[.ca] The Police: Every Breath You Take (DTS Encoded)

Great fidelity improvement, shame about the mix:
Well, after getting my copy of this album in the mail today, I just spent the afternoon comparing the original CD with this DTS album. On the good side... The fidelity of sound achieved by moving to the higher 24bit/48-96KHz that DTS provides, compared to the 16bit/44.1KHz that CD is limited to, is remarkable (although, as an aside, the notes say that this album was first mixed in 20bits, making me wondering if a) it was left at that resolution or b) it was 'upsampled' to 24bits for DTS. I'd bet on the latter). The net result is much more analog sounding that the previous album, and when I say 'analog', I'm referring to the kind of source fidelity one usually only gets with a mega-kilobuck turntable coupled with an equally expensive cartridge and tone-arm (the kind of system I don't own, but have been lucky enough to hear). While the older CD was hardly the worst CD out there, it definitely suffered from 'digitis', notable in particular when Sting would hit high falsetto notes. One need only compare the high-pitched wails in 'Roxanne' to hear the difference. On the original CD, Sting's voice voice would exhibit a strange brittleness that would quickly cause listening fatigue, unless listened to very softly. In comparison, the new DTS sounds much more natural. While the Sting's voice, at times, still screeches just as high as it should, gone are the nasty high-frequency artifacts that make the old album such a (literal) pain to listen to. At the same time, the dynamic range has been expanded. Whether this is due to the lowered noise floor, as the increased number of bits would allow, or simply more skillful mastering, is hard to know. What is apparent is that the album sounds much less compressed, with the leading edges of drum attacks, in particular, sounding much more impactful. Along with the increased dynamics comes an increased sense of volume and space, as if more of the acoustic clues and ambient air noise of the original recording studios had been captured. While welcome and pleasant, this is particularly puzzling as it is almost certain that these songs were almost certainly not recorded using a purist miking method (such as two stereo cardioids), but instead multi-miked and multi-tracked. Which leads us into the mix. On the positive side, the LFE channel is well-blended and balanced, allowing for judicious subwoofer use, unlike some other DTS albums. Bass frequencies, for the most part, come out well-balanced. Sting's bass, especially on 'Every Breath You Take' and 'Wrapped Around Your Finger' is tight, rhythmic, and distinct, with no icky bass boost emphasis added. Now, on the negative side... I use a set of fully-matched speakers in my 5.1 setup. All of the speakers are timbrally matched, and have been calibrated to within +/- 1 dB of each other at the listening position using pink noise and SPL A-weighted measurements. When a 5.1 recording is well mixed (and there are very few of these), the speakers effectively disappear. Unfortunately for the current state of 5.1 sound (I imagine the engineers are still learning), this rarely happens. In contrast, the 'disappearing speaker effect' happens very reliably and consistently on even halfway decent 2-channel recordings. Imaging is one area where the original CD is definitely superior. For all the harshness of the original CD, it is definitely superior to the 5.1 recording when it comes to making the speakers disappear and create an image of the musicians floating in space. Ironically, considering it has more channels, the 5.1 recording sounds spatially flat when compared to the 2 channel CD. The exception to this is when the rear channels are used for some gimmicky effects, in which case it doesn't sound spatially flat, but just weird. I became so bothered by this at one point that I disabled my rear speakers and just listened to the 3 front channels. However, even using a front only setup (LCR + subwoofer), the 5.1 recording has less of a sense of space than the original CD. Not even once, using the DTS version, did I have the illusion that the musicians were singing invisibly from a point in space somewhere behind the plane of my speakers. So, in summary, I give the quality of sound on the new DTS disc 5 stars. It is definitely much smoother, more natural sounding, dynamic, and listenable than the original album. On the other hand, I give the 5.1 mix itself 3 stars, averaging out to 4 stars. The album is definitely worth buying, but until recording engineers learn how to mix 5.1 channels in a way that provides superior imaging, I wish they would include a DTS 2-channel track on the disc, as some multichannel SACD discs are beginning to do.

Truly a Re-experience of The Police Classics:
I'm not a big fan of The Police and yet I really enjoyed this. I was actually comparing it with Sting DVDs and I still opted to buy this instead. A must for fans of The Police with a DTS system.

NEW De Doo Doo Doo, De Da Da Da!:
Maybe you'll only read one sentence in which case I will SCREAM: GET THIS DTS DISC BECAUSE IT HAS A NEW VERSION OF "DE DOO DOO DOO DE DA DA DA" THAT BLOWS THE ORIGINAL AWAY! Granted, the remix of Don't Stand So Close To Me ('86) was far inferior to the original. The band says as much in the liner notes to the supposedly complete "Message In The Box," but on this DTS Audio disc lies a GEM that came out of NOWHERE. De Doo Doo Doo, De Da Da Da has been reworked into a much more stripped down, vocal hamony masterpiece! Like the aforementioned 1986 remake, it is COMPLETELY different, except THIS TIME IT WORKS! (NOTE: The DTS Surround Mix is best played on a DVD deck with a DTS symbol on it. Even though these DTS discs are technically for DTS CD players, I've yet to see the DTS symbol on one, however most DVD players have the DTS symbol0 because many movie soundtracks are DTS!) If someone would've told me I would like another version of anything from Zenyatta Mondatta, I would've LAUGHED in their face. I firmly believe their third studio effort is by far their BEST recording. The only semi dud (Andy Summer's strange instrumental Behind My Camel)was GIVEN A GRAMMY AWARD! The marketing people have made a major blunder in NOT announcing this newly found version of De Doo Doo Doo, De Da Da Da, but maybe someone has been afraid that the "complete" Message In The Box Set would have to be recalled. Fear not, oh ye of little faith! Let the word go out to the whole world, a NEW Police song exists and it is good! Amen.

Excellent Sound Definition. Thank God for DTS:
This is a great CD for anyone who enjoys Police classics and is a must for every fan. Maybe the DTS recording doesn't get the best out of 5.1 sound but it sure sounds much better than the old CD. It has Excellent sound definition. If you appreciate to have details on your music, you won't regret the 22.77$ you paid for this CD.

Definitely worth buying, although not perfect:
This is my first DTS disc, so I was anxious to bring it home and compare it to the CD version. After only a few seconds of listening, I was sure I had just wasted .... The snare drum had an unnatural, annoying reverb in the rear speakers that I just hated. It had a gimmicky feel, something I suspected the whole disc would suffer from. Fortunately I was wrong. That snare drum is the worst case of gimmicky mixing on the whole album. That's not to say the mix is great, because it's not. As someone else mentioned, you're very aware of each individual speaker throughout much of this album. But only in a few cases is this distracting, and in some cases it actually works well (the guitar in the rears during "Can't Stand Losing You" for example). What makes this disc a huge improvement over the CD version is not the surround mix, but the excellent sound quality. While there are noticeable improvements throughout, I noticed the biggest difference in the bass. The CD's bass used to sound good to me, but now seems muddy in comparison. Listen to "Wrapped Around Your Finger" in the two formats and you'll immediately know what I'm talking about. The surround mix is not terrible, and is more than made up for by the sound quality and the fact that I like the songs. The Police have regained a place among my "frequently-listened-to" discs. You've obviously got to like the music to make this purchase worthwhile, but for me it was ... well spent.

• Roxanne
• Can't Stand Losing You
• Message In A Bottle
• Walking On The Moon
• Don't Stand So Close To Me `86
• De Do Do Do De Da Da Da
• Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
• Invisible Sun
• Spirits In The Material World
• Every Breath You Take
• King Of Pain
• Wrapped Around Your Finger