Is everybody in...the show is about to begin...I just received my Doors' box set over the weekend. Several months of work went into this set, so I was filled with anticipation as I unwrapped it. Upon opening the box, the glued inserts promptly popped out and the set collapsed. I didn't pay it very much mind though cause its the music I came for...
I carefully pried the debut album out....they must've used a shoe horn to squeeze all 6 digi-packs into that too tight enclosure. Nevertheless...think music....think 5.1-ified "The End".....all right....load up the dvd. select the "High Resolution Surround" option and crank it up.
No vocals....NO VOCALS....NO WAIT...maybe if I readjust my channel settings.....still nothing. Fuck me. All right....readjust the settings back to the usual Wheeler house of surround. Next: alter the DVD player output from "DVD-Audio" to "DVD-Video". Back to "top menu" and up pops "DTS" and "Dolby Digital" Surround options. Now we're cooking with gas...select DTS and crank it up again. BLAM.....VOCALS...LOVELY SOOTHING MORRISON INFLECTED POETIC GIBBERISH....but where's my rears......NO #^*$%&(#$&o)(#*z*z#z REAR CHANNELS. Ok Wheeler calm down.....Dolby Digital isn't horrible...wipe the cold sweat off your brow and try this again...NO REARITUDE ON DD EITHER....ah crap...
Try "Soft Parade" I guess....and.....holy crap...IT WORKS ON DTS! (Shaking now)....reset the DVD output to "DVD-Audio" and good golly miss molly....she works and its better than expected! Lush warm guitar tones....incredible separation throughout the entire soundspace...crisp snare cracks...and lush keyboards. I let this one play 3 times through....definitely encouraging.
Next up..."Waiting for the Sun"...initial reactions reflect "Soft Parade".....except there's no bass...no sub....no ground-pounding bass-arama. crap. Right...to thedoors.com to investigate what others are saying...
It appears that Engineer Bruce Botnick decided that a ".1" channel wasn't required for the "High Resolution Surround" layer so in essence its "5.0"....5 point nothing is more like it. Others have posted that the "DTS" option DOES have the .1 track but I just didn't have the patience to go back and reset my DVD player....again....or to try the 3 other titles..
Some other peeps have discovered that their Denon and Pioneer universal players fail to play any of the surround layers....but those surround-hounds can apparently download some firmware fixes directly to their machines through some sort of witchcraft and voodoo to properly reproduce. Man...I thought I had problems.
In the end...heh...it would appear that I received a defective debut digi-pack and that everyone received (clears throat)...a boney-maroney skinny as a piece of macaroni sounding HiRez "Waiting for the Sun". It looks like I may have to wait until the single releases come out before I can replace the debut. I hope that Bruce sneaks a proper low frequency track back in.....NOW GET OUT.
Ron Wheeler
