Listening to this surround UPMIX, up-remix, or remix

[GOS]

Been working on this one for over 2 weeks now, and I'm still Jazzed about it, just a great rock album (thank you @GOS for the LP rip.)

I would urge anyone who likes Styx music (and there are some here who don't apparently ) to give this title a try either through Up-mix, Surround Master, DPLII etc., as you wont be disappointed I assure you!

I'd done it before in 4.1, but wanted a little more punch out of it and a dedicated center, so I did a new 5.1.

This would absolutely be a killer authentic surround title if done up correctly.

Saw these guys open for ZZ Top back in 1977 and it was a great show, I actually remember a lot of it -LOL.
It was on "The Grand Illusion" tour.

And as you can see from my ticket stub, I definitely got my money's worth on that evening

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It is a simply killer album, and you did a real nice job on it man...

 

[humprof]

David Bowie, The Man Who Sold The World, in a 5.1 SPEC + Plogue upmix sourced from the 2016 180g vinyl remaster.

 

[humprof]

Jaco Pastorius' 1976 self-titled debut for Epic. A good one--possibly one of Eye of Horus's earlier efforts? (It came to me as a 5.1 DTS-WAV.) Almost too discrete sometimes: some congas and the like occasionally pop out of the right rear just a bit too loudly. What an amazing lineup on this album...

 

[humprof]

Kate Bush, Hounds of Love and The Whole Story (the 1986 Greatest Hits album). I also have--and treasure--Eye of Horus's take on the entire eight-disc This Woman's Work box, but today I'm checking out very good Penteo+ 4.0 upmixes of these two, from vinyl. Maybe one day Steven Wilson will manage to twist her arm.

 

[humprof]

Kate Bush, Aerial. Anonymous (SPEC?) upmix from CD, in FLAC 5.1. Some impressive separation, but it sounds ever so slightly muffled and boomy--as so many first- and even second-gen upmixes do. No "whooshing" artefacts, though. (Would love to hear a talented modern-day Pentathlete who really loves this album have a go at it!)

 

[humprof]

I don't regret buying Esoteric's Olias of Sunhillow reissue earlier this year--it's a nice package--but I prefer Eye of Horus's upmix to Ben Wiseman's. (And I prefer the mastering of the CD that EoH worked from to Wiseman's remaster, too. Maybe it's just that the tapes were twenty years younger.) More depth, more separation, brighter sonics.

 

[humprof]

Klaatu, Klaatu (a/k/a 3:47 EST) and Hope. Penteo+ 4.1, the first from vinyl and the second from CD. I'm just getting to know this band, but I'm liking these albums--their brand of prog is playful as well as brainy--and the upmixes are solid. (The sonics on the LP are pretty crunchy, though.)

 

[humprof]

Paul and Linda McCartney, Ram. I think there have been a couple of famous upmixes of this album over the years, including a good early one by TOUP and an absolutely brilliant one by Holland123. This one came to me in the form of 48/96 5.1 FLACs (embedded with a phony graphic of a Capitol-style "feel the music" DVD-Audio box), with no attribution attached. It's FLAC 5.1, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was sourced from the hi-res downloads available with the 2012 Hear Music deluxe reissue. Whatever...and whoever is responsible...it came out really good.

 

[humprof]

Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street. EoH's special-sauce upmix from the 2010 CD. (Which is sort of brickwalled, I gather--although this record isn't exactly Aja, so....). I've heard this is a tough one to work with, upmix-wise; EoH did okay.

 

[humprof]

Talk Talk, The Colour of Spring and Spirit of Eden. DTS-WAV 5.1 WAMINU upmixes by Eye of Horus, sourced from the 2003 SACD (2.0) remasters. These sound really good, though someday I'd like to hear someone do completely lossless versions. (Well, someday, when pigs can fly, I'd like to hear Steven Wilson do Atmos mixes from multitrack masters.)

 

[humprof]

The Police, Synchronicity. Never really was a fan of The Police, but I liked this album in part because I bought it along with the Talking Heads' Remain In Light, which got me hooked on the Heads. (The two records have more than a little in common sonically, I think.) I'm listening to a Penteo 4.1 upmix from vinyl--not sure if the upmixer wants to be ID'd?--and it works pretty well, especially after the title track, which has a relatively narrow soundfield. But the overall sound is a little flat somehow. Can anybody vouch for the SHM-SACD? I've seen reviews claiming it has more "bite" and more "air," which is exactly what seems missing here.

 

[humprof]

Tom Waits, the "Frank" Trilogy (Swordfishtrombones, Rain Dogs, and Frank's Wild Years), Penteo WAV 5.1. These albums were just a revelation to me when they came out, and they're still easily in my top 100. The production style and the soundfield they have in common--simultaneously spare, wide, and precise--seem to lend themselves well to upmixing. Apart from some boomy, rumbly bass on a couple of tracks, these are just brilliant, and I'm overjoyed to have them.

 

[humprof]

Traffic, John Barleycorn Must Die, The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys, and Shootout at the Fantasy Factory. Holland123's excellent work (SPEC+Plogue 5.1), the first from the Japanese SHM-CD (SACD?) remaster, the others from hi-res vinyl rips. Exceptionally good sound and great quad field on all three.

 

[humprof]

Triumvirat, Spartacus. One of EoH's "more immersive than discrete" upmixes. (DTS-WAV 4.0.) Still nice to stand in the middle of the room and be surrounded by Triumvirat (Quadrivirat?) Wonder if any of the Penteo Pals would want to have a go at this--and/or Double Dimple and the self-titled album? All of those would be amazing in Atmos, come to think of it...calling Fritz Hilpert!

 

[J. PUPSTER]

McDonald from an MFSL LP rip

 

[humprof]

It's too bad we never got more Van the Man in surround beyond Moondance, but I guess we're lucky to have gotten that one. And thankfully, some great upmixers have filled in a few crucial gaps. Case in point: PoRFiN's SPEC-based 5.1 DTS-WAV job on the 2008 Japanese remaster of Astral Weeks.

 

[J. PUPSTER]

Grover Washington, Jr. – Prime Cuts - The Columbia Years 1987-1999
* a very nice and clean up-mix from the SACD 4.1 (silent center)

 

[humprof]

Next up: @J. PUPSTER's superb Penteo-based take on Tupelo Honey, which holds down a secure spot on the top shelf in my upmix collection, and an anonymous SPEC treatment of St. Dominic's Preview, which doesn't climb quite as high, but almost. I've never really understood all the reverence for Morrison the Mystic, especially seeing as how he's such a disagreeable shite of a human being, so for me, Tupelo's borrowed honky-tonk and St. Dominic's bluesy eclecticism both have a lot more authentic (blue-eyed) soul than the stream-of-consciousness pseudo-spirituality of Astral Weeks. (The endless "Listen to the Lion" and "Almost Independence Day" notwithstanding!)

 

[humprof]

More Morrison. I'm not sure I even know half of The Man's catalog, but Wavelength is my second-favorite album (after Moondance), and Into the Music seems like his last semi-good pop record before he wafted back "into the mystic" with The Common One and its string of noodling 80s successors. The first is a Penteo 4.1 upmix from a production master, the other a 5.1 SPEC+Plogue from...a hi-res LP rip? (Not sure.)

 

[humprof]

Walter Bishop, Jr., Coral Keys. The first half-dozen Black Jazz releases weren't QS-encoded, but with the SurroundMaster in Involve mode, they sound good as quad. This is a nice, mostly straight-ahead, postbop/hard bop set (with Woody Shaw sitting in on Side 2!).