Are Dutton Vocalion Surround Sound SACDs "Improperly Mastered"?

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Bill Mac

Active Member
Joined
Jun 3, 2015
Messages
54
I recently ordered several Dutton Vocalion SACDS from Return To Forever, Alice Coltrane & Carlos Santana and Pure Prairie League. I just read a post (linked below) from a member over at AVS that claims there is no content below 80Hz on DV SACDs from Mancini, Floyd Cramer, Stokowski and Hugo Montenegro. Is this true? He also feels DV is mastering their multichannel music improperly. Are there any QQ members that are finding this as well?

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/112-s...11666-dutton-vocalion-sacds.html#post54628462

Bill
 
I recently ordered several Dutton Vocalion SACDS from Return To Forever, Alice Coltrane & Carlos Santana and Pure Prairie League. I just read a post (linked below) from a member over at AVS that claims there is no content below 80Hz on DV SACDs from Mancini, Floyd Cramer, Stokowski and Hugo Montenegro. Is this true? He also feels DV is mastering their multichannel music improperly. Are there any QQ members that are finding this as well?

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/112-s...11666-dutton-vocalion-sacds.html#post54628462

Bill

The guy is complaining about lack of sub channel...guess he doesn't understand the concept of 4.0. He's probably using satellites w/o bass management
 
I have enjoyed all of the DV discs I have purchased. I find no lack of bass and I can say that the titles have never sounded better. I am 100% happy with them.
 
The guy is complaining about lack of sub channel...guess he doesn't understand the concept of 4.0. He's probably using satellites w/o bass management
Not sure if you read the posts that I linked but the OP posted "There is almost nothing below 80Hz. I had bass management turned on and I tried boosting the level of my sub to +16dB." I have many 4.0 quad discs and have bass management set for 80Hz and get plenty of bass from my subs. I'm hoping that there isn't an issue with bass on the Dutton Vocalion SACDs I ordered.

Bill
 
I have enjoyed all of the DV discs I have purchased. I find no lack of bass and I can say that the titles have never sounded better. I am 100% happy with them.
Bob,

Thanks for your thoughts! So you are getting plenty of output from your sub(s) with the DV quad SACDs?

Bill
 
WTF!!??

I have to read this at AVS Forum?

I posted about it to Quadraphonic Quad and another person replied posting a frequency spectrum chart showing one of the songs with almost no content below 80Hz. The moderators deleted both of our posts and sent me a PM saying that I wasn't allowed to post on the subject. I think they have some sort of business relationship with the label. That's why I'm posting here, not there.

Can someone explain to me WHY threads are being deleted? Have they been deleted? What is going on here. Someone better have a good explanation or the shit is going to hit the fan. I am totally pissed.
 
These disks sound fine to me, but I haven't done a frequency analysis on any of them.

Note that some AVRs will not bass manage low frequencies from non-LFE channels if the LFE is present - even if bass management is turned on. I had an old Denon AVR in an office system that didn't have full range speakers that had this problem. I had to set the oppo to small speakers so it would do the bass management before sending the signal to the AVR.
 
My experience is no, the Dutton Vocalion Surround Sound SACDs are not "improperly mastered"
 
Here is a very quick look at STEREO Track 3 from the Fiedler Greatest Hits of the 70s 2-fer SACD in MusicScope.

I see no lack of lows - unless I am not reading this correctly.

MeandJulioStereo.jpg
 
This guy is a lunatic, and the exchange that he's referring to happened nearly 18 months ago.

No threads were deleted here, posts were modded out of the thread we're posting in now because the mods felt that this guy's baseless assertions were off-topic for this thread, I guess.

I was the one that posted the frequency charts, and they weren't to show that he was correct, they were to show that he was INCORRECT. My recollection is that he still refused to believe the science and continued with his inflammatory remarks at which point the thread was cleaned out, my posts included.

Not sure why he's suddenly picking this up again now - or how much bass response he expects from a circa 1969 Henry Mancini album.

Just for the record, for anyone external reading this - QQ has no 'business relationship' with Dutton-Vocalion, they just support surround sound music - of which D-V's reissues are amongst the best, contrary to what this guy continues to say. I'm not sure what his vendetta is exactly - if he had a problem with the product he could have surely contacted the label himself to voice his concerns and/or ask for a refund if the products were defective.
 
The guy is complaining about lack of sub channel...guess he doesn't understand the concept of 4.0. He's probably using satellites w/o bass management

He also says that he hasn't heard the original releases of these albums in 4 Channel Surround Sound.
Which indicates that it would be hard for him to make a judgement on how the new Surround Sound SACDs from Dutton Vocalion compare to the original editions on CD-4 LP, SQ Matrix LP, Quad 8 Tape and Quad Reel Tape.

