HiRez Poll Waters, Roger - AMUSED TO DEATH [BluRay/SACD]

QuadraphonicQuad

Help Support QuadraphonicQuad:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Rate the BDA/SACD of Roger Waters - AMUSED TO DEATH


  • Total voters
    93

JonUrban

Forum Curmudgeon
Staff member
Admin
Moderator
Since 2002/2003
Joined
Mar 2, 2002
Messages
17,681
Location
Connecticut
Please post your thoughts and comments on this 2015 5.1 release of the 1992 album "Amused to Death" by Roger Waters. The new 5.1 mix by James Guthrie is available as an SACD or BluRay disc. (n):phones(y)

Amused to Death Front.jpg
Back of the CD/Blu-Ray Edition:
Amused to Death Back.jpg
Back of the Multichannel SACD Edition:
R-7307234-1445099711-7344.jpeg.jpg
 
I bought this disc(blu ray version)in the hopes that I might be able to connect with this music with this new facelift(surround and improved sound)...but I have an even stronger negative reaction to it than I did back when it was released...to me it's just a "mish mash" of collected sounds and fragmented lyrics...so having said that... I am NOT going to vote on this poll...I don't want to ruin it for those that like this disc and lower the score in the poll...I hope others that have similar feelings on other poll threads do the same when they absolutely hate the content of an album instead of punishing the music because of their own tastes....
 
This gets an 8 from me, but could've so easily been a 9 or 10.

From an audio perspective, this disc sounds great. I think if you approach this album as a single, multi-movement piece, such as a piece of musical theatre, it works so much better. I think the mix is very good and has been done very sympathetically. It takes the old Q Sound stereo mix to a new level. I'm still discovering more with each subsequent listen.

But the reason it only scores an 8 for me is for the packaging, the menu screens and the absence of a codec audio stream. Whilst I can easily play LPCM 5.1 on my main set up, I can't on my other set up in my office. Up there, I rely upon a codec based version because I don't have an HDMI receiver in that room. I sacrifice high resolution for down-sampled DD or DTS, which is fine when I'm working. So the omission of a Dolby TrueHD or DTS-MA track was a downside for me.

The cardboard packaging was a disappointment too, and I can see this getting dog eared after some time, as careful as I usually am.

Finally, the on-screen menu and navigation was basic and poor. It felt like an afterthought and a screen-saver type graphic during playback wouldn't have gone amiss.

But, it is great to finally have this album in 5.1 and it has been a most enjoyable experience. I am expecting my picture disc vinyl to arrive tomorrow :)
 
Here are my thoughts on the disc copied from the bigger "Amused to Death" thread:

Very disappointed in the packaging, which came in slightly bent up from amazon.

Starting with the top of the album and "The Ballad of Bill Hubbard", one of the better 5.1 mixes on the album IMO.

Some of my favorite songs on this album have the worst 5.1 mixes.

On "What God Wants Pt 1": When the full band comes in, the sound field and depth seems to diminish! Seems to me like that's the opposite of what it should be doing!
I do like the addition of the "2001: A Space Odyssey" dialogue into "Perfect Sense, Pts 1 and 2", another two of the better 5.1 mixes on this album.
"The Bravery of Being Out of Range", another one of my favorite songs on the album, sounds very small (like "What God Wants Pt 1") in comparison to the stereo mix. I do like the additional guitar parts in this new mix however. It adds more to the song without diminishing its original greatness.
"Late Home Tonight, Pt 1 & 2" starts off wonderfully with the acoustic guitar in the surrounds. Another winner in surround.
Following that, the opening sound effects of "Too Much Rope" are so realistic. It's almost startling at first!
Like Pt 1, "What God Wants Pt 2" also sounds pretty diminished in power compared to the original stereo mix. I think I do like the surround mix a bit better on Pt 3 however.
I really don't like "Watching TV" at all as a song, and the surround mix of this one hasn't changed my opinion either. I do like Don Henley's vocal contribution to the track though.
Some of the later songs on the album have a lot of sounds and styles reminiscent to me of Toy Matinee, which makes perfect sense since TM's Patrick Leonard co-produced the album with Roger. Great songs, but the surround mixes are a bit all over the place. Very good in some songs or parts of songs, but diminutive and weak in other moments. Still they sound better than some of the more rock-oriented tracks like "What God Wants" and "The Bravery…"

So that's what I have to say about the album in surround. It's worthy of a '9', but it's definitely not a '10', even though I wish it were...

