DVD/DTS Poll Oldfield, Mike - FIVE MILES OUT [DTS/DD DVD+2CD]

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Rate the DTS DVD-V of Mike Oldfield - FIVE MILES OUT

  • 10: Great Content, Surround Mix, and Fidelity

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 5

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 4

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 3

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 2

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1: Poor Content, Surround Mix, and Fidelity

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    11

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Please post your thoughts and comments on this 2013 reissue of the Mike Oldfield album "Five Miles Out", featuring a 5.1 surround mix of the album on DVD-V.

(n) :) (y)

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Oo, goody. I get to be first in a poll. Unless somebody is typing faster. :confused:

This is one of my favorite MO albums. 2.5 points for content. I really like the songs. I can tolerate MO's singing, but he honestly should have hired a male vocalist.

Minus a point for DVD-V only. Mix is great, so full points there. Package is a great value, so full points there.

That leaves me hovering somewhere between 8 and 9. I think I'll go with 8, just to leave some headroom for the exceptionally impressive albums.
I REALLY like this album and the DTS mix.
 
With the poll just having been put up I decided to pull it out for a listen. Hadn't heard it in ages and couldn't really remember what I though of the 5.1 mix.

If you know the original stereo mix then you're in for a bit of a shock. There is a lot here that is quite different. Things that were once very low in the mix are now very prominent. In other places things that had once been high in the mix are barely audible. Effects are different too. For example, the vocals at the end of "Orabidoo" were originally drenched in reverb. They are now very dry here. In some places these new approaches worked for me but it many they didn't. (This is an album I'm very familiar with so the liberties that Mike took with the new mix do stand out for me.) The most shockingly different song is "Family Man." The first thing you notice is that the drum kit kicks in immediately. On the original version, it doesn't kick in until after the first chorus. But even acknowledging that, something still felt very off to me. I did an A/B comparison to the RBCD (which thankfully is the original mix) and found that the 5.1 of "Family Man" is slower and therefore at a lower pitch. (The original stereo mix is in the key of F minor, the 5.1 mix is in E minor.) So overall, the song just feels like it lacks the power and punch of the original and I couldn't really enjoy it.

As for the 5.1 mix, much of it has a subtle but effective use of the rears. There are other places though ("Orabidoo" and "Mount Teidi") where the rears have some nice discrete stuff going on. A section of 'Orabidoo" where a motif is passed around among various keyboard instruments is a standout moment of the mix.

Tough to come up with an overall rating. I've always loved the album so I give it top marks for the music. However, the mix isn't just different, it's often clumsy. It does have some stellar moments though. But given the awkwardness of the mix, the lack of a lossless option, and especially the slower tempo/lower pitch of "Family Man", I feel that the best I can rate it is a 7. It pains me to rate it that low as the album is a treasured piece of my youth, but I can't see myself giving it too many more spins given all of the above issues. :(


I will also mention on a personal note.... Oldfield has rarely ever performed in the United States. If my count is correct, he has only played nine concerts in the USA in his entire career. All but two of them were done in promotion of this album in 1982. I was lucky enough to catch one of them, in Boston. I was 16 and it was my first time ever making a roadtrip out of state for a concert. The show was amazing. One of the best I've ever seen.
 
I like the way the stereo mix was not apparently even referenced but a completely new mix created kind of fun a strong 8 as it is one of my favourite Mike O albums
 
I listened to the CD for the last couple days to get familiar with the music; after a couple listens to the surround mix, I can say I like the mix better in 5.1 than in stereo (I can also see how anyone familiar with the stereo might notice big differences... no problem for me, though). Lots of discrete activity in the rears; fidelity sounds really good... and so far, this is my favorite Mike Oldfield album (over the other two I've heard, Tubular Bells and Hergest Ridge). 9.
 
I listened to the CD for the last couple days to get familiar with the music; after a couple listens to the surround mix, I can say I like the mix better in 5.1 than in stereo (I can also see how anyone familiar with the stereo might notice big differences... no problem for me, though). Lots of discrete activity in the rears; fidelity sounds really good... and so far, this is my favorite Mike Oldfield album (over the other two I've heard, Tubular Bells and Hergest Ridge). 9.

Gotta try Ommadawn then!
 
On the disc I got, in 5.1, the beautiful intro to Orabidoo was completely missing. It was there in the new stereo mix and old stereo mix. Such a shattering error, it's been sent back.

Jem.
 
On the disc I got, in 5.1, the beautiful intro to Orabidoo was completely missing. It was there in the new stereo mix and old stereo mix. Such a shattering error, it's been sent back.

Jem.

Yes Mike does seem to have taken a totally revisionary take on the 5.1 s very Marmite approach

I quite like it but also find the albums I know more a little frustrating. Though I do like 5 miles mix quite interesting
 
I've been sitting on my deluxe copy for the last four 4 years having totally ignored the 5.1 mix, but that was until I read this thread late last night. So I dug out my copy today and span the DVD disc for the first time this afternoon on my underused 5.1 system... yep, its certainly a thing of beauty and casts a completely different light and opened my eyes on an album I've known for 35 years. Its encouraged me to dig out all of my other Mercury re-released Oldfield back catalogue and I can't believe what I've been missing... 8/10 for me (y)
 
I've been sitting on my deluxe copy for the last four 4 years having totally ignored the 5.1 mix, but that was until I read this thread late last night. So I dug out my copy today and span the DVD disc for the first time this afternoon on my underused 5.1 system... yep, its certainly a thing of beauty and casts a completely different light and opened my eyes on an album I've known for 35 years. Its encouraged me to dig out all of my other Mercury re-released Oldfield back catalogue and I can't believe what I've been missing... 8/10 for me (y)

Awesome, and welcome! :51banana:
 
I second everyone : the 5.1 mix is just a different album. Family Man misses the punch. Mike Olfield replaced in Five Mile Out the fairlight samples of his guitars (à la Jarre, with Marcus Miller) with his real guitars. I think we loose something in the process going for the obvious. Also, when I compare with some well produced SACDs (like Blow by Blow), the sounds is welll, weaker than the stereo CD.
I am a fan, I still have in that box the CD remastered I like a lot, I give it a 7.
 
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This is one of my top three Mike Oldfield albums, and I was finally able to find a "reasonable" copy to purchase. I have to say that it was a disappointment. Mike did some serious reinventing with the mix of this. My feelings are, if you are going to mess with the original, make it better, like Bruce Soord has done several times with his early The Pineapple Thief material. While there is some interesting surround elements, especially in "Orabidoo" and "Mount Teidi", I found that most of the new changes were for the worse. "Taurus II" sounded muddy, throughout, but Maggie Reilly's vocals near the end were buried so far down in the mix, it sounded like a mistake. Same for certain parts of "Orabidoo". And "Family Man" was just a mess. As a whole, I LOVE the music. Hate the mix. I think this is the only surround mix, that I prefer the stereo version better.
 
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