HiRez Poll Shakespears Sister - HORMONALLY YOURS [Blu-Ray Audio (Dolby Atmos)]

[beerking]

To my old lug holes this is worthy of a 9.
I don't hear the lack of fidelity, in fact quite the opposite.
I like what they've done with the surround mix and the Atmos brings it alive.

I wonder why the difference in playback fidelity is causing issues for some and not others...

Perhaps we all need to go on a world home swap tour and see what's what..

 

[fredblue]

I wonder why the difference in playback fidelity is causing issues for some and not others...

.

1.) gear
2.) setup
3.) hearing
4.) room

5.) ...beer?

 

[4-earredwonder]

To my old lug holes this is worthy of a 9.
I don't hear the lack of fidelity, in fact quite the opposite.
I like what they've done with the surround mix and the Atmos brings it alive.

I wonder why the difference in playback fidelity is causing issues for some and not others...

Perhaps we all need to go on a world home swap tour and see what's what..

On my fourth listen [this time CRITICAL], I just upped my vote to a SOLID 9 ........ In fact, what Mike says is absolutely TRUE.

The remix, even in 5.1, is STUNNING .... grabs you and envelops you. The songs are catchy, well crafted, performed with utmost precision and when that deep bass kicks in ...... really soar!

Thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish!

HOUSTON .....I THINK WE HAVE A WINNER!

 

[CINERAMAX]

And you certainly have a state of the art system to make those assertions.

I'm listening to it for a third time and it really does grow on you. And I'm still not experiencing any sort of 'sibilance!'

no sibilance here dynaudio esotars and ati class ab amp. Just fast

 

[J. PUPSTER]

Having listened several times to this now on both my computer and my main system, believe it's time to finish up with my thoughts on this one.

I do remember some about Marcy Levy (aka Marcella Detroit) mainly from her days with Eric Clapton in the 70's/80's.
Here's another example of her singing powers from a 1976 live Clapton band song captured off of The King Biscuit Flower Hour.
The song is one of my favs (I had captured that concert live back then on Reel to Reel) called- "One Night With You"
you can check it out here from the wolfgang's vault. She can also play the harmonica really well, as you can hear on song #5 here called "Emotional Thing."

I really don't know much at all about Siobhan Fahey.

I'm thinking the differences that a few folks have expressed about sound of this one may come down to a couple things.

1. The inconsistencies of the mix and punchiness from song to song. (I'll get into some examples later.)

2. Speakers... Speakers... Speakers... & one's room acoustics - (Everyone's set-up/gear is very different. For instance, some may have good matching speaker sets and others not. I don't BTW, but I did choose for my main speakers some Martin Logan's with Folded Motion style tweeters over what I initially tested out, which were some nice Paradigm models. The Paradigms were much brighter on the top end and bothered me a bit.)

I'm only reviewing the 5.1 mix here, not Atmos. The 5.1 does not appear to have any information in the LFE/.1 channel.

Usually what I do when getting a new disc is rip it and look at some of the songs in Audacity and see how they're structured. Depending on the "style" of the song (which varies somewhat here) the mixes can be substantially different.
A few examples:

Song #2 - I Don't Care
*Quite a bit of info in the Center. The rear left is not as loud as the right rear. The Center has some light vocals, ambient BUV vocals, a guitar picking a simple line, Synth, some percussion and a couple of sound effects.
The rears have some light vocals, acoustic guitar strums in the RR, various synth sounds; so overall pretty discrete and complex. The problem for me though is the balance is not what I like, the Right Rear is not too bad, but I would have preferred the Left Rear to be 2-5 dbs louder in various spots.
All the bass and drums appear to be in the Fronts, and the Center is mainly used as just a helper channel in support of the Fronts, but IMO could have been utilized a little more inventively with more discrete elements. I'm not even sure you'd miss it much if it wasn't even there.
-Amplitude levels are -4.7dbs Fronts, -15dbs Rear Left & -11.8dbs Rear Right. That's a wide spread from front to rears IMO.




Song #4 - Are We In Love Yet (This has a very funky Prince vibe to me and one of my favs on the album and a very different mix style along with song style.)
*Nothing in the Center channel or the LFE channel in this one.
-Amplitude on these channels are: -5.85dbs Fronts, -8dbs Rear Left & -7.9dbs Rear Right; this seems a much better balanced and enjoyable mix to me, but again it is a different style of song.
The Rear Left has mainly a funky wah wah guitar, the Rear Right has some similar sounding electric keyboard and both have some fairly upfront BUV sections and percussion. Again, all the Bass/Drums in the Fronts.



