Only have the DTS DVD version here, as a friend has bought the first 4 as the SACD/DVD double pack, and we sort of split the costs between us as he prefers the SACD and I only wanted the DTS DVD myself.
Anyway.
Voted a 6 from me.
Why?
The mix is not too bad at all, and there are some great moments and some lovely panning going on here.
However, I find there is little in the way of real dynamics going on - it sounds
heavily compressed and everything seems to be all at the same level from track to track, with no light & shade at all. The mix sounds a little on the brittle side as well.
Visually, these discs are nothing special at all - when I fired it up, the little intro with the silent movie (presumably a pun on Mute records) made me
expect something more than a single shot of a tannoy array for the entire album. I mean, the shot is exactly the same throughout the whole album! not massively original, guys!
When all is said & done, I remain to be convinced about this album. It is almost certainly one that will grow on you the more you play it, but it is actually quite tedious at first play. The overcompression and the obvious use of some pretty heavy brickwall limiting makes it tiring to listen to as well, so it becomes a case of whether or not you will play it enough to get used to it. I really, really hope that this trend towards making multichannel releases as heavily slammed as Redbook CD is STOPS. Soon. 2 channels with the average levels in the area of -8dB and even less is harsh enough, but with 5 channels all like this, it sinply makes me want to reach for the "off" button.
In summary, this one can be chalked up to yet another disc ruined in the mastering, with the dreadful tendency to make things far too hot. High Resolution was supposed to be about dynamics, and subtlety being brought out. However, this has just not happened.