S
shark42
Guest
Well, I finally got a copy (they were late showing up here in Canada, supposedly cuz of some war thing holding up stuff at the border... dunno).
Anyway, very preliminary response: it's really, really lovely. The piano sound alone is worth the purchase price.
I've been spending the last half hour or so A/Bing the mix with the Parsons Quad mix (I have it as a DTS CD thanks to some blessed soul) and there are a whole slew of differences. First of all, as has been mentioned by others, the SACD mix is quite quad-ish. The center stage is very wide, with some Bass and voclaization coming from above my TV, but not much else. Switching back and forth hardly collapses the sound into dead center - a plus, I'd say. I find it a bit distracting in 5.1 SACD mixes like Billy Joel's Stranger how the center flip flops song to song as the bastion of the vocal track.
Great Gig in the Sky is probably the best showcase of what frankly amounts to different mix philosopies. The treatment of the vocals is very different, with the Parsons quad mix using FL/RS to create a strange, sonic angle for the singing, while the Guthrie mix uses a much more conservative front soundstage for her soaring vocals. Flipping back and forth, I liked, frankly, both!
The SACD is certainly better in terms of fidelity, but I generally love that I have both versions, two very different takes on a classic album. It's a really cool way of showing off the role of the mastering/mixing engineer, demonstration just how they shape the final sound based on their own proclivities (well, of course, the band has some input...
Further analysis to come, but thought I'd quickly note that the twin discs are definitely fun to have!
Anyway, very preliminary response: it's really, really lovely. The piano sound alone is worth the purchase price.
I've been spending the last half hour or so A/Bing the mix with the Parsons Quad mix (I have it as a DTS CD thanks to some blessed soul) and there are a whole slew of differences. First of all, as has been mentioned by others, the SACD mix is quite quad-ish. The center stage is very wide, with some Bass and voclaization coming from above my TV, but not much else. Switching back and forth hardly collapses the sound into dead center - a plus, I'd say. I find it a bit distracting in 5.1 SACD mixes like Billy Joel's Stranger how the center flip flops song to song as the bastion of the vocal track.
Great Gig in the Sky is probably the best showcase of what frankly amounts to different mix philosopies. The treatment of the vocals is very different, with the Parsons quad mix using FL/RS to create a strange, sonic angle for the singing, while the Guthrie mix uses a much more conservative front soundstage for her soaring vocals. Flipping back and forth, I liked, frankly, both!
The SACD is certainly better in terms of fidelity, but I generally love that I have both versions, two very different takes on a classic album. It's a really cool way of showing off the role of the mastering/mixing engineer, demonstration just how they shape the final sound based on their own proclivities (well, of course, the band has some input...
Further analysis to come, but thought I'd quickly note that the twin discs are definitely fun to have!