Monkees complete season 1

[bizmopeen]

Well, I picked this up over the weekend, and here’s my review for any and all Monkees fans out there:

This is a very nice box for the packaging (flip-up box that looks like an old portable record player, individual sleeves for the DVDs that look like old EP covers) and the features (nice transfers of all 32 first-season episodes, commercials, commentaries, the whole kit’n’kaboodle). If you’re a fan, definitely buy it for that.

However, the audio SUCKS!! The mono is the same tinny TV audio we should expect from a ‘60s TV show (no surprise there), but the “5.1” is just the mono track EQ’ed and reverbed out to the other channels. Quite frankly, it’s muddy and harsh and not up to the classic Rhino standards. I was hoping that some real remixing might be done as Rhino has the rights and the tapes, but I guess not…

Quite frankly, if you’re interested in the multichannel you’re better off seeking out the mocked-up “Quarters” mixes on the trading boards. What a dissapointment!

 

[deepsky4565]

What a bummer. It sounds like the crap they did to the Rutles DVD. They have the multis for that too. I wish there was a law against fake 5.1 mixes like this where there was no care at all. I actually thought the old Star Trek 5.1 mixes were pretty effective, even though they didn't have much to work with. Is Rhino just cheap?

 

[bizmopeen]

Probably, ever since they were swallowed by the WEA corporate giant. Too bad the Rutles got the same treatment...and after Rhino put out the expnaded soundtrack in the '90s, you'd think they already had access to the multitracks!

 

[quadgdiaz]

Probably, ever since they were swallowed by the WEA corporate giant. Too bad the Rutles got the same treatment...and after Rhino put out the expnaded soundtrack in the '90s, you'd think they already had access to the multitracks!

somebody told me awhile back, that a guy from Colgems borrow the original 4 channel master tapes (but he didn't tell anybody) and forgot to return them, and that's why Rhino didn't have a good audio source material for the DVD sets ???????

 

[bizmopeen]

somebody told me awhile back, that a guy from Colgems borrow the original 4 channel master tapes (but he didn't tell anybody) and forgot to return them, and that's why Rhino didn't have a good audio source material for the DVD sets ???????

Yikes! I hope they turn up.... Though, at least Rhino could have put the clean stereo mixes in there...

 

[timbre4]

That's disappointing, I'd be happy with clean mono for the shows and stereo during the song segments.

Can't we switch to PCM 2.0 and skip the fake DD 5.1 track?