I am interested in building DVD audio CD collection, but I am having a hard time finding anything out there. I am interested in hearing about your DVD audio collections. What do you guys own?

 

Everything I've been reading lately says that the record labels in the U.S. have all but killed DVD-A. Little, if anything, is being released in the format anymore.

SACD is doing all right in Europe, and hanging on in the U.S. better than DVD-A is, but not by much.

Looks like we're going to have to be content with CD's & MP3 for our cars and what DVD-A's have been released and are still available on the Internet.

 

I just bought a Dual-Disc release of Dire Straits Bother in Arms, 25th Anniversary Edition. One side is standard CD audio, the other is DVD-A! There are more but you need to make sure that the Dual-Disc has the "DVD-Audio" lable on it. A lot have DVD-Video on the second side or PCM Stereo.

Some of the Bestbuy stores have the Dual-Discs located in a sepearte section, vice filing with the regular CDs...

 

I personally have about 20 of them; all classic rock, except Linda Ronstadt/What's New
In order of preference, here's my top 10:
Dire Straits/Brothers in Arms
Roy Orbison/Black & White Night
Steely Dan/Gaucho
Elton John/Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
The Who/Tommy
Grateful Dead/ Workingman's Dead, & American Beauty
Eric Clapton & BB King/Riding With the King
Foreigner/4
Eagles/Hotel California

Honorable mention;
Doors/LA Woman
Jackson Browne/Running on Empty
Neil Young/Harvest, or On the Beach
David Bowie/Live

Go to www.deepdiscountdvd.com
for the best prices, no shipping, or tax!
They don't have all the above titles, but their prices are awesome!

 

CPR,

Question for you. I also have The Doors "LA Woman" but fine the recorded level on that disc to be very very low. I know the recording levels of discs as well as their equalizations can be different but I think that disc is ridiculously low. Is it the same with your DVD-A ?

 

You're absolutely correct!
It's called dynamic range; & for some reason thuis disc is very weak, sonically.
Can't explain why

 

Don't know what your flavor is but, if you like house dance music there are quite a few great compliations. Ministery of Sound: The Annual 2006 gets put out on the 11th!

 

I have quite a few, but am only impressed with a handful:

Good DVD-A discs

Queensryche - Empire
Donald Fagen - The Nightfly
Donald Fagen - Morph The Cat
Metallia - Black Album
Talking Heads - Little Creatures

Good CDs that are nothing special on DVD-A

Dire Straits - Brothers In Arms
Steely Dan - Everything Must Go
Fourplay
Best of REM
Policy - Every Breath You Take

Disappointments

Blue Oyster Cult - A Long Day's Night
Natalie Merchant - Tigerlily


I have Alan Parsons Eye In the Sky HDAD and a Wagner DVD-A coming as well.

Lately I have been ripping concert DVD videos to 6 channel WAVs and burning them as DVD-A discs. Talking Heads - Stop Making Sense is AWESOME. So far I have also done Roy Orbison's A Black and White Night and Peter Gabriel's Growing Up Live.

 

I've found a few at Best Buy and Barnes & Noble stores. Although B&N sometimes displays them with DVD Video discs, go figure...

I usually try to order online, as the selection is somewhat better, if you don't mind the wait.

Most of mine are Rock:

REM-In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003

Eagles-Hotel California

Jackson Browne-Running on Empty

LED Zeppelin-How the West was Won

REO Speedwagon-Live:Plus

Elvis-30 #1 Hits

 

"Nightfly" is awsome on DVD-A

 

CBR1100XX,

It might help if you tell us what type of music you are into. I noticed you are 29 and most of the individuals post in this thread are 40+, so the tastes in music might be different. I noticed the 2 solobarics you have in your trunk and I would suspect your not bumping Steely Dan or Elton John in your car.......

 

How is the Led Zepplin disc? I have picked it up and put it down half a dozen times. The thing I like about the Talking Heads disc I made is that it really sets the soundstage of a concert without sounding "muddy" at all.

I completely forgot to list the two Blue Man Group DVD-As I have (Audio and The Complex). While the music is not on the level of a major pop or rock artist, the surround effects are superb. The only problem is, every time I "listen" to them, I find myself wishing I was "watching" them; they put on an awesome show.

