The Beatles: Abbey Road 50th SDE inc. Blu-ray with Dolby Atmos - 09.27.19

[BobbyMcGee]

Received my copies of both the Blu-ray and Vinyl sets today.

Listening to the Atmos mix right now, amazing! Absolutely love it. Stand out track - "I want you (she's so heavy)", goosebumps while listening to that track. But really, fantastic throughout.

Will give the vinyl a listen tomorrow.

[Boater]

The last song on the Blu-ray disc is "Her Majesty" and it only plays for a few seconds for me. I don't know if that is the way it was intended or if I have a faulty track. Can anyone else with the Blu-ray disc check that song and let me know how long it plays?

[Max Solo]

It’s a 23 second song and plays fine on mine.

[Dubstar]

the last song is so odd (to me) since the three songs preceding it are just glorious - and should have closed out the album to such majestic effect

[Max Solo]

If you have the deluxe set, listen to the outtake “ the long one “ where they put her majesty back where they had it originally.

[charlieray1]

Originally Posted by Dubstar

the last song is so odd (to me) since the three songs preceding it are just glorious - and should have closed out the album to such majestic effect

It's an interesting story. Her Majesty was originally part of the long medley. During final editing and mix-down, it was decided that it didn't really fit there, and was physically cut out of the master tape. Rather than throw away a Beatles recording, whoever was doing the splicing (don't know his name, sorry!) just spliced it onto the end of the reel, after the last chord of The End fades out, to save it. When Paul heard the playback, he was surprised to suddenly have this tiny snippet of music come on after the album ended. The Beatles agreed that they liked it, plus it removed any possible self-important or pompous feeling that could come from ending the album with the big number. It was typical of their sense of humor, even though it wasn't planned.

On the original pressing, Hey Majesty wasn't even listed on the sleeve - it was just a surprise that popped up after the album. The title wasn't added until later pressings. Just a cool, and very Beatle-ly, way to end their album.

[amarster]

Originally Posted by charlieray1

It's an interesting story. Her Majesty was originally part of the long medley. During final editing and mix-down, it was decided that it didn't really fit there, and was physically cut out of the master tape. Rather than throw away a Beatles recording, whoever was doing the splicing (don't know his name, sorry!) just spliced it onto the end of the reel, after the last chord of The End fades out, to save it. When Paul heard the playback, he was surprised to suddenly have this tiny snippet of music come on after the album ended. The Beatles agreed that they liked it, plus it removed any possible self-important or pompous feeling that could come from ending the album with the big number. It was typical of their sense of humor, even though it wasn't planned.

On the original pressing, Hey Majesty wasn't even listed on the sleeve - it was just a surprise that popped up after the album. The title wasn't added until later pressings. Just a cool, and very Beatle-ly, way to end their album.

Very cool, thanks for the info!

[bigshot]

Those with 5.1 systems... are you listening to the 5.1 track or the fold down from the Atmos? Last night I listened to the fold down of the Atmos and it wasn't what I was expecting. I'm going to listen again tonight to the 5.1. I hope it's better.

[Max Solo]

I started with the fold down Atmos and was confused. Wasn’t sure if I liked it. Went on to the DTS 5.1 and that sounded better ( now I’m loving it )

I put the Atmos on while doing some stuff around the house and it sounded better than sitting in the center.

The regular cd ( I’ve been reading another forum and am on page 256 of 282 and know that it’s loud ) in the car and loved it.

The PCM on the blu sounds great to me also.


What I’m getting at is I love it. But don’t think I’ll go to the Atmos again unless I get a true Atmos system at some point.

[bigshot]

Yeah. I don't care for the Atmos. It isn't the same as the original mix balances on 5.1 and the rear channels are too low. I also didn't like the vocals always coming out of the center speaker. It seemed like each instrument was coming out of a different speaker. No sense of space or immersiveness. I think I'll like the 5.1 mix better for my system.

[Dubstar]

comparing the DTS to the Dolby Atmos to me, the former sounds a tad trebly. To me the sound design of the Atmos mix is far more engaging with the rear surrounds implemented and specifically where and how instrumentation is placed within and around the listener.

'Her Majesty' put a smile on my face, as McCartney's voices does this giant 360 circular pan.

[GaragePoet]

Originally Posted by charlieray1

On the original pressing, Hey Majesty wasn't even listed on the sleeve - it was just a surprise that popped up after the album. The title wasn't added until later pressings. Just a cool, and very Beatle-ly, way to end their album.

another Beatles first: the "hidden" track

[ToEhrIsHuman]

Originally Posted by Boater

The last song on the Blu-ray disc is "Her Majesty" and it only plays for a few seconds for me. I don't know if that is the way it was intended or if I have a faulty track. Can anyone else with the Blu-ray disc check that song and let me know how long it plays?

