's most liberal mix to date. However, just like the other yes releases it suffers from a plethora of severely missed opportunities; sonicly I've heard better from hi rez rips, and that should never happen, as it miserably fails to demonstrate what is possible with the extended resolution of dts-ma/dvd-a. This mix, while arguably more liberal than previous SW mixes, still suffers from rampant conservatism. Overall though I gave this an 8, I like to support surround music in all it's forms however, this as with the other new yes releases could have been a whole lot better. Now I know this review will generate a lot of dislike and to those of you who love this record and to those who see SW as the god of surround music, I humbly apologize.

" a return to the plain white bread music style of their first 2 obscure albums, fluffy marshmallow music"

Yeah, The Ancient, 18+ minutes of plain white bread fluffy marshmallow music. That about nails it. Definitely reminds me of Sweetness.

Just gave it a 10!
Have allways loved The Ancient! A brilliant complex and variated track with the best of Steve Howe acustic guitar!
SW 5.1 mix just open the entire album and now the other track become interesting to me! THX SW!

Hmmmm, I have just been listening to the stereo mix, but the one with the Rhino intro. I think this was said somewhere else, but there are to places where there's an extra bar or two added. First is at 15:40, where the section with the Mellotron flute is repeated, then 19:00, the lead-in to the big Moog solo is repeated also.

Apologies as I think this has been posted before, but it's the first time I listen to it and it totally threw me! I thought the two were supposed to be the same with just the intro and outdo tagged-on??

Has SW said anything about this?

Edit: Dance of the Dawn, obviously...

One is waiting for a multichannel mix of his beloved album for years. When it comes out finally they shout: It's a 10! It's a 10!
What's up with their ears I thought and never post a comment on polls here anymore. But my friend Mr. Holland123
has encouraged me with what he posted here to do it anyway.
As with Quadrophenia - lack of bass, barely audible vocals or surround channels on some tracks - this here
is a lost opportunity. One might think: Well the bass player is dead - so mix his part down (as on Quadrophenia).
And it sounds very dry overall. Didn't the "recording room" had space enough? While Howe's guitar jumps right to
your face sometimes the drumkit sounds like coming from the floor anyway (on most parts).
How this can be voted? If you give Quadrophenia a 10: What - if you want to compare - would you give Dark Side
Of The Moon or Power And The Glory (especially for layout)? A 20?
There are still many good things here on Tales to discover: The warm keyboard sounds swirl around you and so
the vocals do from time to time. But the real WOW-experience won't come up anyway.
I would go as far as Mr. Holland123 and give it a good 8.
(Sorry for my English - it's not my native language.)

First, a bit of context... I'm not old enough to remember when these early Yes albums were released, but I have been a prog fan for the last 20 years. For some reason, however, I could never get into "Tales...". Perhaps it was too challenging for me to digest, and I never gave it enough chance. It has just never grabbed me like other Yes albums (CttE, Relayer, Fragile, or The Yes Album for example).

I was hoping that surround mix would help me finally "discover" this album, but unfortunately it wasn't completely successful.

The good news is that the fidelity is quite impressive, and is a definite improvement over all the other versions of this album. The bottom end is a bit "thin" as others have mentioned but that has ALWAYS been a problem with Yes albums. I think Steven Wilson purposely tries to remain faithful to the overall tonal balance of the original stereo mix, so he tried not to boost the bass too much. I personally would like a bit more bottom end. The clarity is very good, though, and the surround mix is really excellent as others have mentioned.

My favorite track is "The Ancient". The surround mix is stellar on this track.

The bad news is that I just don't see myself coming back and listening to this album very often. It still hasn't clicked for me, even in surround. Whenever I'm in the mood to hear Yes (which frankly isn't that often) I don't see myself choosing this album over CttE or The Yes Album (my two favorites).