One other thing I must add is how completely unimpressed I am with the Blu-Ray authoring. Looks so amateurish. Neil Wilkes and Ray Shulman could each do 10x a better job than this one…
 
I love the sound quality of the 5.1 mix on BluRay, but I still don't love the album. Not sure if I'll be playing it that often. Just a 7 from me. As others have mentioned, the authoring of the disc is rather minimalist in a bad way.
I tried the set-up options too and on my system the test noise didn't work on the centre channel. No big deal and does not affect my score, but gives a feeling of a rushed job...
 
I gave the blu-ray a 7. Sound clarity is amazing but another tepid 5.1 mix from Guthrie, the authoring is amateurish, and the content is totally absent other than the brief title of each song (in a font that doesn't even match the art direction). And the packaging is shoddy. I was being kind with a 7 rating.

The album itself is another issue which should be independent of this poll. I feel that this is Waters best solo effort, a flawed masterpiece that is padded with too much filler (Watching TV, WGW 2, Too Much Rope, and even the title track), banal lyrics at times, and songs that don't even fit with the album's theme (3 Wishes...which is a good song in itself). Waters recently commented that this album is up there with Dark Side and The Wall but I would tend to disagree.
 
I hit “7” on the poll.
To be clear up front, I do not know what I was expecting. This is my least favorite Water’s solo album and one of my least favorite PF Family albums. The best I can say is that I like the sonics and notice an improved listening experience when it comes to the instrumentation.

The lyrics rarely paint the type of picture that I normally admire out of normally fabulous wordsmiths like Waters. “What God Wants” is banal, repetitive & dull. The Marv Albert sports/war wordplay was an already tired shtick when the album first came out in 1992.
It seems even more dated now.

Sonically, I give the album high marks. Not being in the let’s bash Guthrie club, I give the album good marks for a discrete mix. The instruments get some breathing room which I think is a plus. I very much like the enhanced definition – especially in the guitar work.

I decided to be neutral on the authoring. My guess is that all blame should be left at Legacy. Remember, this was originally planned for an Audio Fidelity SACD release. No AV menus or bonus content needed. My conspiracy theory is that Legacy simply didn’t bother investing time and effort when the format switch came about. Probably shot Guthrie an email. “Say James…. We are going to put this thing out on Blu-ray now. Can you cobble some kind of menu together before lunch? What’s that? No, nothing extra in the budget… just be a good lad, your good with that technology stuff.”

I will most likely play it a few more times until the next major 5.1 release comes out but each time I think my brain will wander off and wonder why fate gave me this 5.1 and not The Final Cut, Animals or the Wall.

Greg
 
I listened to the 5.1 on headphones first, which worked very well, and I was pleased. I wrote a favorable tweet about it. A lot of detail that was hard to hear appeared clearer to my ears.

The next day, with the house to myself, I cranked the thing on over the 5.1 setup. What a letdown - I was left pretty darn cold. A 7 from me. For some reason, it just sounded better through headphones. This was, and always will be, a headphone album for me.

I checked this against the 5.1 of TDB and some other reference discs to make sure my system wasn't out of whack. It wasn't. I think Guthrie is just too focused on respecting the original presentation of the album to show us something surprising and new. Sorry James.

I also didn't like some of the changes, particularly to "the Bravery of Being Out of Range". The Hal 2001 clip was fine.
 
Wow, I might be in a minority here, but I just finished listening to this from start to finish, and I really enjoyed it. I bought this actually expecting it to suck!... I've only heard one other solo album by Waters which was Radio KAOS back in the eighties; I didn't enjoy the music or concept of that one at the time and the cd disappeared from my collection long ago (but who knows, 25 years later I might like it!) Amused to Death, however, has great rock throughout reminiscent of Floyd (most like The Wall), excellent musicianship, interesting lyrics, a coherent concept throughout, great fidelity, and (to my ears) a fantastic surround mix! If you're listening for a discrete, well separated mix of the music alone, the instruments are mainly in the front 3 speakers with some wrap around to the rears; however, if you listen to the mix of the work as a whole ( sound effects, voices, music), it's an immersive experience. I'm not ready to vote yet, but I liked it so much I'm going to listen again right now!!! My second favorite Floyd solo album next to Gilmour's first.

