Rick Wakeman - Six Wives and Arthur

[privateuniverse]

Mine finally just arrived as well. First time I ever heard myself complaining that the rear channels were too loud! Having said that, these both have some really nice moments and I never even noticed any vinyl surface noise that others have mentioned. Really wish they could have put some video on the Arthur disc since there is footage of the legendary King Arthur on Ice concert.

 

[JonUrban]

I just got off the phone with Neil and will post the polls with the proper source information for both titles directly. Thanks for your patience, There has been too much misinformation floating about on these two releases (Six Wives and Myths and Legends) and all of it will be settled officially by the label when I post the polls.

This is a very unusual situation, to say the least. It's not often that hobby conversions get mentioned when an official release hits the market.

 

[JonUrban]

Polls are now up on these two titles and the first post describes the accurate source of the quadraphonic mixes used for these releases. Everything else is just rumor and false information, as the included information was verified by Universal Europe and Neil Wilkes who created the DVD-A discs.

https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...HS-AND-LEGENDS-OF-KING-ARTHUR-AND-THE-KNIGHTS

https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...Wakeman-Rick-SIX-WIVES-OF-HENRY-THE-VII-DVD-A

 

[stormchaser]

I'm having problems finding Six Wives (the one I'll likely purchase) at a reasonable price. Am I missing an obvious place?

 

[rtbluray]

I'm having problems finding Six Wives (the one I'll likely purchase) at a reasonable price. Am I missing an obvious place?

Well what's "reasonable"?

How about Burning Shed? https://www.burningshed.com/store/progressive/product/494/6335/

 

[stormchaser]

Well what's "reasonable"?

How about Burning Shed? https://www.burningshed.com/store/progressive/product/494/6335/

That'll do it. Thanks!

 

[ArmyOfQuad]

Nope, sorry, absolutely not buying that the Six Wives DVD-A was sourced from a master. Not unless they mean a master sourced from vinyl. Either someone is mistaken, or the wrong disc was duplicated. The DVD-A I purchased is definitely an SQ software decoded source. Will be showing work and posting a video review this weekend.

 

[JonUrban]

Nope, sorry, absolutely not buying that the Six Wives DVD-A was sourced from a master. Not unless they mean a master sourced from vinyl. Either someone is mistaken, or the wrong disc was duplicated. The DVD-A I purchased is definitely an SQ software decoded source. Will be showing work and posting a video review this weekend.

Jonathan,

I haven't heard the official disc yet, so I can't speak from listening experience. I am only posting what I was told by Neil and Universal. Neil can chime in here whenever he likes, he's got the cred to speak to the issue.

 

[Owen Smith]

Nope, sorry, absolutely not buying that the Six Wives DVD-A was sourced from a master. Not unless they mean a master sourced from vinyl. Either someone is mistaken, or the wrong disc was duplicated. The DVD-A I purchased is definitely an SQ software decoded source. Will be showing work and posting a video review this weekend.

I agree, there's vinyl surface noise.

 

[Owen Smith]

I do not believe this quad is sourced from the quad master tapes. There is vinyl surface noise, it's quiet but it's there. So much misleading and contradictory information has been attributed to or posted by Neil on the subject of these releases that the only thing I trust is my ears.

 

[Owen Smith]

Neil originally posted on the other thread:

"Yes, I certainly could but need to get clearance from UMG to talk openly.
All I will say at this point is that there were a lot of sonic gymnastics involved getting these as good as they could be, given the original masters no longer exist.
Content is DVD-A/V hybrid with Quad & Stereo in 24/96 on King Arthur but on 6 Wives the Quad was supplied to Abbey Road at 24/48 before it was remastered (and very sensitively as well).
We changed out the initially supplied transfer of King Arthur as it was so far off the stereo in sonics it was just not funny, and exchanged it for a CD-4 transfer that was given to me years back (possibly from Cai, but if anyone knows for sure who did the DVD of this please get in touch with me and we will check to see if it is your version & credit where it is due) which sounds a hell of a lot closer to the stereo version."