"....someday I'm gonna make her mine." note

that's the end of the song. the final chord is missing from the song as it still resides where they took the song out of the medley. it is supposed to end abruptly and it is very short anyhow.

[bigshot]

Last night I played the Abbey Road 5.1 mix, and it's clear that with a 5.1 system, this is better than the Atmos. The Atmos mix played in 5.1 had different instruments in each speaker. I didn't care for it at all. The 5.1 mix made a nice clear soundstage across the front. This is a less adventurous multichannel mix than the previous Beatles ones, and whenever there was a song that was also on Love, I preferred the Love mix, but overall it was good.

The lead vocals are always isolated in the center channel. This can tend to make them sound thin, and it appears that they tried to overcome that by boosting the level of the center a bit. Unfortunately, on my system, that messed up the relative balance of the lead and harmony vocals on Because and Sun King. To get the Beach Boys inspired vocal sounds they were aiming for, the balances have to be just right. I found that a -2dB correction on the center channel fixed it perfectly. Likewise, the rears were a little bit low, like in Sgt Pepper, but it seems that they split the difference. Instead of needing a +6dB boost to the rears, it only needed a +3dB correction. Once I got the levels right, the handoff from speaker to speaker is perfect. Her Majesty moves around the room with perfectly even volume.

This isn't my favorite Beatles album, but it's probably the one I've heard the most times. Every inch of it is burned into my brain from repeated playings over the years. It seems that they've decided to move away from exactly following the original mix like they did on Sgt Pepper and the White Album. I noticed several places that sounded quite different from the way I'm used to hear it, mostly in crescendos. She's So Heavy is all at a single level, without any slow build. The hammer hits in Maxwell weren't as clear as on the original album. And the vocals throughout the album sounded dryer and were presented exactly the same in each song, more like what I hear in Steven Wilson mixes, not like the way vocals used to be mixed with each song having is own sound envelope.

Overall it was a fairly conservative and functional multichannel mix, similar to the Elton John SACDs. The front soundstage was clear, the lead vocals completely isolated in the center, and if something was in the rear, it came from the corners. No attempt to create a front/back soundscape, or to try to place things in the phantom center between the rears. (Her Majesty deliberately avoided that.) There was nothing like Strawberry Fields where the sound swirls around in the middle of the room. This should help the mix sound better in less than optimal speaker installations and avoid the problems they had with consistency of presentation they had with Sgt Pepper.

I rank this one right between Sgt Pepper and the White Album. A good bread and butter multichannel mix. Glad I got it.

[VirtualRay]

Wow...I think this might be my new 5.1 showcase album when people come over! Come Together blasting out as the first track is jaw dropping.

As someone else said, it sounds a trebbly. A little bassy too.

Ringo's Voice in Octopus's Garden sounds a little too harmonized as well.

Please, Please, release Hey Jude and Get Back in the same formats!

[bigshot]

There's no harmonizing on Ringo's vocals. They just got him to sing on pitch. It could be that the 5.1 mix might need some level adjustment. I found that the center needed a -2dB cut and the rears needed a +3dB boost. That might solve the thinness you are hearing in the vocals. I think the Atmos mix is entirely different than the 5.1 mix too. They sounded radically different folded down to 5.1. It would be helpful when people are commenting on the sound quality to mention which one you are talking about.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by bigshot

Those with 5.1 systems... are you listening to the 5.1 track or the fold down from the Atmos? Last night I listened to the fold down of the Atmos and it wasn't what I was expecting. I'm going to listen again tonight to the 5.1. I hope it's better.

I don't have this yet, but my feeling about the 5.1 mixes on the Pepper and White Album boxes is that they were far too conservative - basically just sending the echo return to the surrounds.

Years ago at the Audio Engineering Society convention, I heard a quad demo of Yellow Submarine playing back on an outstanding sound system. It was spectacular because all the channels were treated as primary channels. They'd mixed it so that the listener was sitting in the middle of The Beatles. Lennon's and Harrison's guitars were mixed to separate channels so you could really hear what they were doing. It was very revealing.

I'm not sure that Giles Martin was the right person to remix this. Just because he's George Martin's son is not enough experience, IMO. I think someone like Steve Hoffman might have done a far better job. I loved what he did with the Jethro Tull remixes/remasters.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by VirtualRay

Wow...I think this might be my new 5.1 showcase album when people come over! Come Together blasting out as the first track is jaw dropping.

As someone else said, it sounds a trebbly. A little bassy too.

Ringo's Voice in Octopus's Garden sounds a little too harmonized as well.