One more thing... I could care less about menus and DVD authoring; for me it's all about the music. An SACD has no menus at all, but I don't give them lower scores because of it!
 
Wow, I might be in a minority here, but I just finished listening to this from start to finish, and I really enjoyed it. I bought this actually expecting it to suck!... I've only heard one other solo album by Waters which was Radio KAOS back in the eighties; I didn't enjoy the music or concept of that one at the time and the cd disappeared from my collection long ago (but who knows, 25 years later I might like it!) Amused to Death, however, has great rock throughout reminiscent of Floyd (most like The Wall), excellent musicianship, interesting lyrics, a coherent concept throughout, great fidelity, and (to my ears) a fantastic surround mix! If you're listening for a discrete, well separated mix of the music alone, the instruments are mainly in the front 3 speakers with some wrap around to the rears; however, if you listen to the mix of the work as a whole ( sound effects, voices, music), it's an immersive experience. I'm not ready to vote yet, but I liked it so much I'm going to listen again right now!!! My second favorite Floyd solo album next to Gilmour's first.

One more thing... I could care less about menus and DVD authoring; for me it's all about the music. An SACD has no menus at all, but I don't give them lower scores because of it!

I'm pleased to hear you say this....this has got to be the first disc I've purchased that I regret it before I opened it...just based on all the comments. I've not opened it cause my system is torn down...it might be weeks!!
 
Well, since I picked this album when we did the "pick just one you want in surround" choice a while back, you can be assured that I'm a big fan of it. One of my all time favorites and I think this release is great! The clarity of the sound is superb and I think the surround mix is very well done. And I love that there are different elements and choices in this mix. It's like the first time listening to the old WYWH quad where you are listening and suddenly hear things that weren't there before. I really worried when I heard that they re-did Bravery of Being Out of Range since I think it's such a great song. But I love the new version and it reminds me of how Wind Up on Aqualung in quad was so different from the stereo version. It just makes this version unique from the one we've heard all these years.

This is Guthrie and it's done very much like the two Floyd albums he's done. I think this mix is probably a little better than either of those, but we don't have an old quad version to compare to. It's definitely not like the quad releases on SACD from AF recently where they stick a different instrument in each corner, but the music is spread out through the room and is opened up where it sounds better than ever, to my ears. There's just so much more room for all the sounds that make up this album. The center channel use is a little different with the vocals not seeming to be mixed into it at all. I think it helps as Rog's voice seems better suited to being mixed across the FR/FL speakers.

And I really don't care about the authoring and would never make that part of my rating as I just put the music on a hard drive and will always listen to it start to finish as I think it's an album made to be listened to that way. And with it being a bluray, I remove the menu and the stereo track and try to save as many GB's as I can since I'm trying to hold off buying another drive and both are almost full.

I'd suggest that anyone who is a fan of this will love the surround version. I know this album isn't for everyone as it's not exactly an uplifting listen and the theme is pretty dark. I don't know good music from bad, only what I like and don't and this one I like a lot. Couldn't have asked for more than to have a great sounding surround release of this. Count me as completely satisfied.

K
 
Copied and pasted most of this from the discussion thread. Should have waited a day or 2 for the poll I guess!

I give it an 8. The "Q-sound" stereo mix is about perfect. :) I used to think it was just bs but you can hear it clearly now!
Spoiler: The 5.1 remix is shocking crude in a number of ways. The sound stage being quite a bit smaller than the stereo mix for one.
The mastering/authoring errors with the 2 songs repeated (one of them being the first track on the disc) gets another demerit.
The Q-sound mix revealed saves this release and not much else matters!



My copy came in a larger than normal 3 fold cardboard case and inside an 'inner sleeve'. Maybe the simple cardboard sleeve mentioned earlier was the 1st batch only? There was also a CD copy stuck into the middle of the case. Not sure what that was included for - might make a good coaster.