 

I love it! It's great live recording from a '72 show in LA. I found the quality is very high and in the DVD-A format it's almost like being at the show. It's a 2-disc set and I was only able to find it online.

If your a Zeppelin fan, it'd be well worth it to add it to your collection.

 

I have been searching for the DVD audios and found them.
Tower Records has biggest selection but not in there stores, only online for a
decent price too.

But Im of the opinon now to just get the ipod connection instead of building up a
dvd collection...Besides theyre not that great and dont sound that different than MP3s/better than Cds but not better than high quality MP3s.
Hopefully there will be a way to search and dload surround sound mp3s...

 

Sorry, but no Mp3 is going to be as good as a CD. Unless it's a lossless mp3, your going to have some compression which equates to distortion in some manner. mp3 is more for quantity, and not quality. Kind of like a buffet vs a fine restaurant. All you can eat, not that good a quality food for mp3, and great quality food, not as much choice, or quantity for the DVD-A format/quality restaurant.

DVD-A's are like night and day better than CD's. Some humans can hear the difference, (physical attribute differences) and some may not be able to.

The Dual Disc format has basically replaced the DVD-A format, which is why your seeing the DVD-A going away. You'll notice that many DVD-A titles that were once available are now on dual disc. So if your looking for DVD-A titles, check the dual disc selection. While many sony lable artists on DD come in DVD-V format rather than DVD-A, you should find many non-sony dd that are in DVD-A. Hope that helps. Otherwise, you can create your own DVD-A discs from any DVD-V format using the DVD-Audio solo and DVD audio Extractor combo of software. Which means, you can buy any dualdisc title and use it in your TL.

 

I found a few other good sites with an awesome collection...

www.amusicdirect.com

and

www.elusivedisc.com

 

www.acousticsounds.com

DVD-A and SACD has far better perfomance then any CD or MP3......givin some are better then others.

BC

 

Here is a site I found with over 300 titles

http://store.acousticsounds.com/sear...20&category=23

 

Any new DVD-A titles out there? I saw someone had started a thread but it got closed in lieu of the few links on the master audio thread. Just seemed like it had been a while since we all talked about what was out there. So BUMP!

 

Wow! Zero recommendations in 24 hours. If Acura folks can't refer to any new DVD-A's then it really must be a dead technology.

 

There are a handful of recent releases:

Talking Heads' Brick
Donald Fagen's Morph the Cat
Special Edition of Beatles' Love album (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED)
The Doors' Perception

I have all except the Doors collection. Based on several reviews I have read, I will wait for individual albums to come out as I hear The Doors and Soft Parade are not well executed on DVD-A.

 

I've got the Zeppelin disc as well. It's worth getting for the acoustic pieces they do on it. Some of the other tracks are painfully monotonous, like Bonhams 25 minute solo on Moby Dick. Skip it - you won't be missing anything.

If you want to really experience the DVD-A technology then get the new Beatles Love album. I've comes in either a dual set, one CD and one DVD-A or just the CD. Definately get the DVD-A. If your a Beatles fan your in for a treat. The quality and depth of the sound is brilliant.

It's a shame that the industry in killing off this format. It lends itself best to studio remixing, like the Beatles album. I think it's wasted on anything live. The quality of the sound just can't be captured in a live venue.

 

I only own two DVD-A's currently. The Demo disc and the Beatles Love album. I agree with other posts that this is a fantastic disc. I really would like to add a few more, but nothing I have seen really grabs me...at least of what I know is out there anyhow.

 

I subscribe to the Home Theater Magazine, and they have a section in each issue that tells the new DVD-A and SACD releases. Most are Classical, but the few I remember recently that arent:

Carly Simon
Jackson Brown-Running on Empty
Quite a few Robert Townsend, and Niel Young

 

Your other option of course is to burn your own DVD-A's. I've done it (thanks to Adobeman) and it works great. I can get 6-8 hours of comedy on 1 disk....great for long trips. And if your adventurous enough, try the Adobimizer to convert to 5.1. You'll need an application to do this for the burn process though.

Also, you can download DVDA (iso files) right from Torrent websites and copy direct to disk.

recommend buying the Beatles Love DTS DVD disk. Worth it.
Queen - Night at the Opera
Pink Floyd - Dark side fo the moon
Pink Floyd - The wall - Remastered

 

As an old metalhead...

