The Never-Ending Upgrade Cycle & Swirling Instruments
Posted on | May 9, 2004 at 11:48 am | Comments Off
I told myself that I wasn’t going to do any more upgrades to my home theater for a long time after buying the new furniture, but of course that resolution didn’t last too long…
I bought myself another DVD player for my home theater – a Denon 2200 Universal (DVD-Video/DVD-Audio/SACD etc.) player. I’ve been getting so into the multichannel hi-rez discs that I bought for my cheapo Pioneer universal player, that I really wanted to listen to them on a better player. Also, it allowed me to move the Pioneer to the bedroom (where I have another, lesser, surround sound system), so I can listen while reading in bed. The new player also has better picture quality than my other players, so it’s an upgrade to both the audio and video portions of the HT.
The first hi-rez disc I listened to was Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells 2003 DVD-Audio disc. This is Mike’s complete note-for-note re-recording of the original Tubular Bells (the first couple of minutes of which is known to most people as the theme from The Exorcist), using modern equipment, instruments and recording techniques. On the one hand, the sound quality was stunning, and it was great to hear every little nuance of every instrument and note. OTOH, the multichannel mix has way too much panning, so that the lead instrument is usually swirling around the room in a slow circle. It almost gave me a headache trying to concentrate on it. I think the music would’ve been much better served if the instruments stopped moving around so much and they had concentrated on opening up the sound stage more. I can see how it might be difficult to do that though, as frequently there are only a few instruments playing at a time.
The disc also contains the original 2-track demos that Oldfield did of the original Tubular Bells, before he had access to real studio equipment. The demos are included with warts and all, including dropouts and distortions, but the heart and the soul of the piece is still intact and you can see why the demos led to a real record.
I also have the SACD of the original Tubular Bells, where the multichannel mix is the old quadraphonic mix from the 70s. Since it doesn’t do all that instrument panning, it’s a more satisfying listening experience in some ways, but the fidelity doesn’t have the crispness of the new version. But I’ve only listened to it on the Pioneer, and now I need to try it on the Denon. I’ll have to wait a few weeks though, as I’m somewhat burned out on the piece. I would really love to hear some hi-rez versions of other Oldfield discs. Supposedly they are working on versions of the other earlier works like Ommadawn and Hergest Ridge, which I think also had old quadraphonic mixes. But I would also like to hear some later stuff in hi-rez m/c, like Five Miles Out. Maybe someday…
Latre.