Remember there is a significant difference in the US and Canadian dollar exchange rate right now, I paid only ~$34 U.S.
Me too! I just bought it...lol
Remember there is a significant difference in the US and Canadian dollar exchange rate right now, I paid only ~$34 U.S.
Remember there is a significant difference in the US and Canadian dollar exchange rate right now, I paid only ~$34 U.S.
Sorry, rugene, didn’t realize you were in Canada, I assume too much.Wow! This is great music, I wish the price for the BR would be lower 45$ ouch! I will try to find a used copy somewhere...
Can’t believe GOS and the Pup took so long in purchasing this amazing space adventure in supersonic surround! What the hell were you waiting for?Me too! I just bought it...lol
Fighting with lawyers at Universal as I type this. Might get a contract extension for a couple more years. Details in the next few weeks. Thanks everyone for your support and kind words.
Your review is actually quoted in the packaging in the final version! Thank you again for your support and enthusiasm. PM me and once we get through the legal crap I'll send you a promo copy.When I reviewed Interstellar Suite a few years back the Blu-ray wasn't yet available. Instead I received the FLAC 5.1 version, which apparently is no longer available either. Too bad, since this is such a fabulous mix and reissue!
Thank you so much of the kind words in so many departments!This is another album that I would never have heard of except for QQ. Thanks, fellow QQers! I fully agree with all the other positive comments.
Sound quality: Excellent (even though it is 'only' DTS rather than the usual DTS-MA).
Mix: A little bit of me wishes that there were more instruments in the rears but I think probably the creative decision that was made - to have most of the instruments up front - is correct. There are lots of sound effects all around so it's not short on surround action. And the pans are intricately done. So it's a treat for the ears.
The book and documentary on the BD are also good. Informative about the music and why it was recorded. It's amazing to think it was recorded in 1987. The pictures for each track (in the book and on the blu ray) are also very nice.
Lastly, after having had a few brief email exchanges with Amin (and reading his comments here), I'd like to add that as well as being very talented, he's also a lovely guy. Thanks Amin!
Listening to this with the 5.1 DTS running through the Dolby Surrround Upmixer (DSU = Fake Atmos) with the ceiling speakers cranked up just a couple of dB more than usual on a 7.2.4 setup. I find DSU to be more subtle but much more natural than the DTS-X upmixer, which has much more separation but at the cost of having major phase problems and terrible comb filtering effects. DTS is awesome in all of its iterations, especially real DTS-X, but I don't care for their fake object-based upmixer.
I also toyed with turning my subs up a hair too, but I soon remembered that this is fully loaded on the deep bass, so put them back to normal. I have 2 18" sealed subs, and the LFE on this is so powerful and sublime! This has absolutely amazing fidelity, incredible surround mixing with lots of cool space sounds and great instrumental separation, yet still has great overall adhesion, and for the time period, it has some of the best realized FM synthesis ever. Even compared to this day and age of true real samples, this album still sounds so great!
It's like a sci-fi movie for your ears, with the best possible sound quality, very active yet intelligent surround mix, and crazy deep powerful clean bass. This album is an absolute classic, and it's been remixed/remastered better than I ever imagined it could be, and in my opinion, much better than most other "big name" artists' albums have been.
One of my favorite surround mixes in my collection, and one of my most listened to non-Atmos albums. (Since getting an object-based surround setup, I tend to gravitate to those recordings most often.)
It would sound brilliant in Atmos, lots going on so you could have some fun with stuff in the heights. BTW the 5.1 is one of my favourites to listen to in the car, the surround imaging works really well, the subwoofer gets a work out as well!Hey Frogmort, thank you so much for these kind words and the excellent technical details! This is very timely. I'm still fighting with Capitol/Universal for download rights which would allow me to create an atmos mix. (We stemmed orchestral sections and sfx at the final mix stages when archiving the 5.1 release.)
If you have a moment I'd love to know:
1-where do you buy your atmos-only albums?
2-any problems with apple spatial audio vs other types of atmos releases? Apple use their own proprietary rendering engine, typical Apple, so I've heard things have to get mastered/rendered twice.
In any case thank you again for your kind words.
Amin
I really hope you gain the rights to do an Atmos mix, that would be awesome!Hey Frogmort, thank you so much for these kind words and the excellent technical details! This is very timely. I'm still fighting with Capitol/Universal for download rights which would allow me to create an atmos mix. (We stemmed orchestral sections and sfx at the final mix stages when archiving the 5.1 release.)
If you have a moment I'd love to know:
1-where do you buy your atmos-only albums?
2-any problems with apple spatial audio vs other types of atmos releases? Apple use their own proprietary rendering engine, typical Apple, so I've heard things have to get mastered/rendered twice.
In any case thank you again for your kind words.
Amin
I really hope you gain the rights to do an Atmos mix, that would be awesome!
As for your questions:
1- Back in the day I used to buy a ton of stuff from my local Best Buy that was just two miles from where I lived, but that store has closed down, and apparently Best Buy will stop selling all discs altogether by the end of the year. More recently, I purchase pretty much everything from Amazon except for groceries and gas.
2- As with most everyone else on here, I prefer the quality of Atmos in a lossless 7.1 TrueHD container that you can actually own on physical disc, or rip to local storage for playback. I honestly haven't really delved into any of the streaming platforms, partially just because I haven't researched how to set it up for my setup, and what little I've read about doing so seems pretty complicated, and also because streaming Atmos is done at 768kbps at most (I've also seen 640kbps, 576kbps, and 448kbps joint object coding for movies and TV shows) in a lossy 5.1 Dolby Digital Plus container, whereas the lossless 7.1 TrueHD bit-rate is insanely higher. The Beatles - Abbey Road disc has the 7.1 TrueHD Atmos at a maximum bit-rate of 16,300kbps! That's more than 21 times the bit-rate of 768kbps!
I've sampled some of the 768kbps files and some of them aren't bad. The Grateful Dead - American Beauty mixed by Steven Wilson is pretty amazing, although I don't know why every single one of the lossy Atmos mixes I've heard are ridiculously quiet. I normally listen at ~ -12dB to -7dB below reference, but with all of the 768kbps files I've heard, they need to be cranked to ~ +7dB above reference, which is crazy, as reference (0dB) should be loud as hell.
It is also possible to do the greater quality 7.1 TrueHD Atmos as a digital download along side or instead of a physical disc. immersiveaudioalbum.com which I believe is operated by member and moderator on here @sjcorne has quite a lot of albums available for download.
Anyway, it's so nice that you actually participate on here and thank you so much for all the beautiful music!
Happy Halloween!