[Brian Magnuson]

At Best Buy today (the only store I can find with SACDs and DVD-A/Vs) I wanted to finally get the "Gaucho" DVD with the 5.1 mixes. I've read that this album was done first of the Steely Dan 5.1 mixes and that it was redone in the last few years. So this begs my question as to which one is the recent remix with the surrounds being used better for instrument placement as opposed to only using the surrounds as ambience? The copyright for the 2004 version didn't list DD/DTS 5.1, but the 1998 one did. Is the most recent mix not available in DTS? I have yet to upgrade to a player that will decode the 24-bit 96/192 kHz hi-rez tracks, so I'm wondering if the most recent one is 5.1 on DVD-V? I'm confused now which one to buy.

Also, it's very disappointing that the masters for two tracks on "Aja" are missing so that a 5.1 remix for that classic album is impossible. I watched the Classic Album series on DVD for "Aja" last night and noticed they didn't do any multi-track isolation on "Black Cow" and "Aja", so I'm assuming those are the missing tracks. Big bummer. They broke down all the tracks of the other songs (except "I Got the News"--maybe this one is missing). Somebody find those lost multitrack masters!!!!

[Craig S]

Brian, the 2004 release is a regular DVD-Audio disc. In addition to the high-res DVD-A tracks, it does contain a 5.1 DD track playable on any DVD player.

You are correct that it does not have a DTS track. However, I would still recommend you get the DVD-A (2004) version. You can play it in multichannel, and when you upgrade to a DVD-A compatible player you will have access to the high-res tracks. With the older DTS disc you're stuck with the lower-res DTS mix.

I've never heard the DTS disc, but I can say the DVD-A disc is superb - even the DD track is very nice.

[Larry Geller]

Quote:

which one is the recent remix with the surrounds being used better for instrument placement as opposed to only using the surrounds as ambience?

Neither mix is an "ambience" mix. Both are super-agressive, with all horns & female BG vocals eminating from the back speakers. However, the DVD-A sounds seriously better than the DTS disc, plus it has a great hi-rez stereo track to boot! Get the DVD-A!