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Rolling Stones Grr Blu Ray Audio Disc

post #1 of 60
12/24/12 at 7:27am
Thread Starter 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Rolling-Stones-Blu-Ray-Audio/dp/B009X1SZFO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1356360329&sr=8-1

For those who play hi rez audio (like me)
Great deal from Amazon UK for Hi Rez Blu Ray Audio disc.
Comes to about $21 delivered to US..
Cheaper than HD Tracks will be.
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post #2 of 60
12/24/12 at 8:59pm
Just got mine in the mail today and playing it now. Sounds great!

Just wondering if anyone else is seeing the same thing on the menu. Very simple, shows the current track playing, then the upper right are the numbers 1-50 in
a grid pattern so you can jump directly to a track. Then below that are the 3 audio options (PCM, DTS-HD, Dolby HD). I have the Oppo 103 and it keeps flashing
like it is refreshing the screen. The numbers and letters are white on black background so it's kind of annoying. Anyone else have this issue?
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post #3 of 60
12/25/12 at 8:43am
Is this disc in surround?
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post #4 of 60
12/25/12 at 11:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil Tomaskovic View Post

Just got mine in the mail today and playing it now. Sounds great!
Just wondering if anyone else is seeing the same thing on the menu. Very simple, shows the current track playing, then the upper right are the numbers 1-50 in
a grid pattern so you can jump directly to a track. Then below that are the 3 audio options (PCM, DTS-HD, Dolby HD). I have the Oppo 103 and it keeps flashing
like it is refreshing the screen. The numbers and letters are white on black background so it's kind of annoying. Anyone else have this issue?

same for me,Oppo 83
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post #5 of 60
12/25/12 at 11:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by mrcarnut View Post

Is this disc in surround?

No
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post #6 of 60
12/25/12 at 12:07pm
Found this in my local HMV after buying the CD, bought it instantly naturally!
Sounds fantastic, find it pointless filling the space with dts and dolby tho
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post #7 of 60
12/25/12 at 1:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by qwknuf6 View Post

same for me,Oppo 83
+1 on Oppo 103.... I'm sure it is that fancy authoring they used on the disc. rolleyes.gif
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post #8 of 60
12/26/12 at 3:27pm
I ordered one yesterday. Gotta support BD-audio any way I can!
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post #9 of 60
12/27/12 at 5:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ti-triodes View Post

I ordered one yesterday. Gotta support BD-audio any way I can!

I hear you on supporting bluray audio. The fact that it "just works" on all bluray players is a huge advantage over SACD/DVD-A. I just wish the cover art on this album wasn't so horrifyingly bad. smile.gif
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post #10 of 60
12/27/12 at 9:06am
I don't have any issue with the cover art but geesh couldn't they have at least spent a little on the menu authoring. Is it asking too much to at least get titles of the songs?
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post #11 of 60
12/27/12 at 9:37am
love the stones. does this sound noticeably better than the corresponding redbook cd?
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post #12 of 60
12/27/12 at 7:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by grubadub View Post

love the stones. does this sound noticeably better than the corresponding redbook cd?
A definite yes. This is essential unless you own most of the SACDs.
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post #13 of 60
12/28/12 at 7:57am
thanks. placed my order yesterday smile.gif
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post #14 of 60
12/28/12 at 8:17pm
Thanks for the info, why we don't get stuff like this in the USA? makes no sense.
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post #15 of 60
12/29/12 at 4:53am
Ordered mine. Yes its less than half the price of the hd tracks download.
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post #16 of 60
1/7/13 at 10:06pm
Got my copy today from Amazon UK but it won't play properly on my LG Blu-Ray player connected via HDMI to a Denon 3312 AVR. This set up plays all my other BR audio discs very nicely, including SW's Grace For Drowning. I have the player set up so that the decoding is done by the AVR. With the Grrr! disc the sound keeps skipping and cutting off and eventually goes silent. Some times there is white noise when I try different audio options - especially DTS-HD MA, at other times it sounds great (Dolby TrueHD) for a short while before the aforementioned problems begin. Has anyone else faced this situation? Is it a faulty disc or could it be a player problem that is specific to this disc? Grrrr!
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post #17 of 60
1/8/13 at 2:09pm
Can't you play the PCM tracks or set your player to decode the Dolby or DTS to PCM in your player instead of bitstreaming? I don't understand the fascination of bitstreaming I guess it's a carry over from the early days of laser discs or DVDs when players didn't have decoders built in.