Put the disc in and it's named BDROM. Yep.

Now it looks like some of the tracks are intended for menus perhaps? I just haven't been motivated to buy some expensive paid app just for the experience of seeing a blurry disc menu "properly". I rip A/V to mkv files and audio only to flac files for my library. Skipping the 3 just under 30 sec tracks which leaves 5. So…

Track 1
Kinda triply ambient instrumental version of The Bravery Of Being Out Of Range.
Questionable way to open the disc to me. Not bad or anything… But, um… it literally repeats twice. Yep.

Track 2
The 5.1 remix of the album.
Yeah… More of a "stereo mix presented in the surround format" kind of thing. Not a bad thing. But not really a surround mix that dives into the music. That would be fine and this would simply be a cool alternate mix…
if it wasn't mixed so awkwardly! I mean… the vocal so hot that the low end of just Rogers voice is louder than the rock band kick drum?! You can't turn this mix up and rock the music element. It's mixed as very background to Roger's voice. Sounds messed up. The lead vox are mixed to the front L,R too. Center is only used for ambience. So, no turning down your C speaker for a quick "post mastering" fix. The fx are hotter too. I'm not so sure that being able to hear the tape hiss gating on and off on the narrator voc in the 1st track is such a good thing. (Just to be clear, there's nothing wrong with lead vox in the front L,R. Can be more appropriate at times. The issue here is they are simply far too loud in the mix. But it does add to the 'stereo presented in a surround format' aesthetic here and reminds me of those "upmixes" the kids post to some of those internet sites.)

I honestly only made it to the beginning of Perfect Sense pt1 and shut it off.

Jumping to track 5
The original stereo mix.
OK! Just holy shit was that 1992 CD squashed as all hell! This… makes this album make a WHOLE lot more sense with this theatrical dynamic range that is not even remotely possible to present on a 16 bit CD format. Roger was just too far ahead of the consumer technology with the original release and you can finally hear it now.

You can honestly perceive surround with this Q mix! You couldn't hear any trace on the original CD. I thought it was just some bs. Must have been obliterated by the 16 bit treatment. You sit right in the sweet spot and it comes into focus like those magic eye things for 3D.

This is very cool and honestly puts the pathetic attempt at a surround mix to shame!

I used to think I only liked maybe 3 songs on this album (I mean Pink Floyd-like level of like) but now I'd only list 3 or 4 as filler-ish.

Really liking this a lot! This is the meat (and pudding) of this release.

The 2001 clip stands out a little for being pasted over the top if this elaborate mix. Not quite in the image the same way but not too bad. That was the only flaw to me. (I like the part. Just commenting on the production work in adding it. Is that Roger still backwards swearing about not being able to use it though?)

Track 3
It's A Miracle (instrumental). Another ambient thing. Once you've heard it once…
…yes, that's right they did it again! The song twice in a row in the track. Just wow…
Oh, these ambient mixes have video too BTW. Similar low key visually ambient thing there too.

Track 4
Another ambient thing. What song is this one? Not sure. It's 20 minutes long! Skipped to the middle to see if they screwed up again. Doesn't look like it.
Hmmm… I can space out to early Floyd for pretty long periods but nothing's grabbing me here. All good. Can't complain about filling the disc with bonus stuff.



This release is a really stunning upgrade on what turns out to have been a very demolished original release from the dark ages that were the 1990's - before 24 bit digital releases, after audiophile vinyl.

The 5.1 mix is merely an extra here for me, which sucks. It's far from the worst mix I've heard. It has a high level of fidelity. But it's pretty embarrassing next to this stereo mix! It's smaller sounding than the stereo mix by quite a lot and you can't turn it up.

Would have been really classy to include the original stereo mix sans additions too IMHO. (Especially if they're filling space with 20 min ambient tracks!)

And what's up with the new cover?
Did the monkey sue for copyright violation or something?
 
Dear me, I am feeling like this may be a long rant. I'll try to be as brief as possible, but I can't promise anything.....

