Loggins & Messina - Full Sail - Audio Fidelity 4.0 Multichannel SACD (July 2016)

[Simon A]

Ok, got mine a couple of hours ago. I am waiting for sundown and the cool air of a mild summer's evening to play this and some other good things. I may go and buy a 6-pack of my favorite brew which is Carlsberg, and I have on hand some medical grade stash for those special events like this.

Have you heard of Carlsberg Elephant? It's the super-strong malt brew, wonderful ice cold...... I don't get hangovers on Carlsberg brand brews.

http://thisdrinkinglife.com/carlsberg-elephant-beer/

Hope you had a good time with all of that on the menu.

 

[ar surround]

I still haven't had time to listen to Full Sail! To many projects going on around the house right now. Geez, I've got to get my priorities strait and go listen to this disc!!!

 

[quicksrt]

I still haven't had time to listen to Full Sail! To many projects going on around the house right now. Geez, I've got to get my priorities strait and go listen to this disc!!!

Oh, well you are in for a treat! I listened to it twice last night blazing with good volume and sitting in the sweetest spot. It sounded great from the get go, and one really does get a sense of a strong center channel with some vocals coming from the center speaker which is not really there (or not on).

But, the album really shifts into gear at track 5 for me. The long song that closes out side one of the LP. And then from there on (to side two) to the end is an amazing display of what quad can do for showing off the players and their parts separately and as a whole.. Jim Messina's back-up or support vocals on Watching the River Run, to say nothing of his guitar work on the entire album really show what class and musical experience he brought to the production of these songs.

So one gets to hear all these parts that they placed in rears, and then the main parts in front, so separated and yet it all comes together in your listening room, a fresher mix being mixed right there on the spot. It never gets gimmicky. There are no pans here. It's meticulously mixed quadraphonic, and sound quality is 10/10.

Just as I hoped, in my top 3 from Audio Fidelity.

 

[quicksrt]

Larry Keyes; the Elliot Scheiner of Quad.
..when he got it right he really nailed it (imho)

Edit: Just in case any of you want to track down his mixes and see what I mean about the quality of his work when at his best, or just refresh the memory banks of some wonderful surround music from days gone by, some of his best Quads include..
[/B]

Yes, and with Full Sail, he was given an incredible multi-track master to with with. Great production musically, and wonderful recording quality, plus plenty of different parts to build from. Violin, flute, etc. Not excessively sparse. It has to help when the tapes are this well produced to begin with.

I will say that Kenny's vocals sound a bit gritty in many places, like he is using a mic that adds a grit to his voice. This may be intentional, not sure. But his vocals are mic'ed in a way that is not meant for pure clarity in many songs, but it adds grit as I said.

 

[fredblue]

So I finally got around to playing this beauty this morning.. gorgeous job by AF imho, an instant "10".

Anyway, interestingly enough when I got to Pathway To Glory (incredible track and wonderful Quad mix) it hit me! Oy! That doesn't sound right! I mean left! Right?

That harmonica is coming from the rear right and the organ is coming from the rear right too, along with the bass!

Sure enough when I checked the SQ LP that harmonica is rear left and so is the bass.. the rears are the other way around.

Pics to follow, one minute..

 

[fredblue]

So I finally got around to playing this beauty this morning.. gorgeous job by AF imho, an instant "10".

Anyway, interestingly enough when I got to Pathway To Glory (incredible track and wonderful Quad mix) it hit me! Oy! That doesn't sound right! I mean left! Right?

That harmonica is coming from the rear right and the organ is coming from the rear right too, along with the bass!

Sure enough when I checked the SQ LP that harmonica is rear left and so is the bass.. the rears are the other way around.

Pics to follow, one minute..

Loggins & Messina; Full Sail; Track 7; Pathway To Glory, from the Columbia SQ LP "CQ 32540"
(Tracks from top to bottom; 1 = FL, 2 = FR.. 3 + 4 = Blank, 5 = SL, 6 = SR)




Loggins & Messina; Full Sail; Track 7; Pathway To Glory; from the Audio Fidelity Surround SACD "AFZ5 243"
(Tracks from top to bottom; 1 = FL, 2 = FR.. 3 + 4 = Blank, 5 = SL, 6 = SR)

 

[bmoura]

So I finally got around to playing this beauty this morning.. gorgeous job by AF imho, an instant "10".

Anyway, interestingly enough when I got to Pathway To Glory (incredible track and wonderful Quad mix) it hit me! Oy! That doesn't sound right! I mean left! Right?

That harmonica is coming from the rear right and the organ is coming from the rear right too, along with the bass!

Sure enough when I checked the SQ LP that harmonica is rear left and so is the bass.. the rears are the other way around.

Pics to follow, one minute..

Yes, Full Sail in SACD Surround Sound is a winner.