Please, Please, release Hey Jude and Get Back in the same formats!

Hey Jude was a compilation album. It's not part of the canon. It's replaced by "Past Masters". And there is no album called "Get Back", but there was a bootleg of that title. There's a new version of the "Let It Be" documentary being put together by Peter Jackson and the original is also going to be re-released. I suspect that will lead to a new soundtrack album set.

[bigshot]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

I don't have this yet, but my feeling about the 5.1 mixes on the Pepper and White Album boxes is that they were far too conservative - basically just sending the echo return to the surrounds.

Those two were quite different than Abbey Road. Pepper had a severely attenuated rear channel, but when you compensated for that, you got some really immersive effects. And White Album had a four corners approach to the mains and rears. Abbey Road is more like the White Album than it is the Pepper mix, but I like the solidity of the front soundstage with the 5.1 mix on Abbey Road better than White Album.

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

I don't have this yet, but my feeling about the 5.1 mixes on the Pepper and White Album boxes is that they were far too conservative - basically just sending the echo return to the surrounds.

Years ago at the Audio Engineering Society convention, I heard a quad demo of Yellow Submarine playing back on an outstanding sound system. It was spectacular because all the channels were treated as primary channels. They'd mixed it so that the listener was sitting in the middle of The Beatles. Lennon's and Harrison's guitars were mixed to separate channels so you could really hear what they were doing. It was very revealing.

I'm not sure that Giles Martin was the right person to remix this. Just because he's George Martin's son is not enough experience, IMO. I think someone like Steve Hoffman might have done a far better job. I loved what he did with the Jethro Tull remixes/remasters.

You're thinking of Steven Wilson, but I'd love to hear Hoffman/Gray remastering the original stereo mix of Abbey Road.

Don't know if you're geared for Atmos yet, but Abbey Road in Atmos is truly an immersive experience; in my opinion it's far superior to Peppers and The Beatles although not a great comparison given those were 5.1 mixes and I have been so thrilled with the Atmos mix (I'm listening in a 5.2.4 config) that I haven't bothtered with more than a quick tinker with the 5.1 yet. It's enough to know that the mixes are clearly different here and the 5.1 mix is not a fold down. With Atmos there are some fantastic surround effects and there is much that isn't anchored to your speakers outside of the wise decision to centre the vocals. She's So Heavy is one of the standouts, the cacophonous noise swirls around the room not just in a perimeter/circle like a standard 5.1 mix might do but moves upwards and downwards and throughout the room too. Another stand out for me was Sun King. Actually I've found it hard not to listen to the entire album through each time I've started it, it's just that good, both the material and the surround mix.

There is a substantial amount of discrete information provided in the Atmos channels and that allows Atmos to work as intended, object-based where sounds can come from anywhere in the room rather than anchored to a particular speaker. Of course they can still anchor them, but overall it's clear the Atmos mix was adventurous. Giles describes originally making the Peppers mix into an Atmos presentation as "a laugh", I hope to hear it someday to see whether it compares to Abbey Road. I have surmised in the past that if he was given carte blanche and stopped trying to "honor" some other mix, he could do a great surround mix that stands alone - based on not just "Love" but on the Dolby Atmos mix of INXS's Kick he did for the 30th anniversary 3CD+BD release which sounds big and wide in my room with decent low end.

I found The Beatles overall had more immersive material than Peppers and agree the latter was too constrained, in each case they had one standout track that should have been the blueprint for the mixing of the rest of the album, Revolution 9 and Within You Without You. Peppers stereo mixes also suffered from heavy handed dynamic range compression.

Current polls at QQ forums, obviously # of votes on Abbey Road is still small:

Abbey Road Atmos mix - 9.90
Abbey Road 5.1 mix - 9.81
The Beatles 5.1 mix - 9.60
Peppers 5.1 mix - 8.26

It should be noted that for Peppers the ability to resubmit your score is available to ALL members in case they find re-attenuating the rears makes for a substantial difference. For some it's improved it markedly, for others it doesn't improve enough to adjust score and merely lessens the main complaints with the mix which are EQing, DRC and soundstage.

Decent interview with Giles here where he talks about some of the elements of the Abbey Road Atmos mix - https://www.npr.org/2019/09/30/76571...h-giles-martin

He also notes Peppers was a "psychedelic" album which is why they created the Atmos mix "as a laugh" - this makes me even more keen to experience it, because for him what might be "a laugh" might make the mix substantially more immersive and/or enjoyable, I wanted an adventurous mix with Peppers due to all the elements they had from the pre-bounce tapes (which I previously thought were newly unearthed but turns out they were used in Love also, thanks to Alan Rouse).