I have to give it an 8. The fidelity and mix are both very good, but the music just isn't to my liking. I am really happy to hear that others are enjoying it!

floydflush said:

One is waiting for a multichannel mix of his beloved album for years. When it comes out finally they shout: It's a 10! It's a 10!
What's up with their ears I thought and never post a comment on polls here anymore. But my friend Mr. Holland123
has encouraged me with what he posted here to do it anyway.
As with Quadrophenia - lack of bass, barely audible vocals or surround channels on some tracks - this here
is a lost opportunity. One might think: Well the bass player is dead - so mix his part down (as on Quadrophenia).
And it sounds very dry overall. Didn't the "recording room" had space enough? While Howe's guitar jumps right to
your face sometimes the drumkit sounds like coming from the floor anyway (on most parts).
How this can be voted? If you give Quadrophenia a 10: What - if you want to compare - would you give Dark Side
Of The Moon or Power And The Glory (especially for layout)? A 20?
There are still many good things here on Tales to discover: The warm keyboard sounds swirl around you and so
the vocals do from time to time. But the real WOW-experience won't come up anyway.
I would go as far as Mr. Holland123 and give it a good 8.
(Sorry for my English - it's not my native language.)

Click to expand...

Well this is one of the mysteries of evaluating surround mixes. I don't hear the problems that you report. For me after repeated listening it's still a 10. On the other hand I have real problems with other surround mixes that are being raved about by other reviewers. XTC Drums and Wires and the recent Beat by King Crimson just don't sound well balanced. In the end the playback system and the room acoustics have a huge effect on the results...

this reinforces my "theory":
EVERYBODY hears things in a different way, and EVERY setup is different (system, room, etc.), so , what sounds GREAT to Steven will NOT sound good to many people!!!
ESPECIALLY in MCH...you think a GOOD stereo mix is difficult (Steely Dan, etc.)??? well you can multiply that by 256 (random number) if it's a MCH mix....

BTW, I LOVE this mix...
Bass shy?? Well, you know where the EQ buttons are.......

kap'n krunch said:

this reinforces my "theory":
EVERYBODY hears things in a different way, and EVERY setup is different (system, room, etc.), so , what sounds GREAT to Steven will NOT sound good to many people!!!
ESPECIALLY in MCH...you think a GOOD stereo mix is difficult (Steely Dan, etc.)??? well you can multiply that by 256 (random number) if it's a MCH mix....

BTW, I LOVE this mix...
Bass shy?? Well, you know where the EQ buttons are.......

Click to expand...

Chris Squire is loud and proud in my listening space, no sub either.

I really should absorb more of this before posting.

Real quickly, my copy (bluray disc) does not have the issues mentioned above. Such would be reason for a return as a defective disc.

I'm hearing this wild ride of an album with all the t's crossed and i's dotted in the mix. I always thought that the mix on this one got away from them a little bit due to everything from the length of the pieces to the experimental nature and a few other factors. This is a difficult comment to make on the other hand because the original mix was still magnitudes above a great many albums of the time (and since).

There are some sections where the mix went further into some materiel and some of the recorded parts that were pretty buried in the original and kind of expanded the arrangements. I imagine a few purists of the original might find something to talk about with some of that.

No fidelity issues whatsoever though. All the details of the instruments are really exposed in 5.1. Especially the bass which isn't nearly as bright/percussive in these recordings as Chris normally is. (It honestly sounds like Chris is simply a bit tentative in his playing. As though he's still experimenting with parts vs. nailing a locked down arrangement. And the sound is rounder and less punctuated than normal for him. Details that are buried throughout the original are well mixed here. The 5.1 system leaves room for a hotter level for the bass to boom and not get in the way (and thus not end up getting stepped on in the mix). Some of the tentative moments in the original mix - parts that came across as the "in-between parts" - have a solid presentation now. Probably going to give this a 9 or 10.


Aside:
I would assume that people in a forum such as this have their audio systems very well set up and dialed in.

You see all kinds of silliness from casual listeners setting up a simple stereo system wildly wrong. Speakers not equally spaced with the listening position (equilateral triangle). Not level on the same plane. Aimed at their shins instead of ear level (which results in listening to the 4th or 5th reflections off the walls/floor/ceiling instead of the direct sound of the recording). I've seen people literally place two speakers next to each other and then shin level. Then they'll ask "What would be a better pair of speakers?". Answer them, "Well, something half that good but set up correctly would sound 100x better." and you get a blank stare or Dunning Kruger fueled argument.

