K
kstuart
Guest
Hello,
This is a short review for people who are already familiar with the album "Fragile" by the musical group "Yes". (It's a classic of the genre called "prog rock" and like most music, if you haven't heard it, you might like it or you might hate it.)
I'm a fan of this group, I've seen them live more than once, and have several copies of this album on both LP and CD. Despite that, I'm only going to talk about the multichannel surround mix.
I consider this DVD-Audio release to be a "must have" for anyone who likes this group. Like most surround mixes, the album was transferred from the original multi-track tapes, thus bypassing some of the problems that have plagued "remasters" of the past decade or so that are done from the two-track mixdown masters.
The engineer, Tim Weidner, was the same person who engineered Yes' most recent studio album, so he is familiar with the band and their sound. And he did an excellent job on "Fragile". Here the use of more than two channels has the effect of allowing the listener to hear each instrument more clearly, because they don't overlap and conflict with each other, the way they inevitably do in any multi-miked and overdubbed recording reproduced in stereo. Thus, the use here of multiple channels is not gimmicky (instruments don't move from their starting position), but instead simply enhances the sound quality.
The result is a very clear and intimate experience of these performances. Highly recommended for Yes fans.
PS Instead of adding video extras (such as music videos), on this disk, they use the extra space to provide the album in many different formats: DD, DTS, HiRes Stereo and HiRes Surround. You can switch between HiRes versions for comparison, although it restarts the song when you do this. (BTW, I have yet to verify the DTS track - it is listed on the cover.)
This is a short review for people who are already familiar with the album "Fragile" by the musical group "Yes". (It's a classic of the genre called "prog rock" and like most music, if you haven't heard it, you might like it or you might hate it.)
I'm a fan of this group, I've seen them live more than once, and have several copies of this album on both LP and CD. Despite that, I'm only going to talk about the multichannel surround mix.
I consider this DVD-Audio release to be a "must have" for anyone who likes this group. Like most surround mixes, the album was transferred from the original multi-track tapes, thus bypassing some of the problems that have plagued "remasters" of the past decade or so that are done from the two-track mixdown masters.
The engineer, Tim Weidner, was the same person who engineered Yes' most recent studio album, so he is familiar with the band and their sound. And he did an excellent job on "Fragile". Here the use of more than two channels has the effect of allowing the listener to hear each instrument more clearly, because they don't overlap and conflict with each other, the way they inevitably do in any multi-miked and overdubbed recording reproduced in stereo. Thus, the use here of multiple channels is not gimmicky (instruments don't move from their starting position), but instead simply enhances the sound quality.
The result is a very clear and intimate experience of these performances. Highly recommended for Yes fans.
PS Instead of adding video extras (such as music videos), on this disk, they use the extra space to provide the album in many different formats: DD, DTS, HiRes Stereo and HiRes Surround. You can switch between HiRes versions for comparison, although it restarts the song when you do this. (BTW, I have yet to verify the DTS track - it is listed on the cover.)
