HiRez Poll Roxy Music - AVALON [SACD]

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Rate the SACD of Roxy Music - AVALON


  • Total voters
    181

JonUrban

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While I wish the drums were in the fronts rather than the center channel, this disc is superb. Great surround showcase. Musically, 10, mix 9. Overall 9.
 
Wonderful! Even on the "India" track they managed to overcome the loss of multitrack masters with a nice trick. Fantastic sonic too. Where's "Manifesto"?
 
Not bad in stereo. Very good in fact. Quite good in surround even if this mix originates from 16 / 48 PCM backup tapes.
The mix doesn't seem to be as inventive as it might have been though. That said, it's by far and a way the best version of a damned good album I've heard. Buy with confidence.
 
Roxy’s best and most fully-realized album is lovingly crafted in 5.1 by the same folks who originally produced/engineered. One of my favorite non-Elliot Scheiner mixes. It washes over the room with warmth and grace, and works wonders as a convincing demo disk for listeners steeped in this musical era. Even includes a bonus track. A 10 all the way.
 
bugdaddy said:
Roxy’s best and most fully-realized album is lovingly crafted in 5.1 by the same folks who originally produced/engineered. One of my favorite non-Elliot Scheiner mixes. It washes over the room with warmth and grace, and works wonders as a convincing demo disk for listeners steeped in this musical era. Even includes a bonus track. A 10 all the way.

I second everything you have said here. Although the use of various channels for the source of instruments and such is not realistic as far as a live setting would be, this disc is a showcase for how MCh can sound great and be entertaining with the use of the surround channels. You can virtually "see" the drum hits on this disc. Very engaging disc, my bias to the material aside, this disc has to me a more realistic warm sound than say DSOTM, which is very good but seems a little detached and cold for my tastes. So far this is my favorite SACD recording, hopefully we will have many more titles to come to challenge the position I place this disc in. :)

The CD layer on this disc is excellent as well. It shows what can be done when using the DSD master for the Redbook version.
 
I love this disk. I bought it completely unknowing what kind of music it was. Fantastic disk. I rated it an 8 but really should be a 9. I would rank this as one of my favorite multichannel disks already.
 
keenan said:
Although the use of various channels for the source of instruments and such is not realistic as far as a live setting would be.
If that's what you're looking for, you've come to the wrong place! ;)
 
Not a big fan of the music, but it was better than i expected it to be. Very good surround mix, so i am sure that helped my enjoyment of it. I gave it an 8. Glad to own it. :)
 
I'm not a big Roxy Music fan, I had a room mate once that over played them, but time wounds all heals and twenty years latter I'm happy to have it in my collection. Great sound and good surround mix, a solid 8.
 
A favorite album from the 80's presented in a sublime and musical manner. Light on hype and long on mood and musicianship this surround version is simply a delight to immerse yourself in, one of my favorite 5.1 presentations.
 
I barely paid any attention to this group in the 80's, what I saw on MTV was all I know, and that wasn't much. The fact this was the only disc in the QQ Hall of Fame I didn't own meant I had to track it down. I found it hiding at Buy.com:

http://www.buy.com/prod/Avalon_Bonus_Tracks/q/loc/109/60617709.html

With no mention of SACD and as with the other dozen SACD's/DVD-A's I have picked up there recently hiding, I was delighted to see I was right. Price delivered was about $9. Since I hate buying and rebuying albums, I am sure glad I waited for this music to be presented in this manner. Perfect in all respects, one of my very favorite 80's albums already, I can't vote anything other than 10. My disc says made in Holland, not sure if all are.

Chris
 
Avalon has been listed as one of the top sellers on www.sa-cd.net for a long time and with good reason. This music is meant for multichannel. The music is very typical mid-80 adult pop music.
I will give a 9, but that is only because I think some contemporary recorded SACDs delivers better fidelity.
 
This was one of the first hi-rez MC discs I picked up (and it helped convince me that it was time to start buying MC SACDs/DVD-As en masse before they were gone) but for some reason I never voted on Avalon. This one gets a strong 9 from me. I love the lushness of the music and the multichannel mix accentuates that. This is one of my unwind with the lights out discs. Great stuff.
 
This is the kind of record that I appreciate way more now that I'm in my 40's, and am able to appreciate laid back, luscious sounds... :smokin:smokin:smokin

Don't get me wrong, I used to play "Avalon" in my WRPC-FM shifts in the mid 80's,

and when I listened to the SACD in its entirety this weekend, I recognized a couple of songs they used to play on WYSP-FM or WMMR-FM in Philly -"The space between" & "Take a chance with me"-, way back when I was at Temple U in 82-83, so cool memories were jolted out of cold storage (one of the MAIN purposes of music, goosebumps!!!), back then I didn't recognize the group...

"Extended Stereo" mix, :phones
but,
panning was very tastefully done; and as Bob C or Rhett D pointed out , this needed some extra time to capture the gist of the music and translating it into an MC mix.

Which brings me to one of my Rec. Eng. mottoes, "Anyone can record, but mixing is an ART"

On a lighter Astrological note, my girl was amused when I told her that I bet that Mr. Ferry is a Libra because of the "r e l a x i n g..." music, lyrics and cover layout...
With Libra men it's a double edged sword because this "Libra-ness" can translate into "Wet noodle-ness" , although I'd go on record stating this is not the case here...but almost :D (on the other hand we have Libras who are REAL PARTY ANIMALS and do not look like so, e.g. the FATHER of all Rock bass players, the Ox),

Kudos for the gimmick roudabout panning of the ONLY song ("India") that they didn't have the Multis to...

So, overall an enthusiastic 10!
 
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