Song #6 - Stay
*Again nothing in the LFE, and only some very light ambient vocals, piano and a chime in the Center.
The Rear Left has some vocals that gradually push to the Rear Right and then opens up more with the BUV, also some synth in the Rear Right. You can see by the wav pic that the Rear Left is much lower overall than the Rear Right. About the 1:55 min. mark, the Right Rear has some substantial chunky guitar chording come in. Then as the song picks up intensity at about the 2:54 min. mark, the distorted crunchy guitar really explodes into the mix in the Rear Right (a bit too much IMO, as the song overall gets a little out of control sound wise.)
The amplitudes are: Fronts -4.59dbs; Center -23.38dbs; Rear Left -11.85dbs; Rear Right -9.99 dbs.



Anyway, just a few examples of the mixing choices in 5.1 on this one to chew on.

A couple of extra thoughts. I felt the first song, Goodbye Cruel World, has a David Bowie vibe to it, as there's a droning guitar note / synth that reminds me of the one in Bowie's Heroes song. There also are a few loud cymbal hits that are just wee bit crispy in a few songs. There are some songs where IMO they could have increased the rear volume a little more in the mix and made some more interesting discrete mixing choices in the Center and Rears overall.

Overall very enjoyable listen and I'm thrilled to have this one in this format; and thanks to Paul at SDE for getting this done!

My vote is an 8.

 

[sjcorne]

There also are a few loud cymbal hits that are just wee bit crispy in a few songs. There are some songs where IMO they could have increased the rear volume a little more in the mix and made some more interesting discrete mixing choices in the Center and Rears overall.

I haven't checked out the 5.1 yet, but my impression of the Atmos mix is similar. There are a few songs that sound almost like the stereo mix upfront with a single sound effect or instrument pushed out towards the sides/rear (mute the fronts on "Emotional Thing" and all you'll hear is the tremolo effect plus some guitar stabs), but others like "Are We In Love Yet" really use the whole space. The heights are near-silent for much of the time and could have been utilized more aggressively, particularly with some of the fun spoken word bits.

 

[Tres Discrete]

Having listened several times to this now on both my computer and my main system, believe it's time to finish up with my thoughts on this one.

I do remember some about Marcy Levy (aka Marcella Detroit) mainly from her days with Eric Clapton in the 70's/80's.
Here's another example of her singing powers from a 1976 live Clapton band song captured off of The King Biscuit Flower Hour.
The song is one of my favs (I had captured that concert live back then on Reel to Reel) called- "One Night With You"
you can check it out here from the wolfgang's vault. She can also play the harmonica really well, as you can hear on song #5 here called "Emotional Thing."

I really don't know much at all about Siobhan Fahey.

I'm thinking the differences that a few folks have expressed about sound of this one may come down to a couple things.

1. The inconsistencies of the mix and punchiness from song to song. (I'll get into some examples later.)

2. Speakers... Speakers... Speakers... & one's room acoustics - (Everyone's set-up/gear is very different. For instance, some may have good matching speaker sets and others not. I don't BTW, but I did choose for my main speakers some Martin Logan's with Folded Motion style tweeters over what I initially tested out, which were some nice Paradigm models. The Paradigms were much brighter on the top end and bothered me a bit.)

I'm only reviewing the 5.1 mix here, not Atmos. The 5.1 does not appear to have any information in the LFE/.1 channel.

Usually what I do when getting a new disc is rip it and look at some of the songs in Audacity and see how they're structured. Depending on the "style" of the song (which varies somewhat here) the mixes can be substantially different.
A few examples:

Song #2 - I Don't Care
*Quite a bit of info in the Center. The rear left is not as loud as the right rear. The Center has some light vocals, ambient BUV vocals, a guitar picking a simple line, Synth, some percussion and a couple of sound effects.
The rears have some light vocals, acoustic guitar strums in the RR, various synth sounds; so overall pretty discrete and complex. The problem for me though is the balance is not what I like, the Right Rear is not too bad, but I would have preferred the Left Rear to be 2-5 dbs louder in various spots.
All the bass and drums appear to be in the Fronts, and the Center is mainly used as just a helper channel in support of the Fronts, but IMO could have been utilized a little more inventively with more discrete elements. I'm not even sure you'd miss it much if it wasn't even there.
-Amplitude levels are -4.7dbs Fronts, -15dbs Rear Left & -11.8dbs Rear Right. That's a wide spread from front to rears IMO.

View attachment 84410


Song #4 - Are We In Love Yet (This has a very funky Prince vibe to me and one of my favs on the album and a very different mix style along with song style.)
*Nothing in the Center channel or the LFE channel in this one.
-Amplitude on these channels are: -5.85dbs Fronts, -8dbs Rear Left & -7.9dbs Rear Right; this seems a much better balanced and enjoyable mix to me, but again it is a different style of song.
The Rear Left has mainly a funky wah wah guitar, the Rear Right has some similar sounding electric keyboard and both have some fairly upfront BUV sections and percussion. Again, all the Bass/Drums in the Fronts.