In any case I suspect it is an authoring idiosyncrasy that a replacement disk likely wouldn't correct. Is your LG firmware up to date?
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post #18 of 60
1/8/13 at 11:09pm
Thanks!! Having the Blu-Ray player decode the lossless tracks to PCM appears to have done the trick. I've made it all the way to Angie and it sounds great throughout. Bitstreaming lets me see the type of audio being decoded on the AVR's display, but it is no biggie to toggle this option just for the Grrr! disc. I could hear a discernable difference in quality between the PCM tracks and those from the DTS HD MA or Dolby TrueHD. This is a Grrreat release!
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post #19 of 60
1/9/13 at 8:55am
Truthfully all three should sound the same. Any difference is likely either level mismatch or a difference in how the player or receiver processes the different signals. Both the Dolby and DTS tracks are lossless and should in theory unpack to the same PCM. Glad you got it working. Did you notice any flickering on the menu screen?
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post #20 of 60
1/9/13 at 12:45pm
You are probably correct. When my BR player processed the tracks and then fed them to the AVR there was no difference between the three. In fact one wonders why they even bothered to provide three audio options in the first place when they are all 24/96. However, even though it worked only intermittently when I tried to bitstream to the AVR for processing there, there was a noticeable difference in the audio quality with the 2 lossless formats sounding much fuller and better than the PCM stream. But then again, it could be the surround settings on the AVR that made the difference. The PCM direct feed may be presented just as 2 channel stereo while the decoded lossless bitstreams were played with Dolby PLII surround as default. There are so many options for how the signals get processed by the AVR that I can get lost in the details.

Not so much a flickering but an annoying blinking of the blue highlighted selection - either the track number or the audio options. To put it charitably, the menu is stark and minimalist. Going by reports elsewhere, people claim that the sound from this disc is not as good as the original ABKCO SACDs or the later SHM SACDs, and that the original recording is just upmixed to 24/96. I only have the Beggar's Banquet and Let It Bleed ABKCO SACDs but have not yet compared equivalent tracks. But what I heard from all 50 BD-A tracks sounded quite good. And it was nice to have the newer tracks at this fidelity and all in one place. All in all it was a worthy purchase and a great value for the price.
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post #21 of 60
1/9/13 at 4:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nil View Post

You are probably correct. When my BR player processed the tracks and then fed them to the AVR there was no difference between the three. In fact one wonders why they even bothered to provide three audio options in the first place when they are all 24/96. However, even though it worked only intermittently when I tried to bitstream to the AVR for processing there, there was a noticeable difference in the audio quality with the 2 lossless formats sounding much fuller and better than the PCM stream. But then again, it could be the surround settings on the AVR that made the difference. The PCM direct feed may be presented just as 2 channel stereo while the decoded lossless bitstreams were played with Dolby PLII surround as default. There are so many options for how the signals get processed by the AVR that I can get lost in the details.
Not so much a flickering but an annoying blinking of the blue highlighted selection - either the track number or the audio options. To put it charitably, the menu is stark and minimalist. Going by reports elsewhere, people claim that the sound from this disc is not as good as the original ABKCO SACDs or the later SHM SACDs, and that the original recording is just upmixed to 24/96. I only have the Beggar's Banquet and Let It Bleed ABKCO SACDs but have not yet compared equivalent tracks. But what I heard from all 50 BD-A tracks sounded quite good. And it was nice to have the newer tracks at this fidelity and all in one place. All in all it was a worthy purchase and a great value for the price.



There is definitely a problem when bitstreaming this disc. I have the same exact results with my gear. I originally thought it was my Oppo since someone in another forum was also having problems but maybe it's my Denon. In any case, having 3 different stereo mixes is pretty dumb, but for $21, you can't complain much.


I'd be interested in hearing about any differences with your ABKCO's. I have the SHM-SACD's of BB, LIB and EOMS and found the Grrr BD to be a bit brighter with more forward presence. The SHM's are more detailed and less bright. I can't decide if either one is my favorite, but so far I'm enjoying both.
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post #22 of 60
1/9/13 at 4:31pm
I have all the ABKCO's I haven't done much in the way of comparing side by side but my take is the early tracks on Grrr sound just as good. I'd need to do a lot more serious listening before saying anything more definitive.
Nil - If you were applying DPL II I would hope they sound fuller. biggrin.gif
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post #23 of 60
1/11/13 at 4:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by obie_fl View Post

I have all the ABKCO's I haven't done much in the way of comparing side by side but my take is the early tracks on Grrr sound just as good. I'd need to do a lot more serious listening before saying anything more definitive. Nil - If you were applying DPL II I would hope they sound fuller. biggrin.gif

I am waiting for mine, soon hopefully smile.gif
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post #24 of 60
1/16/13 at 10:36am
Sounds great, but as others have reported the menu is junk and there is some issue with the audio streaming.

Having a static, high contrast menu screen is just dumb dumb dumb. Testing on a couple of players it renders properly, without the flashing effect noted by Oppo users. But having the highlighted number as light blue instead of white doesn't make sense. I get the idea of a a concise number grid to avoid page flipping, but why not have alternate menu branch that offers titles?

I also experienced issues when toggling between sound formats. DTS HD Master Audio seemed to be the most problematic. Sometimes it wouldn't register at all, sometimes it would register but have no sound. It did seem to take longer for the equipment to register and start decoding than any other discs I've used.

For a workaround, I noticed that shifting from PCM to DTS HD-MA was the most unreliable sequence. Unfortunately that's probably the most common scenario people would use. I found that if I shifted it to DTS HD-MA and got no sound, I could stop press stop and on restarting, it would be in DTS HD-MA.

