Listening to Now (In Surround) - Volume 2

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Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds. First time for me. (I understand this was--and still is--sort of huge in the UK, but maybe not so much on this side of the pond?) The obvious comparisons are to Rick Wakeman and Alan Parsons, but even though I used to listen to both of them back in the day, my infatuation didn't last. This is no more cheesy or grandiose than Wakeman, though. Plus: Wakeman didn't have Richard Burton and David Essex! And the 5.1 mix is absolutely brilliant. (Wayne is a pretty fascinating figure, too, as is the story of the album's sonic rehab.)

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interesting article on the TWOTW Surround SACD remix project, interview w/Gary Langan, etc;

Jeff Wayne's Musical Version Of The War Of The Worlds
 
I agree with you, the 5.1 mix on this one is fabulous and I was surprised to find that it was done by Gary Langan, a kind of musical renaissance man who was not only one of the founding members of Art of Noise and the ZTT record label, but also has an extensive resume as a recording engineer dating back as far as Queen's early albums, where he worked as an assistant. He eventually founded Metropolis Studios in the mid-80's, which has done a lot of surround mixing and mastering over the years.

The wild thing (to me anyway) is that I can't find any other surround remixes credited to him - it seems like there's a laundry list of engineers who don't seem to "get" surround mixing at all, yet they stick around for years (or decades) pumping out mediocre 'big stereo' style mixes, and meanwhile this guy does one of the better, more aggressive 5.1 mixes of the '00s and that's it? Totally mystifying.

crikey.. i bet he's been involved in a number of MultiCh mixes but never got the credit! 🤯

knowing now how he mixed The Narrator's vocals in the 5.1 mix, with 18% of them in the Centre channel and the rest of that content sent everywhere else w/reverb etc makes the multilingual MultiCh German and Spanish narrated SACD releases even more impressive!!! 🥳🤩

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(the chances of this one coming in Atmos are a million to one, he said!) 🤣
 
Alain Mallet, Mutt Slang II: A Wake of Sorrows Engulfed in Rage (FLAC 5.1). It's been a while since I dragged this out. So gorgeous! This gets my belated, unqualified vote for the 2020 Best Immersive GRAMMY. Elliot Scheiner is alive and well!
https://alainmallet.bandcamp.com/album/a-wake-of-sorrows-engulfed-in-rage-special-edition-51

Humprof, I was considering buying the USB version which also contains two videos, the album in 5.1 and all the stereo versions you could need [the latter, Mallet's own words]. About $25 which includes s/h. Any thoughts [I don't download]. Is the download LOSSLESS, BTW?

Scheiner 5.1 mix and mastering by Darcy Proper: what more could one ask for?
 
Humprof, I was considering buying the USB version which also contains two videos, the album in 5.1 and all the stereo versions you could need [the latter, Mallet's own words]. About $25 which includes s/h. Any thoughts [I don't download]. Is the download LOSSLESS, BTW?

Scheiner 5.1 mix and mastering by Darcy Proper: what more could one ask for?

I don't think you can buy the downloads separately from the USB drive, 4EW; I'm pretty sure you get a link to them after you've purchased the USB drive. (And it may be that the downloads are stereo only.) The 5.1 FLACS delivered via thumb drive, meanwhile, are 24/48, but they sound fantastic.
 
I don't think you can buy the downloads separately from the USB drive, 4EW; I'm pretty sure you get a link to them after you've purchased the USB drive. (And it may be that the downloads are stereo only.) The 5.1 FLACS delivered via thumb drive, meanwhile, are 24/48, but they sound fantastic.

According to the blurb on Alain's website:


But my OPPO 205 states that it ONLY supports 2 channel/768kHz and DSD512 signals through its USB audio input!
 
According to the blurb on Alain's website:


But my OPPO 205 states that it ONLY supports 2 channel/768kHz and DSD512 signals through its USB audio input!

Huh. I haven't tried playing these particular FLACs with my Oppo 103 (I copied them to the laptop that I use as a media player, which connects to my AVR via HDMI), but the Oppo has never had a problem with other multi-channel FLACs via USB.

Here are the videos, by the way:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc--yKMSfE0aKqO3LEK8pvQ
 
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