AVphile
Member
Loreena McKinnett is one of my all-time favorite singer/songwriters. Her voice is magnificent; her compositions beautiful. Consequently, I was very excited to receive last week her relatively new 5-disc release of The Visit, which is perhaps her most popular album. What made this 2021 issue so appealing is its inclusion of a multi-channel Blu-ray audio version of that 1991 CD.
Unfortunately, ouch!! Indeed, it was in multi-channel but the positioning of the instruments was nonsensical. Far worse, though, was the engineering of the music. I use an OPPO-203 as a Blu-ray transport (for audio), with the data transferred by HDMI to my Theta Digital Casablanca V. Whether a Blu-ray, a DTS audio, or a multi-channel CD, I am always delighted with what I hear. The tracks were nearly unlistenable because the production engineers must have boosted from 2KHz up between 6db and 12db. The result was hyper-exaggerated treble. Her beautiful voice no longer sounded luscious; the music had a hard-edge to it. I actually stopped listening halfway through the disc.
Just to be sure a problem hadn’t developed with my system, I played the original CD of The Visit, using first the OPPO as the transport (again via HDMI) and then my Wadia 8 CD-only transport (connected via digital AES/EBU cable ) – always decoded by the Casablanca V. In every instance, Ms. McKinnett’s magnificent voice and music reappeared as beautiful as ever.
As can be imagined, this was a tremendous disappointment, but it underscores how important are the production elements of a recorded performance. I certainly would not recommend to anyone this 2021 release for its multi-channel disc. That said, this album does also provide a lot of fascinating information about Loreena McKinnett, the songs on the album, etc.
Unfortunately, ouch!! Indeed, it was in multi-channel but the positioning of the instruments was nonsensical. Far worse, though, was the engineering of the music. I use an OPPO-203 as a Blu-ray transport (for audio), with the data transferred by HDMI to my Theta Digital Casablanca V. Whether a Blu-ray, a DTS audio, or a multi-channel CD, I am always delighted with what I hear. The tracks were nearly unlistenable because the production engineers must have boosted from 2KHz up between 6db and 12db. The result was hyper-exaggerated treble. Her beautiful voice no longer sounded luscious; the music had a hard-edge to it. I actually stopped listening halfway through the disc.
Just to be sure a problem hadn’t developed with my system, I played the original CD of The Visit, using first the OPPO as the transport (again via HDMI) and then my Wadia 8 CD-only transport (connected via digital AES/EBU cable ) – always decoded by the Casablanca V. In every instance, Ms. McKinnett’s magnificent voice and music reappeared as beautiful as ever.
As can be imagined, this was a tremendous disappointment, but it underscores how important are the production elements of a recorded performance. I certainly would not recommend to anyone this 2021 release for its multi-channel disc. That said, this album does also provide a lot of fascinating information about Loreena McKinnett, the songs on the album, etc.