I've seen a misconception of surround systems too. The fact that you can build a speaker managed array with small main speakers and redirect the bass content from the 5 mains to the Lfe chanel has led to the misconception that the 5.1 format is 5 high frequency only channels and then one bass channel for everything. (Of course 5.1 is 5 FULL range channels and an additional bass fx channel.) This misconception leads to incorrect speaker management (ie. bass management) settings and the listener missing all the bass content from the 5 main channels. (They might even argue with you that "Bass management alters the sound! I don't want to alter the sound!", not ever realizing that they are actually severely altering the sound by omitting most of the bass content of the recording. The Lfe channel is more often a headroom extension for music mixes and most of the bass is directed to the mains. This mix is no exception to that - most of the bass content is in the mains. It can be insidious as a 5.1 system set up wrong and wildly unbalanced can still put out a lot of sound! And it just isn't as obvious as setup mistakes with only two speakers.

So... that kind of amateur hour stuff surely isn't the case around here right?
Obviously the listening space is always a factor. But a properly setup and dialed in system should still translate a mix as intended without wild changes. You may have a limited range of volume level in a room that gets too reverberant but that won't change gross mix levels.

Or could there be a legitimate mistake with some of the discs?
Those hearing a mix with too low or no bass - are you listening to the bluray edition or the DVDA edition?

(Quote: Those hearing a mix with too low or no bass - are you listening to the bluray edition or the DVDA edition?)

Quadrophenia test was from Bluray. This one here from DVD-A (first version I held in hands this time).
Listened on measure-microphone-calibrated 6.0 system (2 fronts, 2 rears, 2 back rears, no center, no LFE).

The bass here maybe a matter of taste and could be fixed easily.
The worst thing here is the drum part (in most places).
Should this be much better on Bluray?

Overall it's a nice work and listening pleasure. But if 10 is the best note I'd rather give it to Dark Side or Tommy (1st mix).
But I'm happy like you too to get a multichannel mix of Tales after all.

(Btw. I made a fixed version of Quadrophenia for my own. The result was very satisfying. Now one can see that most things
were well done in the original 5.1 mix already. But now with the fixed faults it is just what I'm waiting for all these years:
Stormy waves all around - Bass enough to remember good old John - Strong voice of Daltry, also on the last track....)

floydflush said:

(Quote: Those hearing a mix with too low or no bass - are you listening to the bluray edition or the DVDA edition?)

Quadrophenia test was from Bluray. This one here from DVD-A (first version I held in hands this time).
Listened on measure-microphone-calibrated 6.0 system (2 fronts, 2 rears, 2 back rears, no center, no LFE).

The bass here maybe a matter of taste and could be fixed easily.
The worst thing here is the drum part (in most places).
Should this be much better on Bluray?

Overall it's a nice work and listening pleasure. But if 10 is the best note I'd rather give it to Dark Side or Tommy (1st mix).
But I'm happy like you too to get a multichannel mix of Tales after all.

(Btw. I made a fixed version of Quadrophenia for my own. The result was very satisfying. Now one can see that most things
were well done in the original 5.1 mix already. But now with the fixed faults it is just what I'm waiting for all these years:
Stormy waves all around - Bass enough to remember good old John - Strong voice of Daltry, also on the last track....)

Click to expand...

So your processing the signal to allow for two additional back speakers?

jimfisheye said:

I really should absorb more of this before posting.

Real quickly, my copy (bluray disc) does not have the issues mentioned above. Such would be reason for a return as a defective disc.

I'm hearing this wild ride of an album with all the t's crossed and i's dotted in the mix. I always thought that the mix on this one got away from them a little bit due to everything from the length of the pieces to the experimental nature and a few other factors. This is a difficult comment to make on the other hand because the original mix was still magnitudes above a great many albums of the time (and since).

There are some sections where the mix went further into some materiel and some of the recorded parts that were pretty buried in the original and kind of expanded the arrangements. I imagine a few purists of the original might find something to talk about with some of that.

No fidelity issues whatsoever though. All the details of the instruments are really exposed in 5.1. Especially the bass which isn't nearly as bright/percussive in these recordings as Chris normally is. (It honestly sounds like Chris is simply a bit tentative in his playing. As though he's still experimenting with parts vs. nailing a locked down arrangement. And the sound is rounder and less punctuated than normal for him. Details that are buried throughout the original are well mixed here. The 5.1 system leaves room for a hotter level for the bass to boom and not get in the way (and thus not end up getting stepped on in the mix). Some of the tentative moments in the original mix - parts that came across as the "in-between parts" - have a solid presentation now. Probably going to give this a 9 or 10.


