HiRez Poll Yes - TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS [DVD-Audio/Blu-Ray Audio]

[Juggsnelson]

Not much for me to add to what has been previously stated! Steven Wilson's mix is a triumph. This album needed to be opened up so badly. A lot going on here although the disc really shines during the minimal passages as well, especially during The Ancient. These Yes reissues offer an embarrassment of riches too. My only complaint is that I wished they used the Jethro Tull book format. A must own.

 

[beerking]

Yes
+
Steven Wilson
=
10

 

[blackpage]

I finally ripped the 96/24 new stereo remix from the bluray so I could listen on my FIIO X5 (2nd gen) portable at work with headphones. Honestly? Unbelievable.

An album I've heard hundreds of times, dozens of times in 5.1 from the Blu-ray, and now - - the hires stereo remix, it was like I was hearing it again for the first time (cliche much?), layers peeled back but not distractingly so, Rick especially. If his contribution to anything can be called underrated, I think it's probably this album, no thanks to his comments about much of the album. This mix really makes his performance shine, bringing out many subtle nuances lost to me before.

The new stereo mix blows away my old Atlantic vinyl from the 70's that served me so well for so long (somehow surviving college in the 70's, parties and my roommates), now rendered useless except for it's beautiful gatefold sleeve.

Thanks Steven Wilson!! And thank you Yes.

And oh yeah, the 5.1 mix is 10/10, after listening to it, I should have known a hi-res stereo headphone experience would be amazing. Still, it caught me off guard! I think I better go check out The Yes Album, CTTE, Fragile and Relayer the same way now.

 

[humprof]

I finally ripped the 96/24 new stereo remix from the bluray so I could listen on my FIIO X5 (2nd gen) portable at work with headphones. Honestly? Unbelievable.

An album I've heard hundreds of times, dozens of times in 5.1 from the Blu-ray, and now - - the hires stereo remix, it was like I was hearing it again for the first time (cliche much?), layers peeled back but not distractingly so, Rick especially. If his contribution to anything can be called underrated, I think it's probably this album, no thanks to his comments about much of the album. This mix really makes his performance shine, bringing out many subtle nuances lost to me before.

The new stereo mix blows away my old Atlantic vinyl from the 70's that served me so well for so long (somehow surviving college in the 70's, parties and my roommates), now rendered useless except for it's beautiful gatefold sleeve.

Thanks Steven Wilson!! And thank you Yes.

And oh yeah, the 5.1 mix is 10/10, after listening to it, I should have known a hi-res stereo headphone experience would be amazing. Still, it caught me off guard! I think I better go check out The Yes Album, CTTE, Fragile and Relayer the same way now.

I'm inspired to go listen to this now (with headphones)!

In case you missed it, here's Steven Wilson talking about (among many other things) his work on that mix, in a recent interview that @sjcorne linked to the other day:

Tony Bacon, "Steven Wilson: Remixing Classic Albums"

 

[blackpage]

I'm inspired to go listen to this now (with headphones!). If you missed it, here's Steven Wilson talking about (among many other things) his work on that mix, in a recent interview that @sjcorne linked to the other day:

Tony Bacon, "Steven Wilson: Remixing Classic Albums"

Thanks, that was an enlightening read. Interesting how he split out the piled up tracks into individual tracks, talk about a labor of love. Also cool to get some insight into those Universal plugins that replicate the 70's analog studio console effects.

Hats off to Wilson, big time, for keeping new mixes faithful while at the same time revealing. Not easy to reconcile and balance the two. Certainly with Topographic this is the case. Maybe just a little more to the "revealing" side, and that's ok with me.

 

[JediJoker]

Hats off to Wilson, big time, for keeping new mixes faithful while at the same time revealing. Not easy to reconcile and balance the two. Certainly with Topographic this is the case. Maybe just a little more to the "revealing" side, and that's ok with me.

He's just revealing god's science. [emoji6]

 

[sjcorne]

New listener to this album (Go easy on me, Yes fans). Content-wise, it's a tough one to rate. I'm amazed at its complexity and the care that went into recording/mixing/producing it, but I feel that the end result is 'less than the sum of its parts', if that makes sense? I enjoy it much more in small doses than I do listening to the whole thing in one sitting. All four tracks have sections that I adore and others that refuse to grow on me. My favorite of the four right now is probably "The Remembering", with it's dream-like atmosphere and amazing vocal harmonies.

Would it have been better as a single LP? I'm not sure I'd go that far, but I think there is something to the argument that it's padded to fill four sides.

The surround mix has some amazing moments, but it didn't blow me away quite as much as some of the other Yes 5.1's. Someone mentioned upthread that it gets more active/aggressive with each side - I would definitely agree with that. The percussion break in "Ritual" is everything I could've hoped for and more, but "Revealing Science" seems kinda tame and strife with missed opportunities in comparison to the other tracks. I was hoping for a bit more surround action particularly in the "moment, moment, moment" bit after the chorus.

I did spin the original stereo mix a few times to get a feel for what kind of changes were made. The old stereo is a fun listen on headphones as it's mixed pretty wide with a lot of left/right interactions (on "Revealing Science", Jon's vocal is on the right and the backing vocals are on the left). In the new mix, SW has centered all this up and reimagined the left/right interactions as front-to-back in surround.

Overall, it's a challenging listen and I think the surround mix is a bit underwhelming in places, but I'm glad to have it my collection.

