Take your pick for the topic of this post once you read the whole thing.

I recently got three new DVD-Audio discs, which contain 5.1-channel surround-sound mixes. They are:

Porcupine Tree – “In Absentia”
Bruce Dickinson – “Balls to Picasso”
Megadeth – “Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying?”

I had read that the Porcupine Tree represented a new reference standard in high-definition surround-sound audio, so I was really looking forward to that. I hadn’t been able to find any opinions about the other two, so I had no idea what to expect from them.

I listened to all three of them in their entirety. I thought the Porcupine Tree sounded amazing, both in fidelity, and in the multi-channel mixing. It was everything I expected it to be.

The Dickinson sounded rather strange, the sound quality was worse than the CD, but it was kind of interesting because it was something different, and really gave a new tone to the album. The surround mix seemed decent if not as adventurous as the PT, although I thought it was strange that the guitar solos were put in the left front speaker. I might expect that with Maiden and their two-guitar attack, but it seemed weird here. None of that surprised me though, because it wasn’t mixed by a known surround-sound mixer, and I figured it was just crapped out in a hurry because Sanctuary wanted to get a bunch of DVD-Audios out.

I’d never really heard the Megadeth on CD before, but it sounded about exactly what I’d expect a 1986 recording to sound like.

So last night I was messing with my DVD player, and I discovered something interesting. I had the 6-channel connections between the player and my receiver completely mixed up! The rear surround speakers were fine. The front center and front left were switched, and much worse, the right front speaker and subwoofer were switched!

And I still thought the Porcupine Tree sounded great. Yikes! Was it because I was expecting it to sound great, because I’m a moron? I’m guessing it’s the former, but then I’m probably a bit biased. Or was it because it actually did sound great even with everything messed up?

I listened to a bit of the Dickinson with the connections fixed, and it sounded a LOT better. I haven’t re-listened to the others yet, but I’ll give a better review when I do that.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 5th, 2004 at 10:53 am and is filed under music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.