So what are your thoughts of the Layla SACD?

It is a very listenable piece- one that I can easily sit, listen, and relax with. The difference in perspective of surround is very nice. I recommend this one.


Chris

 

Love the mch mix but the first time I listened to the track "Layla" I thought, "What's with all the out-of-tune guitars?" The dual (or triple?) lead guitars at the beginning of the song...one of 'em sounds kinda wonky...

 

That was from the "Layla" Box Set, and no it's not on the M.C. mix, although I didn't listen for it on the stereo mix. I've grown to like it!
I'm still not liking the beginning of M.C. mix on the title track. The extra guitars just don't sound right to me. Maybe with time I'll get to like it. I did like the similar re-mix on box set, but this one bothers me!
Overall I really like what I've heard!

 

I listened to this SACD last night in surround, and I was pleasantly surprised. It isn't the most aggressive surround mix, but it does seem to fill the space between the 5 speakers nicely.

I also thought the sonics were very good - not the best I have ever heard from an SACD, but I was not disappointed in the least.

 

The bass is on the left so this is definitely the original mix.

 

Didn't the original mix have some really bad tape dropouts in it? Are there any dropouts on the SACD ?

 

This echoes my thoughts...not exactly a mindblower, but a nice listen as long as you don't expect any revelations. A fun listen, glad it was done!

 

I played the cd layer in the car and it sounded very bright, I turned down the high end quite a bit. When I got home I listened to the 5.1 layer and it sounded fine. Just an initial impression mind you.

Richard.

 

Put on the 5.1 SACD mix tonight and was pleasantly surprised. It does sound very nice. A tasteful interpretation of this classic album.

Yes, its not as aggressively sonic as the Elton SACD's but they are a different animal.

"Layla" has that old school rock/blues sound and this disc represents that sound very well.

Some of the more mellow acoustic stuff sounds particularly good.

 

It leaves me a bit peaved.

I would like to have heard the Elliot Scheiner 5.1 mix. The mix on this disc is lacking for me. Not at all what I'd hoped for.

 

Well, that it for me, it's off my list.....I haven't heard someone say 'it's great" or" amazing". So i'll pass.

 

The 5.1 mix is boring.

 

Well then....

 

Agreed, but

I've listened to Have You Ever Loved a Woman? in the dark at high volume, and it is the best that I've heard it. The orientation is somewhat less than exciting, but the sound itself is wonderful.

I find Layla a bit difficult to listen to - there is some wierd extraneous noise towards the front left - almost howling - that I'd not noticed previously.

I will give it another try later on...

 

Strange to say, I think that you should give it a chance. The surround mix is less than exciting indeed, but the stereo SACD layer is very impressive. I've just had a listen to my favourite Have You Ever Loved a Woman, and it is gorgeous...

I think that Bob Ludwig has done an excellent job of the mastering...

 

Bell Bottom Blues sounds great! I love that song.

 

No one made note of the great dimensional job they did of having the piano on the title track sound like a full-size piano. With your eyes closed, you can detect each corner on it, it's really cool.

I thought that the guitars on "Thorn Tree" was the greatest moment on the MC mix of the album, but the vocal is oddly mixed much louder than it is in stereo.

As for the wonky sounding guitar part on the title track, it was not following the melody line, it was there in the stereo mix just loud enough to act as "accent" but the new MC mix places it at full volume playing opposite the familiar "lead" guitar, hence it being distracting. They should have cut the volume of that left guitar in half.

Oddly, the same problem exists on the 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' SACD, that a guitar meant to be used as underpinning is mixed too loud there too on "Your Sister Can't Twist" and "Saturday Night". Weird that these two albums on the same label but different in every other way should both have this minor sonic issue in common . . . .

 

The blessing of multi-channel is also its curse: elements buried or subdued in the original mix often wind up isolated, or mixed louder than we're used to. I find this to be distracting only if familiar elements are mixed too far down, or not loud enough relative to the obscured instruments or voices.

Of course Gabriel's PLAY has some tracks where parts seem to have been removed entirely; or, if not, buried so much while other aspects are mixed way up, offering a very disconcerting effect when you're so used to the original mixes or the variants thereof--there are at least two mixes for "Sledgehammer" and "Big Time," for instance(maybe three--I've lost count!), and that was before the DVD came out.