The good news is that many of the members of QQ Forum do own these albums in both their original releases from the '70s Quad Era and the newer Dutton Vocalion Surround SACDs.
Based on QQ member comments and ratings of the new Dutton Vocalion Surround SACDs (see link below), the overwhelming consensus from QQ listeners is that the new SACDs sound better.
That's my experience as well. The Surround SACDs definitely sound better.
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...Poll-Links-for-Dutton-Vocalion-Surround-SACDs
 
Thanks Brian and Dave,

I go a little nuts when people infer that I am taking money from anyone for anything. I have never taken a DIME from QuadroSurround, Rhino, Dutton, AF, Music Valet, Involve, or anyone that we've supported here at QQ. We support EVERYONE that brings us surround music. Everyone. I never wanted this website to make a penny in profit because I don't want that tax hassle.

When shit like this gets called to my attention, I tend to over react.

NOTE: Please don't "Clean up" these posts, as I want my position to be heard and understood, even 6 months from now.
 
Thank you all for posting your thoughts! It is unfortunate that the member over at AVS posted such information that is obviously false and misleading. Again thank you steelydave for clarifying this!

Bill
 
I have enjoyed all of the DV discs I have purchased. I find no lack of bass and I can say that the titles have never sounded better. I am 100% happy with them.

I agree with Bob 100% on the bass and sound quality.

An observation.
Sound quality can vary from album to album.

Taking Hugo Montenegro for an example, the albums "Love Theme From The Godfather" and "Scenes and Themes" sound a bit thin and frequency limited to me compared to his other albums (Neil's Diamonds, Hugo In Wonderland, Others by Brothers, The Good Bad & Ugly) in Surround SACD. But that was the case with the original 4 Channel Quad editions of these albums as well.

He doesn't mention which albums the "improper mastering" comment relates to.
So it's hard to judge if that isn't part of the equation here.
 
WTF!!??

I have to read this at AVS Forum?

I posted about it to Quadraphonic Quad and another person replied posting a frequency spectrum chart showing one of the songs with almost no content below 80Hz. The moderators deleted both of our posts and sent me a PM saying that I wasn't allowed to post on the subject. I think they have some sort of business relationship with the label. That's why I'm posting here, not there.

Can someone explain to me WHY threads are being deleted? Have they been deleted? What is going on here. Someone better have a good explanation or the shit is going to hit the fan. I am totally pissed.

That's news to me.

I haven't seen any posts (or threads) on QQ Forum or the Dutton Vocalion section about frequency spectrum charts below 80Hz.
I think that would make for an interesting conversation. As we are now having. :)
 
I have to admit that, although I have ordered almost every Dutton surround SACD, I have not critically listened to every one of them. Of the one's that I have listened to, I did not notice any imperfections including loudness, lack of lows, excessive EQ, smiley facing, or anything that hit me over the head.

To me, they sound fantastic, and the opportunity to hear this music in real quad again is a special treat, unbelievable in many ways, and even though most are not the "dream quad titles" we would all love to see, it's a great effort and a great program and obviously a labor of love for Dutton-Vocalion and we as a community should be thankful to them.

That being said, if there really are deficiencies now or at some point, I expect every member here to feel free to bring them up without fear of being deleted or reprimanded, as long as the deficiency is real and can be demonstrated.

We are here for the good, and the bad, and that's what we should talk about.
 
That's news to me.

I haven't seen any posts (or threads) on QQ Forum or the Dutton Vocalion section about frequency spectrum charts below 80Hz.
I think that would make for an interesting conversation. As we are now having. :)

I don't know what that guy is talking about.

What I'd like to see now is people post their spectrum charts in this thread (or a dedicated thread) of the Dutton SACDs.
Might make an interesting thread Brian.
 
I can only think he might be referring to one of two pics? Dave posted one and I posted another pic of the waveforms of a track off one of the Montenegro SACDs, erroneously showing content in the LFE channel (I say erroneously because I had my SACD player's MultiCh analogue outs hooked up to the Motu at that time and had the player's Speaker Config set to "Small" with 80hz crossover, so the DV disc which was authored as 4.0 was incorrectly showing up on the computer as 4.1.)
once I had it pointed out to me where I was going wrong, I retracted it.. though to be fair it did show there IS low bass content below 80hz on that disc (if there wasn't the LFE channel would have been empty/silent!) so maybe wasn't so dumb a move after all, even though it was by complete accident.. but that guy wound me up so much I ended up having a go at him and said something, well one thing, which I regret.. at the time iirc Tim dealt with it swiftly, not shutting down anything or deleting any thread but by removing inappropriate stuff (basically the crap with me and him arguing about nothing!) I guess you could say having a word with me and the other chap, knocking our heads together did the trick!
 
I don't know what that guy is talking about.

What I'd like to see now is people post their spectrum charts in this thread (or a dedicated thread) of the Dutton SACDs.
Might make an interesting thread Brian.

By all means. Bring on the charts and analysis. :)
 
Didn't anyone ever hear of boosting the bass on some of these older QUAD releases. What's the big deal? Who said one has to listen to all their albums flat [meaning no added EQ]?:yikes
 
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