View attachment 84411

Song #6 - Stay
*Again nothing in the LFE, and only some very light ambient vocals, piano and a chime in the Center.
The Rear Left has some vocals that gradually push to the Rear Right and then opens up more with the BUV, also some synth in the Rear Right. You can see by the wav pic that the Rear Left is much lower overall than the Rear Right. About the 1:55 min. mark, the Right Rear has some substantial chunky guitar chording come in. Then as the song picks up intensity at about the 2:54 min. mark, the distorted crunchy guitar really explodes into the mix in the Rear Right (a bit too much IMO, as the song overall gets a little out of control sound wise.)
The amplitudes are: Fronts -4.59dbs; Center -23.38dbs; Rear Left -11.85dbs; Rear Right -9.99 dbs.

View attachment 84413

Anyway, just a few examples of the mixing choices in 5.1 on this one to chew on.

A couple of extra thoughts. I felt the first song, Goodbye Cruel World, has a David Bowie vibe to it, as there's a droning guitar note / synth that reminds me of the one in Bowie's Heroes song. There also are a few loud cymbal hits that are just wee bit crispy in a few songs. There are some songs where IMO they could have increased the rear volume a little more in the mix and made some more interesting discrete mixing choices in the Center and Rears overall.

Overall very enjoyable listen and I'm thrilled to have this one in this format; and thanks to Paul at SDE for getting this done!

My vote is an 8.

Siobhan was one of the original 3 in Banarama, so my love for her knows no bounds

 

[key_wiz]

Hmmm. A couple of more listens before I can vote on this one. I’m between an 8 and a 9

First of all — what an underappreciated/forgotten gem this album is. A truly great album of great songs from the early 90s—the last great period of original rock music IMO. And a guilty pleasure of mine that I haven’t listened to in probably 30 years, so thanks for releasing this so I have a reason to remember it.

but a bit of an odd choice for an audiophile release as it is such a “female” album. How many other males (other than myself) ever got into this one? And we all know that our surround hobby is a very male-oriented one. I hope there’s an audience for this release. But the music is an easy “10”. Love every track here.

But the ratings fall both for the overall fidelity—which has an oddly muddy sound throughout. I guess that was the original mix throughout, though I don’t recall that. And for the surround mix which is at times spectacular (“Are We In Love Yet”) and at other times quite tame (“Goodbye Cruel World”)

But maybe a good record to play for the wives? But hats off to two amazingly talent women—Marcella Detroit and Siobhan Fahey—as well as the talents of Dave Stewart (he was Siobhan’s husband at the time and co-wrote songs here under the pseudonym “Guiot”), Chris Thomas, and even the shoutout Siobhan gives to George, Olivia and Dhani Harrison as the album was recorded at George’s studio.

BTW— I’m only talking about the 5.1 mix here. I don’t have an Atmos setup and haven’t listened to that mix (yet)

 

[wavelength]

If you are running a 5.1 system, my advice is to skip the 5.1 mix and go directly to the Atmos mix. Sounds way better.

 

[Scott65]

1.) gear
2.) setup
3.) hearing
4.) room

5.) ...beer?

Number 5 always enhances the listening experience....

 

[marpow]

I voted 6.
The music, style of music, just not my thing, nuff said.

 

[The56Kid]

Just received this along with my copy of The Hurting. My system is a mere 5.1, so no ATMOS for me.

I first tried the DTS-HD MA 5.1 track and was extremely disappointed in the overall fidelity and surround mix. It sounds very sedate and rather flat with a very meek surround mix.

Switching to the Dolby TrueHD 7.1 track allowed this puppy to really come to life in all regards: sonics, fidelity, surround mix. Never heard this album or artist before, but I’m digging it.

I’m going with a very strong 8 that might reach a 9 with further listens.

It seems I’ve had a similar experience with recent ATMOS purchases: surround mix comes up short in DTS-HD MA, but totally kicks ass in Dolby TrueHD. Hmmmm…

 

[par4ken]

I bought this along with Suede. I always kind of liked Shakespear's Sister. This disc exceeded my expectations! I have to give it a 10. Great surround and prefomance and excellent sound quality!

 

[drphibes]

Don't have Atmos, so I won't enter a number in the poll. I like the original album, but I agree that the 5,1 mix is disappointing. Not enough on its own to make this a worthwhile purchase for me. 5.

 

[par4ken]

I gave it another listen and this time I notice the complete lack of bass in the rear channels. Obviously it was mixed for those dinky little surround speakers! I'll guess that I'll have to rip the disc and mix the lfe into the rear as I've done in the past. Because of the non-directional sound quality of bass the lack of it is not apparent until you adjust the balance toward the rear. If I didn't know better I'd think that my back speakers woofers were blown (when listening in isolation)!

By the way I listen through four full range speakers, so I'm listening to the 5.1 downmixed to 4.0.

I then tried the Atmos version also downmixed to 4.0 by the Oppo BDP-95 and the sound quality was not good. There was less bass and a muddied sound quality.

My vote is still ten but I think that by throwing some bass into the rear will give it more oomph.

Edit: Reading the above posts, it looks like there is nothing in the lfe channel, so a "remix-downmix" will be harder than I thought. Will leave it for another day!