HiRez Poll Carpenter, Mary Chapin - TIME SEX LOVE [SACD]

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Rate the SACD of Mary Chapin Carpenter - TIME SEX LOVE

  • 7:

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 6:

    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: Bad Mix, Bad Sonics, Bad Content

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    22

JonUrban

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Please post your thoughts and comments on this title...(y) :phones (n)
 
Still one of my favorite surround sound discs. The mix is interesting but not overbaring. The songs are some of her best and the sound quality is very good as well. If you like folk/country/pop you should check this out.
 
I picked up a few used single layer SACD's recently and this was among them. The surround mix is excellent and fidelity is fine. This one is a real surprise for me, I knew nothing about it really before purchase and only bought it because I knew this woman is a wonderful singer.

Chris
 
Saw this in a Best Buy last week, I will have to go pick it up. Thanks for the update, Chris!

As long as you aren't expecting a country sound, I am happy to recommend this one. It is more pop/folk than country in my opinion. I assume this is a serious meaningful album to Ms. Carpenter so I am going to try and find some information about it. My guess before reading is that it took her a long time but I don't have a clue until I read if it was a success commercially. Great albums in my opinion are often not much in terms of chart success. My bet is not one hit was contained on the album, nothing rings a bell for me but I don't listen to country music radio often. I can't decide whether to vote 8 or 9, so I am waiting to cast my vote.

Chris
 
Does anybody's copy play until just after the first verse in track 3 and then jump to track 4 ?

Mine does. I wonder if it's my Pioneer 588A pulling a 'Heathen'. :)
 
Does anybody's copy play until just after the first verse in track 3 and then jump to track 4 ?

Mine does. I wonder if it's my Pioneer 588A pulling a 'Heathen'. :)

Playing it now using a Samsung DVD-HD950 and it plays through track 3 and to track 4 just fine. I have a Pioneer DV-588A among my fleet of back up players but it is too difficult to get to right now. If I am able to remember, I will try it at some future date. I really need to just sell that one and several others since my gut feeling that affordable SACD and DVD-A players would soon be a thing of the past a few years ago has proven to be as on target as any of my other psychic predictions, way off the mark. Take it from me, nothing supernatural is real and certainly not my ability to predict future events.

My current prediction is your Pioneer DV-588A is malfunctioning and a replacement, cleaning or repair is in your future. My recommendation, replacement. Take that for what it is worth based on my history of psychic inability.

Chris
 
My current prediction is your Pioneer DV-588A is malfunctioning and a replacement, cleaning or repair is in your future. My recommendation, replacement. Take that for what it is worth based on my history of psychic inability.

Chris


It only cost me $150 5 or 6 years ago... I sure would like an OPPO, the SE would be nice.
 
George Massenberg did a great job on this disc.

I told him so, and he expressed surprise that anyone had heard it, especially the surround layer. The music is an undiscovered gem.
 
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Didn't even realise this was released on SACD, how's that for marketing!
 
haha! well I was only 11 years late to the party on this one.. so that makes (at least!) two of us, Oxford Dickie..!! :D

it's why I'm so thankful Jon has added a good few of these long OOP Sony/Epic/Columbia single layer multichannel SACDs to the Hi-Rez QQ Polls, I'm hopeful this will at the very least draw attention to their existence!

I'm now taking pix of my discs and adding them to these threads, so guys on here know what to look for, if they don't have them already, or are still hunting them down til they can find them cheap.

there are so many of these titles that just came and went with little to no fanfare and most of them are well worth seeking out.

this one regularly goes for about ÂŁ40 now but I reckon it's worth it. the mix is nice, the sound quality is great and the album itself is lovely, her voice in particular is heavenly!
 
A fine singer-songwriter with quite a bit of musical accompaniment. Country-twinged, but not country. MCC has a nice voice that can be quite emotive, especially in the softer passages.

Good sounding SACD. The surround effect is a solid improvement over stereo, the mix isn't generally that aggressive although it is aggressive at times (as in track 5). Songs that jumped out at me were #6 "What Was it Like" and #10 "The Dreaming Road". Incidentally, my Oppo does the 3 to 4 skip too. At least, it did it today.