Another workaround seemed to be going from PCM --> Dolby True HD --> DTS HA-MA

Why anyone would want to use one of these formats versus another is worth discussing though.
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post #25 of 60
1/16/13 at 10:47am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nil View Post

Thanks!! Having the Blu-Ray player decode the lossless tracks to PCM appears to have done the trick. I've made it all the way to Angie and it sounds great throughout. Bitstreaming lets me see the type of audio being decoded on the AVR's display, but it is no biggie to toggle this option just for the Grrr! disc. I could hear a discernable difference in quality between the PCM tracks and those from the DTS HD MA or Dolby TrueHD. This is a Grrreat release!

I could hear a big difference between PCM track and the DTS/Dolby tracks. However I know that in my system those formats are processed differently. PCM keeps the format as strictly 2 channels, routing the whole frequency range to Left and Right speakers only. DTS/Dolby engages crossover, routing low frequencies to a subwoofer. As you would expect, the resulting sound is different between the 2 scenarios, although I wouldn't go as far to say one is higher or lower quality.

I can't speak for everyone else's processing but that could explain if you are hearing a big difference between source streams that should in theory be (nearly? fully? completely?) identical.

Because I couldn't flip seamlessly between DTS/Dolby, I wouldn't say with any conviction if they sounded different from each other. My very rough impression was that one was boosting the sub channel slightly more than the other, but perhaps not?

Anybody that's expert on the difference between DTS HD-MA and Dolby True HD can help maybe. Are they identical or should they be? Does each format owner specify different decoding or processing maybe?
Edited by Neild - 1/16/13 at 10:56am
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post #26 of 60
1/16/13 at 11:33am
Neil - Couple of observations... Curious as to why your system does not do bass management on PCM. It also sounds like you are saying the Dolby and DTS tracks are 2.1. I'm not at home to check but I thought they were 2.0. In other words I thought they were the same mix as PCM just encoded. So in theory they should be the same assuming they are level matched and you aren't applying any extra processing. Not saying your decoder isn't adding something as I believe there likely are differences between the various DTS processors. An interesting experiment would be to turn decoding on in your player and see if it is different from bit streaming.
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post #27 of 60
1/16/13 at 1:37pm
I will have this by the end of next week.....I am going to compare it to my SACD's (Hot Rock's 1 and 2)........nice to have the newer songs that were not on SACD, or at least I don't have them on SACD.
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post #28 of 60
1/17/13 at 8:28am
so have you guys listened to this disc yet? i gave it a spin the other day; just sampling most of the songs....listened to a few of my favorites all the way through. my initial impression is overall the sound quality is alright on most tunes. to me, the mix seemed to be a little better on the slower down tempo stuff like angie, wild horses, fool to cry. the vocals seem to have more presence on those type tunes than the faster tempo rockin' songs do. i did really enjoy sympathy for the devil though. i have to say that the tattoo you songs, start me up and waiting on a friend sound just dreadful. the master for that album must be crap. i haven't listened to anything past those songs because i don't like those tunes as much. i'll get to them later. overall, it's a pretty good value. a bluray of 50 stones songs for $21! hard to beat that. just don't expect sonic nirvana. but then again the stones have never been about sonic perfection....
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post #29 of 60
1/17/13 at 4:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by obie_fl View Post

Neil - Couple of observations... Curious as to why your system does not do bass management on PCM. It also sounds like you are saying the Dolby and DTS tracks are 2.1. I'm not at home to check but I thought they were 2.0. In other words I thought they were the same mix as PCM just encoded. So in theory they should be the same assuming they are level matched and you aren't applying any extra processing. Not saying your decoder isn't adding something as I believe there likely are differences between the various DTS processors. An interesting experiment would be to turn decoding on in your player and see if it is different from bit streaming.



PCM is a necessity with this disc, at least with my Oppo. When I bitstreamed, each version sounded seriously different, if they played at all. When I switched to PCM, they pretty much sounded the same, including the bass. It It looks like there is a problem with the disc TOC which is giving some, but not all, players fits. For the price, it's not really that bothersome.

I found I do have the Let It Bleed ABKCO SACD to compare with the SHM-SACD. Since Gimme Shelter and You Can't Always Get What You Want are also on the GRR BD, I sat down- actually I got up every 5 minutes to change discs rolleyes.gif- to compare them. The ABKCO and BD sounded almost identical. They probably use the same mastering. Unfortunately, compared to the SHM, they do sound a bit compressed and limited. There is a lot more sense of each individual instrument with the SHM. The ABKCO/ BD doesn't sound terrible, in fact considering the (ahem) smoky haze that usually clouds the Stones stuff, they sound pretty good. Of course, they cost 1/3 the price of a SHM-SACD.

BTW, after about 30 minutes of comparing the same songs my wife told me "You're effing crazy!" wink.gif
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post #30 of 60
1/17/13 at 6:02pm
Hmm interesting because I was under the impression the Stones SHM-SACDs weren't that great from what I read. Maybe it was just wishful thinking to keep me from having to buy them. I'm a bit of a Stones completionist, in addition to all the ABKCO SACDs (UK & US wink.gif) I even have all their vinyl up to the mid 80's.

I don't bitstream next time I have Grrr! in I'll try the Dolby and DTS decoding in the player (Oppo 103).
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