It's not often that I have $20 to burn, but at Best Buy, the Eagles'
"Hotel California" DVD-Audio disc succeeded in tempting me to give it
a try.

Like many rock music fans, I'm well familiar with the original 1976
LP, and its overall quality -- in singing, musicianship, production,
and mastering -- continues to impress me. Playing it on a new
turntable is like rediscovering an old friend. Thus, I have become
very intolerant of any unreasonable facsimilies of it. Any kind of
compression and/or tonal equalization simply ruins it.

Unfortunately, that unacceptable category would include the current CD
release of the album. All you need to see is the sentence "Digitally
Remastered by Ted Jensen at Sterling Sound" and you know that you'll
be subjected to an over-compressed, over-equalized reproduction with a
dearth of dynamic range and a complete lack of the original's auditory
artistry.

Thus, I was eager to give the new DVD a try, to see if it would fare
any better. Once opened, I stopped in my tracks upon seeing Mr.
Jensen's name again. Still, I pressed on, resisting my temptation to
apply my bench grinder to the disc and turn it into a shiny coaster.

I must forewarn that my player is not capable of DVD Audio, so these
conclusions were based upon listening to the Dolby Digital DVD
Video-compatible section of the disc. But as that's what the majority
of buyers will likely be listening to, it's a valid point of
reference.

First of all, no stereo mix is offered, so headphone listeners and
stereo purists will feel abandoned. And right away from the beginning
of "Hotel California", it becomes clear that the DVD seems to be
nothing more than a 5.1 remix of the inferiorly-remastered CD. After
the introduction, those two drum thumps are supposed to really be
heard and felt as they accent the start of the vocals. Instead, on
the DVD, the song actually seems to *decrease* in playback volume at
this point!

It also becomes apparent that everything seems to have a greater
sustain to it... the guitars in the background take noticeably longer
to fade out as they hit each note. Also, the surround-sound effects
are wholly artificial, with the mixing engineer choosing to separate
the lead and background vocals, which annoyingly destroys their
original coherency -- and again, you're left with no choice, because
no stereo mix is offered (at least on the Video-compatible part of the
disc).

Upon the second track, "New Kid in Town", the difference as compared
to the original LP becomes even more obvious. In original form, this
song is basically one long crescendo, gradually and subtlely
increasing in loudness as the song picks up and gathers momentum. One
notable point is right after the key change in the middle, where on
the LP anyone paying close attention can notice the increase in
loudness that accompanies the start of the next verse. On the DVD,
there is no such increase in loudness at all! And the final chorus,
with its vocal embellishments and cymbal crashes, sounds particularly
wimpy and lifeless, failing to capture the dynamic intensity of the
original LP.

I may be talking in a lot of subjective terms, but if you've got $20
to burn as well, give the "Hotel California" DVDA a try and be
prepared to be disappointed. I'm not knocking the DVD Audio format --
I have Linda Ronstadt's "What's New" on both vinyl and DVD-Audio and
in every way, the DVD is at least as good as the original, with the
bonus of no surface noise marring the beautiful vocal talent and
orchestral arrangements. However, this Eagles DVD just sounds like
poopy, pumpy crap to my ears. But it's the old "garbage in, garbage
out" scenario. Today, few CDs even come close to making good use of
the true quality that the media has to offer, especially in terms of
dynamic range, and of how clipping distortion is now a "style" rather
than a *defect*. But even more sad is how even supposedly superior
audio formats like DVD aren't being allowed to live up to their full
potential either.

However, along with the help of the DVD-Audio disc of Faith Hill's
"Cry" (another hyper-compressed, hyper-autotuned disaster), I've
discovered a new use for my pair of useless DVD-Audio discs... if you
glue them together front-to-front and hang it front of a sunny window,
the reflective playback surface makes brilliant rainbow effects in
your room!

I also have to credit Ms. Hill for using the best euphemism for
Auto-Tune that I've seen so far... in her song credits, it's called
"ADDITIONAL VOCAL ENGINEERING". LOL! And in the "Studio Sessions"
video on the DVD, she even almost literally refers to it, saying to
her producer something like "Okay, I'll just sing it like this... you
can always tune it later"!

It's not often that I have $20 to burn,

Aah! :-)

but at Best Buy, the Eagles'
"Hotel California" DVD-Audio disc succeeded in tempting me to give it
a try.

Yeah. If you want stereo, I guess it's still available on normal CD?

There's a market, apparently, for surround-sound "multi-media" remixes
of classic music. If it wasn't cut up to demonstrably make use of
the gimmicks, people might ask "why bother - it's no different to the
CD?"

