The Alan Parson's Project


Category: Music

APP wasn't my favorite group in the 1970s, but maybe it was because I couldn't hear it this way.

I listened in two-channel 24/192 and was blown away by the sonics. Close your eyes closed and the sound stage is 180-degrees wide. The fade at the end of "Genisis Ch.1V.32" slowly moves from covering and surrounding you to fading into a very distant ball of sound that covers only about 5-degrees. Only in that final fade do you hear the tape hiss from the original master.

Musically this is very good, but variable. The best is very, very good ("The Voice", "Day After Day" and all the instrumentals). A couple of cuts stray too near mid-1970s pop, but what the heck...

There's thick layering of chorus, orchestra, rock instruments, etc. The clarity of it all is astounding. Really it's a masterpiece from this era.

Boy, I hope one day that the entire Beattles songbook will get this 24/192 treatment. Abbey Road studios evidently had great equipment.

Dave

dcstep

Showing 2 responses by sgr

Where do you get these versions? I just bought and listened to "I Robot and Eye in the Sky" and they do sound much more like the old lps do which I still own.
No DVD Audio, but I purchased a Japanese pressing of " I Robot" over 20 years ago. It is an amazing recording in many ways and my reference for what "I Robot" should sound like. Until recenctly, none of the Alan Parson CDs measured up. In fact the sounded compressed and to me unplayable. I put them in the "trade" stack long ago. I've not heard any DVD-Audio or SACD discs being content with my lowyly CD playback system. I'd just about written the Parson's stuff off, until I took the chance on the newest version of of the I Robot and Eye in the Sky. These two remakes, (I'm purchasing the other releases soon, at least capture the essence of the lps. I'd sure be glad to try the 24/192 versions. The BEATLES indeed would be awesome if it ever happens. Which DVD-A do you own?