"The Revealing Science Of God":


"Ritual":

 

[uffeolby]

On this release I really like the additional single versions of the four pieces (only in stereo unfortunately, but still very good sounding). Perfect if you want a more easy listening version of the album.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

New listener to this album (Go easy on me, Yes fans). Content-wise, it's a tough one to rate. I'm amazed at its complexity and the care that went into recording/mixing/producing it, but I feel that the end result is 'less than the sum of its parts', if that makes sense? I enjoy it much more in small doses than I do listening to the whole thing in one sitting. All four tracks have sections that I adore and others that refuse to grow on me. My favorite of the four right now is probably "The Remembering", with it's dream-like atmosphere and amazing vocal harmonies.

Would it have been better as a single LP? I'm not sure I'd go that far, but I think there is something to the argument that it's padded to fill four sides.

The surround mix has some amazing moments, but it didn't blow me away quite as much as some of the other Yes 5.1's. Someone mentioned upthread that it gets more active/aggressive with each side - I would definitely agree with that. The percussion break in "Ritual" is everything I could've hoped for and more, but "Revealing Science" seems kinda tame and strife with missed opportunities in comparison to the other tracks. I was hoping for a bit more surround action particularly in the "moment, moment, moment" bit after the chorus.

I did spin the original stereo mix a few times to get a feel for what kind of changes were made. The old stereo is a fun listen on headphones as it's mixed pretty wide with a lot of left/right interactions (on "Revealing Science", Jon's vocal is on the right and the backing vocals are on the left). In the new mix, SW has centered all this up and reimagined the left/right interactions as front-to-back in surround.

Overall, it's a challenging listen and I think the surround mix is a bit underwhelming in places, but I'm glad to have it my collection.

"The Revealing Science Of God":
View attachment 43303

"Ritual":
View attachment 43304

Nice review.

I could never get into the content of this one. I played it 3 or 4 times and just never got into it. It was the same for me back in the day with the LP. I was hoping the surround version would spark my interest, but it never did. I mainly have it to keep the YES set complete.

 

[edisonbaggins]

The surround mix won me over on this one.
Related, not so much...

 

[J. PUPSTER]

The surround mix won me over on this one.
Related, not so much...

You mean Relayer? Predictive text?

 

[edisonbaggins]

You mean Relayer? Predictive text?

Damn auto-correct! Yeah, ReLAYER is tough for me. TFtO works for me, though I understand what a slog it might be for some. I consider it a kind of meditative experience.

 

[par4ken]

I almost forgot about this release, I recently saw it on Amazon and so ordered it. I just listened to it today. Although I'm a Yes fan, this is one title that I never bothered to listen to much although I also have the CD. This one reminds me a bit of "Close to the Edge". Sound quality and the surround mix are excellent. I love Blu-ray Audio for all you can fit on one disc, it's almost overkill, plus the set includes CD's that I'll likely never play. I did listen to the original stereo mix as well and noted that it wasn't as clean sounding as the surround re-mix.

 

[ashr1565]

Well here's the best of the Yes surround albums! Brilliant mix, not much to say other than that it's really atmospheric and active. Buy this one; Tales has always secretly been one of the best Yes records and now it's been done up with top notch surround. Steve Wilson's mixing techniques improved as he went on through this series of projects I guess.

 

[bluelightning]

Have not been much of a Yes fan, but I really enjoyed Tales and by far I like it the most out of all the Yes that I have heard. SW's surround mix is really enjoyable.

 

[Matt Wilson]

M' Lawd...
A 10!!!! They don't make music like this anymore folks. I'd pay $100 for this if I had to. The fact that it's currently $33.56 on Amazon for the blu is a Godsend! Snatch it up before you regret it.

 

[Petr Kropotkin]

... Yeah, ReLAYER is tough for me...

Is it the album itself, or just the mix? "The Gates Of Delirium" is my favourite prog. rock track, and I love Wilson's 5.1 mix coz there was so much going on, which is now revealed, but which (at the time) was buried in just a stereo mix.

 

[skherbeck]

My love of Yes started with 90125; from there I went back into their catalog starting with the YES album and moved forward chronologically. "The YES Album", "Fragile", and "Close To The Edge" are perfect... these are the albums I would recommend to anyone interested in learning about Yes. Then came this. Difficult music (for me), to say the least, lol. I've tried over and over again to force myself to listen to this album, hoping that it would click. It never did. Well, I've finally peeled open and listened to this Steven Wilson 5.1 mix. This mix is superb... discrete, active, balanced; the fidelity is also stellar... but as far as the music goes, I still feel like this album is a sporadic collection of excellent moments padded with a lot of noodling filler. This is obviously a 10 for anyone loving the music, but I'm going with a 9, taking 1 off for content. I tend to rip and cherry pick surround tracks from my discs and add them to my "best of surround" playlist... with this album I ended up creating a single 22 minute mash-up of all my favorite moments and just adding that to my list. I call it "The Revealing Science of the Ancient Ritual" (I couldn't find any moments in "The Remembering" that I liked)

 

[rugene]

Is it the album itself, or just the mix? "The Gates Of Delirium" is my favourite prog. rock track, and I love Wilson's 5.1 mix coz there was so much going on, which is now revealed, but which (at the time) was buried in just a stereo mix.

My theory with Relayer 5.1 is that the original album itself is a dense album with less separation of instruments, That's probably why it doesn't come out as good as The Yes album, Topographic and Fragile.

 

[kap'n krunch]

Moraz laid down many more parts than Wakeman used to do...you can tell when you watch Gates on the QPR concert