First, given that the artistic merit of this album is something that is hotly debated, I guess I'll first mention my feelings on the matter. There are a lot of detractors to Roger's work in the 80's, but I have never been one of them. The Final Cut remains one of my favorite Pink Floyd albums. I enjoy Pros & Cons of Hitch Hiking, I don't think it has any weak moments although it may not be Roger's best work. Radio K.A.O.S. is an album that I truly love. I saw its accompanying tour on five nights and thought the shows were amazing. At the time (1987) I was one of those folks screaming "it ain't Floyd without Roger." Needless to say I didn't care much for A Momentary Lapse of Reason. I eagerly and impatiently awaited the release of Amused to Death as Roger had at that point never gone so long without releasing new material. Upon release I found the album to be a powerful statement and enjoyed it greatly although there were three songs ("Perfect Sense part 1" and both parts of "Late Home Tonight") that I felt were poor and should have been left off the album. As time wore on though, I found that the album did not stand up to repeated listens for me. In the end, it got to the point where there were only five songs on the album ("Ballad of...", "Bravery", "3 Wishes", "Miracle" and the title cut) that I could listen to anymore. I find the rest of the album to be meandering and bloated. So I fully admit that my opinions of this disc may be influenced by this bias.

First of all I will say that the sonics/fidelity on this disc are amazing. The sound is exceptionally rich and clear. I felt really blown away by the power of the music when the final verse of the title track kicked in. You could really feel the change in dynamics which is so frequently absent in today's brickwalling atmosphere that most music is subjected to. So Guthrie should be commended for how good this sounds especially considering the challenges that he faced when piecing this mix together.

The 5.1 mix (which of course was my primary reason for buying this disc) however is a major disappointment. Like his mix of Dark Side of the Moon, Guthrie is very liberal with his use of the rear speakers when it comes to sound effects, but extremely conservative when it comes to the musical elements. There are moments that are exceptions to this, but not enough to keep me happy. As others have mentioned, the songs that really rock out (like "WGW1" and "Bravery") have a minimal amount of information coming from the rear speakers. I was happy to hear the Hal 9000 monologue from 2001 mixed in, thought it was a nice touch. However in some other places I think Guthrie got the balance of music and sound effects wrong. The telephone ringing at the end of "WGW3" scared the crap out of me the first time I heard it. In the 5.1 mix, I barely noticed it.

As for extras, I understand why people think that the unimaginative visuals are a disappointment, but I can't really take away points for it as I wouldn't really care if the 5.1 mix had been excellent. (I often listen to surround mixes with my eyes closed anyway.) I really enjoyed the alternate version of "Bravery" that plays during one of the menus. It had a similar vibe to that of the 1987 touring band. (Roger apparently held some recording sessions with that band in October 1987 between legs of the K.A.O.S. tour, most of which - if not all - never saw the light of day. Maybe this version of "Bravery" is from those sessions?) I do think it's disappointing that there are no visual extras on this disc. Roger made multiple videos for "WGW" as well as a video for "3 Wishes." Not the greatest videos ever made, but given the storage capacity that blu-ray is capable of, it seems strange that these wouldn't be included, especially as they just went to the trouble of creating a new edit for the "WGW" video.

It's really disheartening to me that several of my favorite bands (Pink Floyd, The Who, Genesis) would rather have someone in-house be responsible for preparing their surround mixes rather than farming it out to someone who really gets it like Wilson or Sheiner. The only upside for me here is that in this case the disappointing mix was applied to an album that is not one of my favorites. Hopefully Gilmour & Waters will both realize that there's someone in their camp (Andy Jackson) who is much more talented at creating surround mixes and that he will be responsible for any other future catalog remixes.

I've been debating how I should rate this. I first thought that I should only give it a 6 but then thought that maybe I was letting my bias against the music influence my decision. Maybe a 6 is too harsh. But as I wrote this I popped in XTC's Drums and Wires. A disc with a fabulous mix that is packed with an insane amount of extras. The fact that XTC can pull off these exceptional reissues without the support of a major label and without the financial resources that Waters obviously has all of a sudden made a 6 rating not seem too harsh.
 
I'm not sure if I have the same version as some other folks, but my BD works fine... None of the songs "repeat twice" (at least when listening to the 5.1 mix). My menus all work fine, too. Roger's vocals did seem a little hot to me at first listen, but his lyrics are an important part of the experience, so the level seems appropriate. I really like this disc (see my previous comments as to why). I give it a 9.
 
