HiRez Poll Pink Floyd - DARK SIDE OF THE MOON [Blu-Ray Audio]

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Rate the BDA of Pink Floyd - DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

  • 6:

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 4:

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 3:

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 2:

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1: Poor Surround, Poor Fidelity, Poor Content

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    203
I didn't think DSOTM was in that bad of shape either. I think it's a little bright. It sounds proper to a high level and isn't brick walled at all. That Al Stewart was heavily mangled. The mix was altered beyond any good sense and just thrashed. The kind of botched release that rates a 1 or a n/a because it should be recalled. Stuff in between like those Chicago or Doobie quads that are still closer to proper than not but clearly mid scooped. Stuff a little further south like the more recent ELP Brain Salad Surgery with stuff at a high level of proper but some really glaring mistakes. How about that official released Sabbath Paranoid quad? That's a case of more stepped on generational sound whereas the Al Stewart is heavily modified in a crude way.

If this DSOTM master doesn't make the cut, I think you're going to have a hard time with most of what you hear!

I like seeing that level of critique though and I wish the average overall level of quality in the industry would warrant it a lot more often! Too many releases that just rate "error!"
 
I was curious about this a while back and I did a technical comparison of the bootleg version with the official Blu-Ray, and the difference in numbers (dynamic range, peak level, RMS, even track timings) were so close to being identical that the two versions almost could've been sourced from the same transfer.

The only difference in DR ratings was with the first track ("Speak to Me") which was considerably higher on the bootleg, but it turned out it was because there were several seconds of silence at the beginning of the bootleg that aren't on the official release. Once you trim the silence so that the tracks are identical, all the aforementioned values again become almost identical too.

I didn't spend a lot of time A/Bing the two versions with my ears, but the official version sounded more than good enough to stick with it - that is to say I didn't hear anything in the bootleg that made it "better," and I figured I'd just put my trust in the provenance of the master source on the official version probably being at least one tape generation lower than the bootleg, not to mention the BDA is 96/24 and the bootleg is 48/24, for whatever that's worth.

I wish I could say the same about the quad mix of Atom Heart Mother that's on the Early Years BDA, which has been dynamically crushed down to an unlistenable (to me) DR8 with clipping so bad it actually presents as jagged lines in the waveform. I think I posted screenshots of it somewhere else on the forum.
 
I dunno, a true example of a botched "modern remaster" would be something like Fleetwood Mac's Tusk or Al Stewart's Year Of The Cat. The DSOTM quad on Blu-Ray still has plenty of headroom and isn't bright to the point of fatigue, at least for me.
It's not the brightness that bothers me here - it's the same problem I have with the '5 Years' Box Set remaster of Bowie's 'Space Oddity' album - the low end hyped up too much.
 
It's not the brightness that bothers me here - it's the same problem I have with the '5 Years' Box Set remaster of Bowie's 'Space Oddity' album - the low end hyped up too much.
I find it easier on my system to take things down a bit... than to try and bring out what is lacking.
 
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My Denon receiver unfortunately won’t correctly play the 4.0 mix. What’s output is just the front channels and the player indicates it’s 2.0. My old Yamaha receiver was able to play it without any troubles. I’ve tested this with other 4.0 discs I have in PCM and there is definitely an issue with the receiver correctly decoding and not with the blu ray player which correctly indicates it’s playing a 4.0 mix. Has anyone else had similar issues ? The 5.1 track plays with no issues.
Same with my budget Atmos Sony 1080 doesn't like PCM Quad, while my Onkyo TX-NR609 was happy to play Quad
 
Same with my budget Atmos Sony 1080 doesn't like PCM Quad, while my Onkyo TX-NR609 was happy to play Quad
This is quite common with AVR’s. Pure 4.0 (quad) PCM tracks are not correctly recognized, and only the front channels play, while the AVR sees it as stereo. Anything in the rears is simply lost.

If you are able to do so, add a silent center channel to a ripped copy. It will play correctly.
 
Don't forget to wrap the scarf around your neck clockwise three times - counterclockwise (anti-clockwise) in the southern hemisphere.
The problem I had was I forgot to take off The Dark Side of the Moon scarf before putting on The Wall scarf, and then suddenly I was all covered up and then couldn't see the band. But fortunately I broke down the wall.
 
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