On the channel assignments, for some albums (including this one), the channel assignment information is not listed on the master tapes.
In those cases, it's a matter of listening to the tapes and trying to determine the best placement song to song.

 

[fredblue]

Yes, Full Sail in SACD Surround Sound is a winner.

On the channel assignments, for some albums (including this one), the channel assignment information is not listed on the master tapes.
In those cases, it's a matter of listening to the tapes and trying to determine the best placement song to song.

Oh I'm not bothered about the channels (the surround effect is so good either way! ) just thought it was (mildly) interesting!
Stunning job all round, thank you so much for this one.

 

[bmoura]

Oh I'm not bothered about the channels (the surround effect is so good either way! ) just thought it was (mildly) interesting!
Stunning job all round, thank you so much for this one.

I remember it on this Multichannel SACD because AF's engineer sent me channel assignments for one of the tracks to check vs. the Quad copy of the album I have access to. And I was able to verify that he had matched the channel assignments on that track. But I they didn't send over the others. Oh well, sounds fine here - both on the Oppo and the NADAC MC-8.

 

[fredblue]

I remember it on this Multichannel SACD because AF's engineer sent me channel assignments for one of the tracks to check vs. the Quad copy of the album I have access to. And I was able to verify that he had matched the channel assignments on that track. But I they didn't send over the others. Oh well, sounds fine here - both on the Oppo and the NADAC MC-8.

Better than fine.. its mighty fine! Its so good you could sail in it! :banana:

 

[jonmrife]

Pretty much unanimous. Could not be happier with this release.

 

[quicksrt]

I remember it on this Multichannel SACD because AF's engineer sent me channel assignments for one of the tracks to check vs. the Quad copy of the album I have access to. And I was able to verify that he had matched the channel assignments on that track. But I they didn't send over the others. Oh well, sounds fine here - both on the Oppo and the NADAC MC-8.

I would expect all songs on a given reel to be consistent in channel assignment. But anyway, are there two reels generally for a quad album, side 1 and side 2?

 

[quicksrt]

So I finally got around to playing this beauty this morning.. gorgeous job by AF imho, an instant "10".

Anyway, interestingly enough when I got to Pathway To Glory (incredible track and wonderful Quad mix) it hit me! Oy! That doesn't sound right! I mean left! Right?

That harmonica is coming from the rear right and the organ is coming from the rear right too, along with the bass!

Sure enough when I checked the SQ LP that harmonica is rear left and so is the bass.. the rears are the other way around.

Pics to follow, one minute..

Thanks for your observation, notes and screen caps. When you have time, I would be interested in knowing how many SACD tracks are different in the rear chans than your quad decode.

Knowing how many tracks match and how many do not will not effect my enjoyment of this new quad SACD whatsoever. It's a 10 a TKO.

 

[fredblue]

Thanks for your observation, notes and screen caps. When you have time, I would be interested in knowing how many SACD tracks are different in the rear chans than your quad decode.

Knowing how many tracks match and how many do not will not effect my enjoyment of this new quad SACD whatsoever. It's a 10 a TKO.

You're welcome I'll check the other tracks in the week (I only did that one so far cos it's my most played track on the SQ LP.. oh and the channel difference in the rear stuck out, or rather leapt out I just had to double check what I was hearing with a series of waveforms! Haha.. )

Ditto, no impact of enjoyment either way.. just a superb Quad mix no matter what.. that and I can't imagine the sound on the new SACD will ever be bettered, it's fab.

 

[quicksrt]

I just thought of something that might be good for the short term and long term sales of quad mastering on modern disc formats.

There are Wiki pages for many if not most of the classic titles in the AF 4.0 series. Often the info on these pages does not go into much more than song titles, hits, chart position, producer, and release date.

Sometimes the fanatics will add in information about international releases, alternate cover art, and major reissues especially when a deluxe edition came out, or bonus tracks were added.

I think that going into wiki's pages for the albums that AF has issued quad titles on, and adding several things to these pages could be a benefit to the SACD sales life of the given title. Make the SACD with quad layer a noted and featured release.

For instance, for Full Sail, writing that the album was also mixed into quadrophonic by so an so, and issued "year" on in the SQ format on LP and 8-Track cartridges.

Then further down the page, create a caption Audiophile Releases, or Audiophile Reissues
Under this heading, state the Direct Disc Labs SuperDisc, MFSL gold, and the Audio Fidelity SACD which features the 1974 quad mix. This with more mastering credits and release dates and even catalog numbers. Very detailed and well written into so it does not sound like advertising. Then some links to back up the info given.

This would in fact advertise the fact that the quad mix of each album is now available at retail, and a certain part of the buying public might find out about it only through wiki.

I would be willing to do some of the work to make this happen. I think that doing just the 4.0 titles for starters would not be that big a deal. The results could be surprising.

