Back on the review track here: This is a great disc. Firstly, these master tapes are never going to sound better. Most of us have heard conversions of the Q8's by some of the best converters, and frankly some of them are amazingly good, considering the source was an 8-track tape. Some of them, not so good!
Fortunately Michael Dutton swooped in to save these relic recordings from the time dumpster and now we have them in the best quality they will ever see and we will ever hear.
Face it, these recordings are not up to par with modern stuff. I judge all surround audio against things like "Kamakiriad" and "Morph the Cat". This material is not that quality, but when you crank it up you can really feel an analog groove and hear the songs like they could never be heard from that old Q8.
The surround mixes do get a but gimmicky in places, but I LOVE IT!! I'm used to it, so when the guitar bounces from speaker to speaker, or the background chorus does the same, it's fine with me. And it's not overdone. Some tunes are just standard mixing.
Some of these tunes are burned out in my head. I love them of course, but I've heard them so many times that I really can't enjoy them the way I once did. Sure, it's great to hear them revitalized, but after a few times I skip and go to the stuff I never player that much. For instance, I really am liking hearing "Three More Days" turned up real loud. Some serious panning going on in there. I also like to crank "Coming Down Off the Money Bag" and "Moan for You Joe". These are tunes that never got airplay so they're still a bit fresh in my brain cells, and they sound great here.
So, for me, this is a 10. It's not DSOTM, It's not "Morph the Cat" - it's not supposed to be. As I've said a hundred times here in the forum, the votes are not a competition. This disc is great, is sounds great, the tunes are great, and it's an incredible value. How can it not be a '10'?
One more thing. I, er We, really should thank our lucky stars that Micheal Dutton exists on this Earth. If it were not for him, all of these amazingly great quadraphonic albums that he's released would have been lost in time, the only signs of their once existence being crude conversions of 50 year old tapes and LPs, put together on desktop computers by fans of varying skill sets.
How this all came about is probably an interesting story that should be told sometime, but we have the proof in our collections, cracked jewel cases and all, that Dutton-Vocalion is doing more to rescue quad recordings from the graveyard of forgotten material than any other company in the world.
Bar None!
Thank You Micheal. And I really mean that.