This is another SACD I purchased for my wife, who had the CD already and is a fan. I haven't seen her playing it much, but if I threw this on for her sometime I could definitely see her getting back into it. I will likely play other female vocalists before I play this again, maybe just because they already have me hooked -- but this one is no slouch. An 8 vote seems appropriate.

Mark Z
 
Would never tap into this one if there wasn't a surround version. The album is really cohesive and a half of it works as standout tracks for me. Mixed by George Massenburg (Lyle Lovett, Randy Newman, Linda Ronstadt), who recorded and mixed the original CD, the surround version is absolutely what each song asked for. Nothing agressive or spectacular, yet effective and heartfelt. Fave tracks: Whenever You're Ready, Maybe World, What Was It Like and The Dreaming Road. Overall, a solid 8.
 
Does anybody's copy play until just after the first verse in track 3 and then jump to track 4 ?

Mine does. I wonder if it's my Pioneer 588A pulling a 'Heathen'. :)

FYI - Just a theory - Both this disc and Heathen are (non hybrid) dual-layer SACDs. Therefore I suspect that the issue is with your player incorrectly handling the layer change.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Audio_CD#Technology

Mine plays fine in my Oppo.
 
Good music and a fair mix, not bad for country mix. Enjoyable. I vote 8.
 
It's funny, after so many years of this hobby, I sometimes think, well I guess the novelty has worn off and I still love surround sound, but it's not the mind-blowing experience it was when I started out.

Then once in a while, an album comes around that simply has fantastic music and a fantastic mix, and I'm all excited again. I didn't like this one at all at first listen, thought it was too quiet and solemn, too few rocky songs, and somehow the country-ish vibe didn't sit right with me. After repeated listens, though, I've come to appreciate this as one of those just-after-sundown albums. It fits right into that evening onset melancholy, a phase in my day where I'm at my most creatively productive, and it weaves an incomparable mood.

The sound quality is completely beyond reproach. Perfect balance.

As I mentioned, the songs range from soft-rocky (a handful) to hauntingly understated (most). The mix complements them perfectly. There's not always a *lot* going on in the rears, but even in the quiet and sparsely arranged songs, the rears are always *there* and they always augment the experience perfectly. The real killer here, though, is Chapin Carpenter's isolated vocals in the centre channel. In e.g. "Someone Else's Prayer" or "The Dreaming Road", it's like she's RIGHT there. She's a kickass singer and songwriter, and with this presentation, her songs just grab you and won't let you go. Goosebumps.

I find this disc to be a very special experience that, funnily enough, with over 1,000 titles in my collection, not many other albums can create. I'm giving it a straight-up 10.
 
I have revisited this release after posting a song by Mary on the 10,000 members thread.
Basically 'The BRight Side' sums it up to perfection.
She has a fantastic voice and it is truly tested here in this delightful selection of songs.
Yes its not overly discrete but for me the production and mix completely suits the mood and the music.
For her voice alone I will give this a 9
 
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Going with a "9". @The Bright Side's review is absolutely spot-on!

This isn't the kind of surround mix where you can mute the rears and lose half the instrumentation, but there are important elements back there on every track - percussion, strings, backing vocals, and rhythm guitars. Surround highlights include "Maybe World" (backing vocals are all over the room) and "What Was It Like" (different string parts isolated in each rear speaker).

I agree that what really makes makes this mix special is the isolated center vocals - George Massenburg absolutely nailed the balance here. It's a cliche, but it really does feel like she's right there in the room. The image between the front three speakers is absolutely seamless - I never once felt the need to adjust the volume of the center channel, which is something I can't say for many 5.1 mixes that utilize this technique.

The other cool thing about this disc is the very quiet mastering - you have to really crank it to appreciate the sound, and it never becomes fatiguing.

"Simple Life":
Simple Life.jpg

"What Was It Like":
What Was It Like.jpg
 
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