Aside:
I would assume that people in a forum such as this have their audio systems very well set up and dialed in.

You see all kinds of silliness from casual listeners setting up a simple stereo system wildly wrong. Speakers not equally spaced with the listening position (equilateral triangle). Not level on the same plane. Aimed at their shins instead of ear level (which results in listening to the 4th or 5th reflections off the walls/floor/ceiling instead of the direct sound of the recording). I've seen people literally place two speakers next to each other and then shin level. Then they'll ask "What would be a better pair of speakers?". Answer them, "Well, something half that good but set up correctly would sound 100x better." and you get a blank stare or Dunning Kruger fueled argument.

I've seen a misconception of surround systems too. The fact that you can build a speaker managed array with small main speakers and redirect the bass content from the 5 mains to the Lfe chanel has led to the misconception that the 5.1 format is 5 high frequency only channels and then one bass channel for everything. (Of course 5.1 is 5 FULL range channels and an additional bass fx channel.) This misconception leads to incorrect speaker management (ie. bass management) settings and the listener missing all the bass content from the 5 main channels. (They might even argue with you that "Bass management alters the sound! I don't want to alter the sound!", not ever realizing that they are actually severely altering the sound by omitting most of the bass content of the recording. The Lfe channel is more often a headroom extension for music mixes and most of the bass is directed to the mains. This mix is no exception to that - most of the bass content is in the mains. It can be insidious as a 5.1 system set up wrong and wildly unbalanced can still put out a lot of sound! And it just isn't as obvious as setup mistakes with only two speakers.

So... that kind of amateur hour stuff surely isn't the case around here right?
Obviously the listening space is always a factor. But a properly setup and dialed in system should still translate a mix as intended without wild changes. You may have a limited range of volume level in a room that gets too reverberant but that won't change gross mix levels.

Or could there be a legitimate mistake with some of the discs?
Those hearing a mix with too low or no bass - are you listening to the bluray edition or the DVDA edition?

Click to expand...

There are parts of this mix that the majority of the bass comes from the rears, but you are correct, mostly and generally overall, the low bass is coming from the fronts.

I find that many of the quad mixes I like, the bass is at least equal in the rears and sometimes more prominent.

I have no problems with this Tales 5.1 mix bass wise. As a matter of fact, that is one of its many highlights.

(Quote: So you are processing the signal to allow for two additional back speakers?)

The amplifier manage this in order of configuration.
So you can listen to 5.1 or 7.1 layouts of films or music concert videos
and even so without further configuration to 4.0 music.
So in this case the left rear channel content comes out of the left rear speaker
AND out of the left back rear speaker.
If you have the right positions of all your four rear speakers for films, videos etc.
you get now the left rear channel content out of the middle of the two left rear speakers,
as it should be for 4.0 content - about 135 degrees out of the virtual center position.
If well calibrated this configuration sounds great.
No need for a center. A center - not as large and the same model as the front speakers - will always falsify
the sound! Center content should be configurated to the front speakers.

floydflush said:

(Quote: So you are processing the signal to allow for two additional back speakers?)

The amplifier manage this in order of configuration.
So you can listen to 5.1 or 7.1 layouts of films or music concert videos
and even so without further configuration to 4.0 music.
So in this case the left rear channel content comes out of the left rear speaker
AND out of the left back rear speaker.
If you have the right positions of all your four rear speakers for films, videos etc.
you get now the left rear channel content out of the middle of the two left rear speakers,
as it should be for 4.0 content - about 135 degrees out of the virtual center position.
If well calibrated this configuration sounds great.
No need for a center. A center - not as large and the same model as the front speakers - will always falsify
the sound! Center content should be configurated to the front speakers.

Click to expand...

The additional processing can lead to a reduction in overall quantity of bass from my personal experience.

How large are your drivers in the six speakers? Are the cabinets large enough and is the amps powerful enough to supply low frequencies? How large is your listening room? I only ask because of the results I am getting bass wise doesn't match yours and maybe there is a simple reason.

Loving the drums in the rears at around the 15 minute mark of Ritual. Boom boom!