Surround Albums to AVOID!!!

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I thought the original 5.1 mix of Katatonia's The Great Cold Distance was inferior to the stereo.
But, Bruce Soord's re-remix for the 10th Anniversary edition does it for me. Plus the bonus concert has a symphony discrete in the surrounds. Great DVD-A.
There is no 'original' 5.1 mix of TGCD. It was in fact a quad mix, incorrectly labeled a 5.1. Bruce did a better job with the rears, I agree, although Jens is a master of great guitar and drum sounds for heavy releases.
 
A very useful thread... I have a few candidates, in all cases a disappointing to non-existent surround mix, with mostly ambience in the rears:

-Alanis Morissette - Under Rug Swept
-Steve Hackett - Wolflight
-Squackett - A Life Within A Day
Under Rug Swept is fully discrete, although needs a little work. I will send you a track when I have it uploaded.
 
How about 90% of the live multichannel discs. Just because the music is coming from the front during the show doesn't mean the mix at home has to. You can't truly recreate the experience of being there, so take a chance and do something special with the mix. The worst is probably the Rolling Stones Stripped box set. It sounds like you're sitting in the front row and there is cement for a back wall and it just echoes back at you. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible.
 
The first one that comes to mind for me is the DualDisc of Los Lonely Boys self titled album. Don’t get me wrong I love this album but the Dolby Digital 5.1 version on the DualDisc is horrendous. Even with the rears turned up 5 dbs I still can’t hear anything coming from back there. I don’t know why they even bothered.
 
Some of those circa 2000 DVDA reissues with a new 5.1 mix but no inclusion of the original quad mix come to mind.

Agreed. The only one of those titles where I ended up preferring the new 5.1 over the original quad was the Doobie Brothers' The Captain & Me. Sony/Columbia issued a few MC-SACDs at the same time that used the original quad mixes (Herbie Hancock, O'Jays, Weather Report, etc) - I wish Warner did the same with their DVD-As.
 
Yeah, I never got the intense hatred for that one either. It's nothing fancy, but it works well enough.
That’s just it - ‘works well enough’ - simply doesn’t come close to cutting it for such an incredible album featuring great songs and musicianship. Between Bowie’s acoustic guitar and Ronson’s electric guitars alone, the groundwork for a fantastic surround mix was there, but remains untapped.
 
That’s just it - ‘works well enough’ - simply doesn’t come close to cutting it for such an incredible album featuring great songs and musicianship. Between Bowie’s acoustic guitar and Ronson’s electric guitars alone, the groundwork for a fantastic surround mix was there, but remains untapped.
Maybe the recording isn't great? I've always thought the stereo sounds like s*#t...
 
None that I can think of:

- Even the crappy Silverline 5.1 mixes have improved audio quality over what preceded them.
- The Moody Blues ISOTLC 5.1 is lousy, but the 96/24 stereo mix that comes with the set is an absolute killer played thru the SMv2.
- Beatles 1+ is a poor 5.1 mix in general; but again the stereo remixes are of very high fidelity and the SMv2 give a nice surround sound presentation.
- Genesis Invisible Touch 5.1 has serious fidelity issues but can be corrected with significant EQ adjustments.
 
None that I can think of:

- Even the crappy Silverline 5.1 mixes have improved audio quality over what preceded them.
- The Moody Blues ISOTLC 5.1 is lousy, but the 96/24 stereo mix that comes with the set is an absolute killer played thru the SMv2.
- Beatles 1+ is a poor 5.1 mix in general; but again the stereo remixes are of very high fidelity and the SMv2 give a nice surround sound presentation.
- Genesis Invisible Touch 5.1 has serious fidelity issues but can be corrected with significant EQ adjustments.
I do think the Silverline stuff is a mixed bag; I really like the Gordon Goodwin titles i.e.
https://www.discogs.com/Gordon-Goodwins-Big-Phat-Band-XXL/release/7862489And here’s one I don’t like:
https://www.discogs.com/Widespread-Panic-Dont-Tell-The-Band/release/7467533
 
- The Moody Blues ISOTLC 5.1 is lousy, but the 96/24 stereo mix that comes with the set is an absolute killer played thru the SMv2.
I so agree about Moody Blues' "In Search of the Lost Chord". Long ago, when they released most of the band's quad mixes, I'd been so disappointed to hear that the original multitracks of that one album were lost. Then a surround mix surfaced, and I was so delighted... I hoped it was a modern surround remix with less reverb. Then I heard it. Both its fidelity and use of the surround field are terrible, and all that messy, Spectorish reverb is still there. I haven't tried the stereo mix that comes with it, so I'm glad you said something. I'll need to dig that up... somewhere.

Oh... and another thing: I'd never heard of the SMv2 before, so I Googled it and found Involve Audio's page on the device. OMG, I love it! They never use the word "upmix", but they do describe it in the most outrageous way:

"Every sound recorded on a track is reproduced in exactly the same location where it was recorded, giving you the sense of actually being there."

Exactly the same location?

Also, it's pretty cool that the circuitry is entirely analog.

You made my day!

(I'm not judging how valuable upmixing is to your ears, or the quality of the unit; I'm only ripping Involve Audio's marketing.)
 
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