It's not aimed at you or me. Leave it on the shelf :-)

(Scott Dorsey) wrote in message ...
Laurence Payne wrote:

Yeah. If you want stereo, I guess it's still available on normal CD?

Yes, there are at least two different CD releases out there. The older
one is badly overcompressed, and sounds harsh and glassy. The newer one
sounds even worse.

Butchery like this is the reason why people still keep buying turntables.
There is no reason for the CD to sound this much worse than the LP.

There's a market, apparently, for surround-sound "multi-media" remixes
of classic music. If it wasn't cut up to demonstrably make use of
the gimmicks, people might ask "why bother - it's no different to the
CD?"

That's what killed Quad.
--scott`
As much as Henley and Frey are(were maybe) control freaks over their
products it's puzzling as to how/why something Eagles ends up in the
market place that isn't good. Leads you to believe that this is the
work of record companies getting more blood from the same turnip
rather than artist. Maybe it's just too much for any artist to
quality control every aspect of their careers with such time demands
being placed upon them. Doug Sax was a part of how the stuff used to
sound. I don't know if he does the gimmicky surround stuff.
Unfortunately, most of my non-studio, musician friends would think
it's way cooler to hear the music chopped up and coming out of their
expensive home theater systems...
kelly

kelly mcguire wrote:

As much as Henley and Frey are(were maybe) control freaks over their
products it's puzzling as to how/why something Eagles ends up in the
market place that isn't good. Leads you to believe that this is the
work of record companies getting more blood from the same turnip
rather than artist. Maybe it's just too much for any artist to
quality control every aspect of their careers with such time demands
being placed upon them. Doug Sax was a part of how the stuff used to
sound. I don't know if he does the gimmicky surround stuff.

For a really amazing test, get the XRCD issue of Steve Miller's _The Joker_
and compare it with the regular CD. It's absolutely amazing how open the
sound on the XRCD is. It's like a different album altogether, almost.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

WBRW wrote:

I have Linda Ronstadt's "What's New" on both vinyl and DVD-Audio and
in every way, the DVD is at least as good as the original, with the
bonus of no surface noise marring the beautiful vocal talent and
orchestral arrangements.

Recorded/mixed by George Massenburg at The Complex (probably with his
highly modified ATR-124s) and mastered by Doug Sax.

If either of the aforementioned engineers was involved in the DVD-A
remix, I'd bet on it not suffering too much.

On 20 Jul 2003 01:32:46 -0700, (WBRW) wrote:
....
Today, few CDs even come close to making good use of
the true quality that the media has to offer, especially in terms of
dynamic range, and of how clipping distortion is now a "style" rather
than a *defect*. But even more sad is how even supposedly superior
audio formats like DVD aren't being allowed to live up to their full
potential either.
....
And here I was, thinking that the recent "hyper compression" madness
was part of a master plan - to deliberately destroy the music on CD
albums so that the same recordings with better sound can be sold again
next year on Super Audio or DVD Audio.
Maybe they are plain deaf and incompetent after all?
/Jan

"Ricky W. Hunt" writes:
"WBRW" wrote in message
. com...
It's not often that I have $20 to burn, but at Best Buy, the Eagles'
"Hotel California" DVD-Audio disc succeeded in tempting me to give it
a try.

Like many rock music fans, I'm well familiar with the original 1976
LP, and its overall quality -- in singing, musicianship, production,
and mastering -- continues to impress me. Playing it on a new
turntable is like rediscovering an old friend. Thus, I have become
very intolerant of any unreasonable facsimilies of it. Any kind of
compression and/or tonal equalization simply ruins it.

I've wondered since most complaints of these types are about older artist's
remastered works if it has anything to do with the fact that the artists are
older (and probably not in good aural health due to years of touring) and
they can't hear how bad it sounds. Or as is the case with all older humans
beings it requires "more" to get the same effect (as in shouting to an older
person, etc.). Of course most of these comparisons can only be made because
there was original material to compare to. I just wonder what the overall
perception of good-vs-bad recordings released on DVD-audio is between
projects from older artists and younger artists?


What if the older artist wasn't involved in the reissue? If the Eagles
don't own _Hotel California_, then their hearing might not have had
anything to do with the different sound on the DVD-Audio disc.

-Greg
--
::::::::::::: Greg Andrews ::::: :::::::::::::
If Milli Vanilli fall in the woods, does someone else make a sound?
--

"Chris Smalt" wrote in message



Most artists don't like listening to 30-year old recordings of
themselves.


In most cases because it reminds them that they've 'lost it' ....


geoff