I grew up with my parents always jamming LPs (and reel-to-reel tapes!) around the house on Saturdays while doing house work. The LP that I fell in love with the most and always asked them to play was Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon (DSOTM). There is a long history of the record being remastered and rereleased throughout the ages and people have always bickered about which is best. But the one that the old cats always talked about was the quadraphonic mix by sound engineer Alan Parsons.

The quadraphonic mix had become a cult classic and because (like today with SACD and DVD-A) you needed special equipment to hear it, most people never got the chance and it quickly became unavailable. It also became a legend of sorts and the people who did hear it continued to mention it. Then, in 2003 when DSOTM was put out on SACD, everyone was hoping they'd finally be able to hear that quadraphonic mix they had been hearing about for 30 years. But no, it wasn't. That quadraphonic mix was never officially endorsed by the band so they went with a whole new mix. While that mix is supposedly good, people were still asking about the quad mix!

So, sometime last year, SOMEBODY released the DSOTM quad mix on the internet in DVD-Audio format (that means you can play it on your normal DVD player!) At first, people where very skeptical. Did someone just record the original quadraphonic LPs into their Soundblaster card and convert it to DVD-Audio format (yuck!)? Apparently not! Folks over at AVS forum who have 100's of DVD-As swear this is their best sounding disk. Just do a Google on "Pink Floyd DVD-A review" and you'll see for yourself. A decent site called High Fidelity Review wrote:

Quote:
the DVD-Audio release “from the original quadraphonic master tapes” of a 96/24 DVD-Audio disc, purporting to be the original Alan Parsons quadraphonic mix, except with a low frequency track added. Thus, while the Parsons quad mix was 4.0, this particular rendition is 4.1. The mystery engineer, who advises High Fidelity Review of a professional background in sound engineering, has privately verified what the bootleg label reads, i.e., that this disc is from the original quad master tapes.. Full Review.

Pretty cool huh? So how do you get it? To quote the review above, "The disc is unavailable to anyone else in the whole world, unless they are one of the few who have access to the internet." Meaning, all you need is a) a Bittorent program on your computer, b) an internet search engine and c) a DVD burner. I've never used torrents before and I don't like the idea that people are ripping and sharing DVDs with it but this download is pretty guilt free for me because I own DSOTM in about 4 formats including the SACD version that I currently can't even listen to because my receiver doesn't have an analgue 5.1 input on it.

My dad is coming over tonight for a little "surprise" I have for him. I'm going to pour us each a small glass of scotch on the rocks, have him take a seat and pop this DVD-A in. I don't think his LP player is even hooked up now, so it'll be the first time in at least 10 years that he's heard it, but the first time he's heard it in surround sound!

A Beatles fan? Check out this release everyone is nuts about - Beatles - Love. It's a "soundscape" of Beatles in 5.1 surround sound mixed for the Cirque du Soleil show by the band's original producer, Sir George Martin, and his son Giles.