Who has The Who ???

I'm on my way to get it now, but I won't be able to report on it until tomorrow (likewise Ziggy).

 

Got it today at Best Buy for 27.99 (ouch)...I've only listened to the redbook stereo layer though, but it sounds like the original mix and fidelity is MUCH better than the last remaster. Less no-noise, etc.

 

Came out today? Cool. Let us know how it sounds, and if it has the dreaded hybrid cracking problem...

 

I'm trying to crack mine right now Kevin. I just put it on, in stereo, and it sounds purr-dy good for a really, really old album. The last time I heard it was on vinyl. This is the first time I've ever owned the album on any format. When I was in high school everybody I knew owned the bugger, I heard it so many times, I got tired of it at the time. And, that's without even owning it! It were a mighty pop-lar vinyl platter in those days.

...anyway's, I'll try this thang M/C sometime soon, too. My only gripes are about the packaging. It's a double, fold-out Digipack, down with Digipacks!!! OK, now return to our regularly scheduled sentence... The track listings are on the slipcase, which I don't like.

 

Picked this up last night, but also a bunch of other stuff. Hope to get it to it sooon. With stereo and MC tracks, as well as a bonus disc, this baby will keep my occupied for quite a while...

 

I listened to both discs in multi-channel last night and I was completely blown away. Pete uses all the speakers to great effect, sometimes I swear some of the vocals are just in the rears. I'm sure someone will come along and shit on the thread because Jon Astley was involved, but I say this is a reference quality disc!

The second disc has some good stuff on it. I think we finally have The House That Track Built version of Young Man Blues, but I never owned that record so I don't know. I never knew it was originally part of Tommy (Pete's first draft of a track order for the album shows that).

I am looking forward to hearing the stereo layer. It was always assumed that Kit Lambert had lost the original mix of Tommy causing them to start from scrathch, but when Pete was pulling tapes to do the 5.1 he found the original mix. We finally get to hear Tommy the way the Who wanted it in the first place.

Minor quibles, I wish there was more to the liner notes, at least in reference to the tracks on disc 2. And maybe I would have liked a 5.1 live performance instead, but I suspect we will eventually get a complete Leeds in 5.1 SACD, so that's probably moot. (Maybe we could get SONY to release the Isle of Wight as a 5.1 SACD too).

I also listened to Ziggy last night and it is great in surround too, but for the first time since getting my new system I had to turn up the bass, which at first seemed nonexistent.

Still, probably the two of the best SACDs you are likely to hear.

 

It was $27.99 at Tower (It is two discs after all).

 

I listened to the multi-channel version last night and was very favorably impressed! Townshend did a splendid job on the 5.1 surround mix. It is certainly reference quality, although to my ear not quite as revelatory an experience as DSOTM was the fist time I played that SACD. Lots of pleasant surprises and interesting mix things going on to be sure, but not enough to be considered revisionist. Pete handles the re-mix with grace and with an obvious reverence for the original recordings. This is a must-buy for all true Who fans, and definitely worth a listen for even a casual fan.

 

$24.99 at border's btw

 

I also picked this up and really like the 5.1 mix. I bought this when it first came out on vinyl many, many years ago. I'm hearing things (voices, instruments, effects, etc.) that I never heard on the previous LP and CD versions (everything was buried so deep in the mix.) Pete did a terrific job.

I agree that more extensive liner notes would have been appreciated. And where is the lyric booklet? The original LP came with some "groovy" pictures and artwork, and all the lyrics, and who was singing which parts in the opera. Is this opera so well known that everybody knows which parts are sung by the Narrator, Sally Simpson, Uncle Ernie, etc.?

 

Guess I'll be picking up my ... 4th SACD soon. Thanks much for the reviews!