Note the part where he says the masters no longer exist. So now he's contradicting himself, via a phone call to Jon Urban.

 

[ArmyOfQuad]

Jonathan,

I haven't heard the official disc yet, so I can't speak from listening experience. I am only posting what I was told by Neil and Universal. Neil can chime in here whenever he likes, he's got the cred to speak to the issue.

Ok, that makes sense, because if you heard it, you'd know it's vinyl and SQ. Now I wonder if this is some sort of misunderstanding, or if the wrong thing was duplicated....that would suck if they actually have the master tape, but used the SQ source by accident.

 

[Owen Smith]

Ok, that makes sense, because if you heard it, you'd know it's vinyl and SQ. Now I wonder if this is some sort of misunderstanding, or if the wrong thing was duplicated....that would suck if they actually have the master tape, but used the SQ source by accident.

During the gestation of this project, Universal told OD at least twice that they'd found the masters, hang no they're not it, wait we've found them somewhere else, oh dear no they're not the masters after all. There is still plenty of scope for confusion at Universal, and I reckon half of them don't talk to the other half and no-one really knows the entire picture just their part of it ("I was given a digital quad track, I put it on the disc" etc.).

 

[ArmyOfQuad]

One thing that I wondered about is, if there's an SQ CD out there, doesn't that mean there's an SQ master in existence to software or hardware decode? Not that I think SQ is at all an acceptable medium for official release when CD4 and decent sounding Q8 exists.

 

[Owen Smith]

One thing that I wondered about is, if there's an SQ CD out there, doesn't that mean there's an SQ master in existence to software or hardware decode? Not that I think SQ is at all an acceptable medium for official release when CD4 and decent sounding Q8 exists.

OD told Universal when the SQ master was last known to have been used for which CD release, but they were unable to locate the SQ master.

As for the Japanese CD-4 of Six Wives, that was not known to exist until someone posted on this thread having a copy. I am told it is incredibly rare, as in that is the only copy who's whereabouts is now known.

And to address Q8, I specifically asked OD about that and he said Universal rejected Q8 immediately as not of sufficient audio quality. With your average Q8 they're probably right. It's not clear if they knew Six Wives is a particularly good quality Q8.

Big companies do what they do. Trying to change their minds can be like moving mountains.

 

[ArmyOfQuad]

For crying out loud, they didn't even try to look. Took me a week to get a cd4 copy of Six Wives in my collection. One can be had right now with a 10 second ebay search, http://www.ebay.com/itm/RICK-WAKEMA...547?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item51cca61983.

To the suits at the labels, when it comes to anything quad, just ask me, I'll tell you.

 

[Owen Smith]

For crying out loud, they didn't even try to look. Took me a week to get a cd4 copy of Six Wives in my collection. One can be had right now with a 10 second ebay search, http://www.ebay.com/itm/RICK-WAKEMA...547?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item51cca61983.

To the suits at the labels, when it comes to anything quad, just ask me, I'll tell you.

Pretty damned expensive at $100 for a private collector, but yes peanuts to a record company trying to source old quad material. However, I suspect Universal didn't even know it was released on CD-4 since it was only in Japan by a different record label. I don't know if OD knew it was on CD-4 when all this started.

If only the suits at the record companies would ask publicly in knowledgeable places like QQ, but I suspect they feel it is beneath them and they don't want to look like they don't know what they've got. Nor do they like to reveal potential release plans, if they ask about a title, get answers and then chose not to release it they'd get no end of abuse. The collective community on the web only has itself to blame for that.

 

[ArmyOfQuad]

If they don't want to look like they don't know what they've got, they've failed miserably at that with these releases. Heck, they don't even know what they released.

 

[Owen Smith]

If they don't want to look like they don't know what they've got, they've failed miserably at that with these releases. Heck, they don't even know what they released.

I'll grant you that they don't even know what they've released with these Wakemans. It doesn't inspire confidence, hopefully they can do better for any future releases.

 

[Franklin]

Let's not knock Universal too hard, they've started releasing new and old surround mixes, which is exciting: I'd like more from them. I'd also like Sony to step up to the plate.