 

Just got the SACD and compared the stereo against the 30th Anniversary. I think the redbook 30th is a lot stronger. It's more musical and muscular and the guitars have presence. The guitars on the SACD are buried in sludge.

 

DanK, please don't think I'm picking on you, but what you are hearing
that makes the 30th anniv. cd sound so "hot" is digital compression.

If you compare that cd of yours to the MoFi cd or the vinyl from pretty much any country
(and you have to a-b test these by matching the volume, the 30th Anniv. cd is LOUD)
you'll see that your cd sounds harsh and lacking in real dimension
or dynamic range compared to any other version ever issued.

I heard the MoFi cd first, and when the 30th came out
I tested them side by side and realised that "new" 20, 22 or 24 bit transfers
are no selling point if the mastering engineer takes this hi-res data and trashes it
with signal compression or unsympathetic eq.

That "sludge" you noted is the original recording's lack of artificially boosted midrange.

A lot of recent remasters are just new tape transfers with treble or midrange considerably boosted to make the disc sound louder or "hotter" than was intended in the original mixing and in many cases was impossible in the original equipment. The dynamic interplay between the carefully recorded parts is lost when you aggressively re-eq the recording.

If you take that sacd and play it at a slightly higher volume, you'll notice all the air, the space around the instruments and the detail in the lower frequencies (bass, drums, piano) that your 30th Anniv. copy lacks. The front to back depth of the sacd is much more spacious than the recent redbook cd. Actually, the older MoFi gold cd has even more front to back depth!

 

Unfortunately I don't have any other versions to compare, just the 30th Ann. and the SACD, and I don't question anything you say about compression and EQ. I'm going to listen again to the SACD for the qualities you mention, but if you would, please compare these versions for the guitar space. In my listening last night it seemed to me that in the 30th Ann. version (unlike the SACD) the guitars occupied their own space and actually sounded like electric guitars. Can the imaging of an instrument be enhanced by compression and EQ? Keep in mind that I don't have a MC setup; this is just the stereo layer I'm talking about.

 

Found the problem. I had a Pioneer DV-578A-S. Today I picked up a Sony DVP-NS775V and was prepared to run A/B tests for subtle differences, but the difference is night and day. I had been thinking that the SACD format was overhyped, but everything I played on the Sony just blows me away. I never imagined CD's could possibly sound this close to real live music.

 

Yep. That's why I went for the Sony after giving some thought on purchasing that Pioneer. The Pioneer resamples DSD data to 24/88.2 PCM - and then, mangles the sound in the resampling (just like most Creative Sound Blaster Live!/Audigy series cards' hardware resampling of 16/44.1 data to 16/48). Worse, protected DVD-As get resampled to 24/48 even if they were encoded at 24/192. Thus, with that Pioneer, you lose audio data - and thus, sound quality - every time you play a Hi-Res audio disc on it! Why? Because that Pioneer always resamples EVERY SINGLE ONE of the Hi-Res audio discs to a lower total data bandwidth (2.8224 Mbps DSD to 2.1164 Mbps PCM for SACD, 2.304~4.608 Mbps PCM to 1.152 Mbps PCM for DVD-A)!

Speaking of the Sony, it delivers very good (in stock form) SACD sound quality (though could stand some improvement, attainable with mods) but merely average Redbook sound quality.

 

Not much one can add, but I just got the SACD, and I think its pretty great.

I first boaught this album in 1993ish not realizing i had bought the 20th Anniverasry remix. (its all was available at the time and I didn't know about remixes back then)

Apart from the title track, I could never get what the fuss was about, the album sounded dull, flat lifeless!!. I could never sit thorough it in one go, I just couln't get along with the boring sound.

Now I have the SACD I have the original stereo mix in great quality.
This original mix is totally where the magic is!! Its great.
Suddenly the album sounds alive, all the proper ambiance of the recording is restored.
It is dynamic but murky and even slightly distorted (the good sort) with good separation, like a proper mix of the era should have.

I totally enjoy this great album at last after 12 years thanks to the SACD.

IMO. that souless and sterile remix should be avoided at all costs, its just plain wrong!!

Regards

JJ

 

I'm just glad that the remix is now OOP - and (hopefully) forever. The 1996 remastered CD (314 531 820-2), mercifully, reverts to the original mix - and that's the only version of LAYLA that I've found in stores that I've been to so far. (Sure, that 1996 "original mix" LAYLA CD may have been futzed with in the mastering - but it's still better than that 1990 remixed atrocity.)