This would give credit to the mixers, and mastering people, which is the main point publicly. The links added could tell the rest of the story.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Sail_(Loggins_and_Messina_album)

What do you guys and girls think?

 

[ar surround]

Yes, Full Sail in SACD Surround Sound is a winner.

On the channel assignments, for some albums (including this one), the channel assignment information is not listed on the master tapes.
In those cases, it's a matter of listening to the tapes and trying to determine the best placement song to song.

On some of these tracks, the bass isn't centered in the fronts but rather is off to one side, for example emanating from the right front and right rear speakers. I noted this on at least Travellin' Blues, My Music and You Need A Man. So I suspect that this feature had a lot to do with channel assignments. I mean, wouldn't it be really weird if the bass came from the right front and left rear? Now there's an experiment for your spare time.

 

[fredblue]

On some of these tracks, the bass isn't centered in the fronts but rather is off to one side, for example emanating from the right front and right rear speakers. I noted this on at least Travellin' Blues, My Music and You Need A Man. So I suspect that this feature had a lot to do with channel assignments. I mean, wouldn't it be really weird if the bass came from the right front and left rear? Now there's an experiment for your spare time.

Well I've heard some of these old Quads (only a few though) that do diagonally pan stuff, the cheeky rascals! :yikes

Debate rages (well its more of a muttering amongst about three of us here really ) as to whether they were intentional diagonal pans in the first place or not..!

In the one camp you have fine upstanding members (ahem) such as, Sir Dave Of Steely, who says these diagonal pans are erroneous, indicative of wrongly assigned channels since SQ decoders get the heebee jeebee's when presented with such diagonal panning.. and the aforementioned member has gone deeper (gulp) putting forward the evidence that the joystick type panpot controls that were used in a typical Quad mixing desk of that era wouldn't have been able to achieve such pans without moving through the centre of the 4 channel surroundfield (a bit of a surround no-no) and in the process info would be lost and it just wouldn't work and goes against all the conventional wisdom of Quad mixing etc., especially for material that was mixed with potential release on the SQ matrix format in mind.. and that there are mix elements in these diagonal rears that are out of whack with corresponding instrumentation in the front channels which then works better when you swap the rears over and eliminate the diagonal business, all lends greater weight to the "unintentional diagonal pan" theory.

Then you get slightly less esteemed members (i.e. total nut jobs like me!) who say "ah but Dave, the Surround Master* handles those diagonal pans ok and doesn't go schizoid" :ugham:

So, there you go.. conclusive proof that snozberries do indeed taste like snozberries.. yippee.. and err, the few diagonally panned things I've heard work out alright in SQ, so woo hoo for diagonal pans that may or may not be in error, I like em, they brighten up a dull day! Lets hear it for diagonal pans, accidental or otherwise!

Off the top of my head the few Sony label SQ LPs that have diagonal pans and/or Z-shaped round the room pans (not the more regular 360 degree pans that go from FL>FR>SR>SL.. but instead go something like FL>FR>SL>SR, forming a kinda Z-shape rather than a circle/square or some other complete polygonal shape, however you've got your 4 speakers arranged) whether intentional or not, they are there, not just figments of my miiiind! (..and they are complete albums full of them!) include Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes - Black & Blue, Isley Brothers - 3+3, O'Jays - Ship Ahoy.. and there are others I can't remember off the top of my head, one of the Mahavishnu's maybe?

*(yes, that Surround Master! No, I don't have shares in them but I should..! )

 

[fredblue]

COR BLIMEY, GUV'NAH..!!

Its an eBay listing for a Quadraphonic panning joystick type device (Look Dave! it has diagonals! :yikes ..maybe they mixed 3 + 3 on it? :ugham: )



Check it out on eBay..! :upthumb

For Sale on eBay UK; Knas Ekdahl Quad Massager Quadraphonic VCA Mixer

 

[ar surround]

COR BLIMEY, GUV'NAH..!!

Its an eBay listing for a Quadraphonic panning joystick type device (Look Dave! it has diagonals! :yikes ..maybe they mixed 3 + 3 on it? :ugham: )



Check it out on eBay..! :upthumb

For Sale on eBay UK; Knas Ekdahl Quad Massager Quadraphonic VCA Mixer

Now this purchase definitely would not be a good idea for anyone who failed Trigonometry!

 

[fredblue]

Now this purchase definitely would not be a good idea for anyone who failed Trigonometry!

La la la la la la la la la... sing it with me fellas! :music

"...Don't know much about geography
Don't know much trigonometry
Don't know much about algebra
Don't know what a slide rule is for..."​

(and my own verse, or is it a chorus? weird, wonderful song!)

"But I do know two and two is Quad
And if there is a God​

What a wonderful world this would be - if everything in it was in Surround.."

:wave
​