HiRez Poll Alice in Chains - GREATEST HITS [SACD]

[salsdali]

really digging the ES DVD mix of "unplugged"

Where is the poll for this?

 

[Strilo]

I need this. It's currently on my Discogs wishlist.

 

[beerking]

A mixed bag of reviews for this hard rock sacd.
Well I like it. There is enough going on in the rears to get really down and rocky with this release.
No chain gang here it's a Red Rooster 8

 

[salsdali]

Had a good time blasting this with the Mrs. just now. No, not an audiophile experience, but the best we've heard AiC.
A missed opportunity for more discreteness, sure. But this disc has muscle!
Plenty of surround moments, to my taste.
Backing and even lead vocals, guitar overdubs and sometimes solos.
Drum accents.

agree. It's almost like it's a Mastering problem. I guarantee the DR is abysmally low and if that was corrected in the original mix we could be on to some Layne greatness (Pun:yes:goto/next/don't stop/don't stop)

 

[wrat]

Good content fair sonics and mix would have liked better

 

[somethingcleveridunno]

Hey gang, if you like this release enough, definitely check out the DVD Music Bank with all the videos - same mixes, different mastering (yes, it's only Dolby Digital), but most importantly there are songs that are not included on the SACD (or anywhere else): e.g. Sea Of Sorrow, What The Hell Have I, Down In A Hole or Get Born Again.

So I hadn't checked out the SACD due to the bad reputation, but I hadn't read through the thread until today, and this DVD is absolutely the way to go for surround mixes of these songs, if you've got the patience for it.

A/B'ing "Them Bones," the difference in midrange between the SACD and DVD makes you think Jerry was playing through a JTM45 on the SACD and then went Mesa Boogie for the DVD. I do kind of like the heavier mids when Jerry lets a chord ring rather than chugging, but overall they absolutely drown the rest of the band. As far as the spatial mix, eh? It's okay? Layne's vocals are mostly in the surrounds and Jerry's are in the fronts, but the separation is poor without putting your head against the speakers. Guitars at all four corners and doesn't sound like any distinct overdubs between them. The fun doesn't start until the guitar solo, but THEN the panning and overdubs are fun. As someone who REALLY likes stuff hard-panned so I can pick out distinct parts, it feels like a 7.5 mix/mastering with 10 material, which is a lot better than the SACD. It's near midnight so can't give the rest of the disc a critical listen right now.

On the downside, I kind of would love to at least berate DVD producers Todd & Kevin Shuss for choices made in the production and DVD mastering. Songs are not just preceded and followed by the most generic stock film projector sound effect, they're sometimes cut off by it. And chapters do not correctly line up with that effect.

More frustratingly, "Dam That River," "It Ain't Like That," "Sludge Factory," "A Little Bitter," "Sickman," "Dirt," "Rain When I Die," "Junkhead," "Head Creeps," and "Whale & Wasp" are all presented in HEAVILY truncated form, but reveal that at least some draft of 5.1 mixes of them were available and cut from full inclusion on the disc. So, at some point, there must have been a choice to make between at least some of those songs appearing, complete, without video... or the decision they went with, showing a bunch of washed-out concert footage and some home movie comedic skits in which the band simply come off as trying too hard to be funny, and their inclusion just feels in bad taste when we know Layne was living with a needle in his arm throughout.

Presumably, those full 5.1 tracks are still sitting on a DVD or backup tape somewhere in the pacific northwest.

Rant aside, if you're willing to go thru all the trouble of acquiring the DVD, ripping the contents, and trimming off the infuriating projector sound in MKVToolNix, this is the superior mastering of these mixes to the SACD, by a country mile.

Addendum that has nothing to do with the music: the "Get Born Again" music video is such an artifact of that "cenobite chic" music video style that absolutely every rock band had to do at least one time once Marilyn Manson's "The Beautiful People" came out, and man oh man do I not miss that visual style.