Pink Floyd - Dark Side Of The Moon DVD-A. Could this be what surround sound music needs ?

I have always been a big fan of surround sound. My father had a Quadraphonic HiFi back in the 70's (A lovely Dynatron affair) and I was hooked from that moment onwards. The concept of being surrounded by sound, having an audio image created all about me seemed natural and right. Stereo seemed restrictive.

It is only recently, since the mass acceptance of DVD and the 5.1 format into home theatres that the possibility of music in surround has been resurrected. Sadly though, it's not much of a resurrection yet. It's taking time. I'm sure it will get there, but there is confusion and animosity over the various formats and of course, you need to get consumer buy in for it to really take off. DVD-Audio & SACD are the two hardware formats that cater for high fidelity multichannel mixes at 24bit/96KHz. SACD is Sony's baby, therefore titles available rely on industry affiliations and we all know where that can lead. For example, Jeff Wayne's "Musical Version of The War Of The Worlds" is only available on regular Redbook CD and SACD, not DVD-A. Queen's "A Night At The Opera" is only available in DVD-Audio, As is The Beatles "Love" album. However, The Beatles & Queen (as do many other releases) also have a DVD Video version available, utilising Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 found in all home DVD systems, so the user base is now much bigger, but the bug hasn't bitten and the message still needs to be emphasised.

So what's it going to take ? How are we going to convince people that multichannel music is the way forward ? Well, releasing classic albums in the format might help. Depeche Mode have recently released their entire studio catalogue in SACD/DVD remasters (see my post HERE), and of course "Love" and "Night At The Opera" are classics too. Fleetwood Mac's album, "Rumours" (the 4th biggest selling album off all time) is available in DVD-A and there are some other classics there too. Current artists like Jean Michel Jarre & Bjork are big proponents of multichannel music but we need a landmark release to get people into it. And we also need a way of getting software involved in the playback process. There is now an MP3 Surround format, ratified by the AES and being adopted by many of the big name hardware & software manufacturers so this could be the push we need.

One classic album that got the multichannel treatment recently was Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon" on SACD, released to celebrate it's 30th anniversary. But what some people don't realise is that this album was a surround sound pioneer at it's creation, and not just 30 years later. Alan Parsons was the engineer on the original project and remixed the entire album for Quadraphonic sound. Sadly, the band (or the label) decided not to release this version, maybe because production costs were too high back then, and the multiple variations on the quadraphonic format meant that sales would be minimal. So, naturally, these quadraphonic mixes soon became the stuff of legend and folklore and various versions appeared as bootlegs. But recently, the orginal 1/2" masters were transferred to the digital format and subsequently released (albeit unofficially) as the definitive quad mix. Here are the notes that come with the release...

Dark Side Of The Moon
From the original 1/2" Master Tapes

This is the real deal. not the usual Q8 or SQ versions with all their limitations
(limited bandwidth on the Q8, Matrixed surround on the SQ etc) but a genuine transfer from the original master tapes.
Finally you can hear Alan Parsons mix as it was always intended to be heard in studio quality audio.
The only "liberty" we have taken here is an additional .1 track. You can make up your own mind as to
whether or not it is a worthwhile addition.
It also features all new artwork in both sections specially created for this DVD-Audio release
The disc will play on all DVD players, as it is a DVD-Audio/Video "hybrid" containing the following:

Audio_TS
MLP Lossless at 24/96 Resolution in 4.1

Video_TS
DTS from 24/48 Source files
Dolby Digital from 24/48 Source files

Additionally, it is possible to play both the lossy streams from DVD-Audio players.
Each type has it's own menus. What you can access is dependant entirely on your player.

All Authoring, Encoding, Post Production and design is exclusive to this release.

FEEL FREE TO DISTRIBUTE THIS DISC TO OTHERS, BUT ALWAYS "AS IS" AND IN FULL.
PLEASE DO NOT RIP AND REPOST IN ANY OTHER FORMAT. THERE IS NO NEED AS ALL DVD PLAYERS CAN READ THIS DISC,
AND DOING SO WILL DEPRIVE OTHERS OF THE FULL HIGH RESOLUTION FORMATS USED.
ADDITIONALLY, RIPPING TO DTS-CD WILL INVOLVE QUALITY LOSS DUE TO DOWNSAMPLING, AND WILL
REDUCE THE LISTENING PLEASURE FOR OTHERS.

Of course, this is unofficial, and probably illegal, therefore I won't provide any direct links to places to acquire this. However, it's safe to say that if you Google for it, you will find it. You will also need a BitTorrent client :o)

And how does it sound ? Fuckin' awesome ;o)