Mine arrived yesterday from Cherry Red. It’s a really great reissue with fantastic packaging. There are 2 booklets - one with the lyrics and one with a history of the album, interview with Jon and lots of great pics of memorabilia / press articles / artwork from the era.
In relation to the upmix, being fair to Cherry Red it had never been said to be anything else. I’m assuming that most people reading this therefore know the limitations of that process. Olias would be a great candidate for unpicking some of the shortcomings (IMO) of the original production/ mix - but without master tapes that can’t happen. Therefore when it comes to the surround version, it’s really just a slightly more spread out version. Listening to it from start to finish I found that listening to the hi res stereo mix was a much more satisfying experience than the surround and I ended up switching back to it. I found that in the Upmix some of the detail was lost in the attempt to spread the sound out, whereas the stereo has everything in its proper place.
Overall I’m really happy with this as a purchase at the price. As far as Yes solo albums go, I don’t hold this one in as high regard as many but respect it as something unique in the catalogue. The CD and the 96k/24-bit versions are very nicely done and sound much better than my Atlantic CDs. The surround is a nice bonus if you think of it as a freebie. If the surround is the only reason you’re buying it, you could be disappointed.