I like this 5.1 mix very much.I've had the gold cd for a long time and played it lots of times,but this is a much better experience I think. Tried the stereo mix on the disc,but it left me cold.Could not play it trough because the 5.1 mix sounds so much better.
Gave it 9.
 
I am so NOT getting the criticism for this Blu Ray.

I bought this CD many years ago, listened to it once and was completely unengaged. Not the case with the 5.1 mix -- I really like the space and dynamics and it sounds very full to me. I understand the complaints about Guthrie's conservative use of the surrounds, but that's trumped by the realization that for the first time, I actually care what Waters was trying to do with this material. Yes, we're spoiled by Wilson and Scheiner, but in the dry days of just a few years back, this disc would be getting a much higher rating.

I will definitely be coming back to it, which is the best compliment and endorsement for a recording. A solid '9.5' from me. I'm gonna round up in the poll.
 
It does look like there are two versions. At least with the packaging.
My copy is the better package (ie. not just the single sleeve).
The vocals in the 5.1 mix on this copy are in fact SO hot that the whole sound stage sounds much smaller than in the stereo mix.

If there was never a stereo mix for this - the 5.1 mix would simply be what it is and it is in fact very high fidelity. It's just that the original stereo mix trumps it hard. Oh well... But that's actually OK. The big reveal here is that the Q-sound thing they were talking about back then was not in fact just bs and we get to REALLY hear it for the first time on this release!

Those two ambient remix tracks really do run twice on this copy too. I'm looking at the actual files. The file sizes match what is reported on the disc by the MakeMKV app when browsing the disc too. This wasn't an error ripping the disc either (and such an error certainly wouldn't cleanly double 2 files only). The 2 files are error free and there's no glitch or click at the half way point where it repeats.

Hmmm...
Now I want to hear one of the copies that came in just the single sleeve in case this vocal mix thing is a mastering mistake of some kind.
If you didn't need to turn the volume down because of the vox, the 5.1 mix would be a wonderful thing!

Anyone want to trade files for evaluation? (Can I even ask that?)

Speculation:
Maybe the lead vox were supposed to go to the center channel but some mistake routed them to both the front L,R? ('Both' meaning double/2x. The image would be centered but double loud - which is about how it sounds.)
 
Jim, are you saying the tracks during the song selection, both stereo and surround, are not 45 minutes and 60 minutes plus (which is the same song repeated numerous times) on your copy, but just start all over again after two runs? Or are you talking about other tracks?
 
Jim, are you saying the tracks during the song selection, both stereo and surround, are not 45 minutes and 60 minutes plus (which is the same song repeated numerous times) on your copy, but just start all over again after two runs? Or are you talking about other tracks?

First, I'm setting the software to ignore any track under :30. I'm treating this like a plain bluray disc.

This is what I see:

track 1. TBOBOOR ambient instrumental 11:18
track 2. Amused To Death 5.1 album (14 songs) 1:12:40
track 3. IAM ambient instrumental 8:31
track 4. ambient instrumental 19:46
track 5. Amused To Death stereo album (14 songs) 1:12:40

I just noticed these ambient tracks are at 48k (still 24 bit but not 96k). These must just be exceptionally long menu music tracks I guess.
The ambient mixes are only in 5.1.

They just apparently attract more attention than they should. Hard to ignore an 11min+ opening surround track!

They do in fact run twice in the track. All 3. The last one is odd in that the 2nd 'loop' starts 1:40 seconds into the 1st iteration.


Screen shot 2015-08-09 at 2.12.03 PM.png

Screen shot 2015-08-09 at 2.16.33 PM.png

All in all over 11.5GB of content on the disc that actually fits (fully losslessly) into 0.5GB of flac files.

Not a complaint in any way! Just a comment.
 
Jim, can you send the codes in the bluray disc? I mean the numbers on the disc itself.
Mine sounds apparently right (I have an ear infection for the last couple of weeks, so don't trust me completely).
I also have the sacd (listened only once) and felt like it sounded better than the bluray but, as I said, heard with a watery feeling on the right ear and pain with sharper sounds at medium volume.
 
Back
Top