Disturbed - Believe is my most listened to DVD-A.

 

a DVD-A release list

 

I saw Snow Patrol "Final Straw" listed as a Dual Disc SACD/DVD-A. Will that play on the TL? I like their Chasing Cars song...thought maybe I would give this DVD-A a try.

 

I recently bought 6 from tower.com

Linkin Park: Reanimation
Disturbed: Believe
Metallica: Metallica
Blue Man Group: Audio
Barenaked Ladies: Maroon
Faith Hill: Cry


Reanimation is a fantastic dvd. I've listened to the cd before and did not like it (have liked all of the rest of their cds) but in 5.1 it is really awesome. Disturbed doesn't make much use of the 5.1 but the fidelity of sound makes it worth the purchase.. turn the volume up to 30 and listening is a blast. Maroon is a good album but the highs are a bit too high.. not a huge fan of Metallica to begin with - but the mix is nice.

I have to say though, to demonstrate the surround sound and if you're feeling like a rush, Blue Man Group is the way to go. Fantastic.

Faith's good too, but not much noticeably different than the cd.

Hope this helps. If I had to buy 2, I'd get Linkin Park and Blue Man Group.

 

Check the back of the disc case. If it says NTSC anywhere, then my experience says no.

I wish the record labels would follow the DVD-A spec on ALL their DualDiscs. I could do without the videos.

 

Interesting link. I note that the page says right at the top:
Still, it is a good list with release dates as well.

And now another interesting link from the same site:
For everyone out there complaining of the dearth of DVD-A titles, this may be one way to let at least Warner know there are those of us still interested in hi-res and surround audio. Like the original poster, I encourage everyone to join the list .

 

You are correct. I left the Silverline titles out of that listing because most of them suck, are fake surround, and did more to harm DVD-Audio than you can imagine (but that's a whole other story). I also left the classical and jazz titles off because this is primarily a rock/pop list.

So far, we are all waiting to see what happens with the "Because Sound Matters" website. I hope it comes to fruition, and it just does not turn out to be a place for Rhino to sell LPs.

:-jon

 

Consider me joined. I'm all about high-fidelity and killer surround (you should see my living room). To bring this experience to my daily commute is something I hope stays realistic for as long as possible.

As a former musician who loves the sound of killer instrumental and progresive style music, I would love to see more classic metal (Led Zeppelin, early Metallica [pre Black Album] early Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, early Rush, etc), classic rock/blues (Hendrix, Steely Dan, Steve Miller, Alan Parsons Project/Stevie Ray Vaughan), and even some of the cheesy over-the-top solo shredder style hair band dudes from the 1980s and 1990s (Satriani, Malmsteen, Angelo-Batio, and Van Halen to name a few) DVD-A titles, but maybe that's just me. I'm even down for some jazz fusion and funk every now and again.

I would love to see DVD-As become as readily available as CDs have become, because the difference is absolutely unbelievable. Even with all the ambient and external noise influences commonly occurring while driving, you're still getting way better sound out of a DVD-A than you will out of a CD. I was sold INSTANTLY when the salesperson popped in the demo DVD-A that comes with the TL and played the stereo version of "China Grove" then compared it to the 5.1 version.

 

Because of the reviews on this site I have purchased 2 new DVD-A's in the last couple of weeks:

The Beatles - Love
Eric Clapton - Back Home

I couldn't be more pleased with both of these albums. Virtually no "skip songs" on either disc and the surround sound is tremendous (especially on "Love")

Some others I have in the collection are hit and miss:

Natalie Merchant - Tigerlily (Not impressed with this one)
Blue Man Group - The Complex (Great 5.1 sound but I would not listen to most of
these songs if they were in a regular CD or MP3 format)
Beck - Guero (Very good album. The sound mixing is unparalelled too)

Just my

 

i saw your posts last week and decided to order my first DVD-As from amazon. amazon had better prices than and a similar selection to acoustic sounds.

i ordered seal: greatest hits and santana: shaman. the sound is UNREAL! lots of detail. two channel recordings sound flat. too bad this is a dying format.

thanks to all who posted sites.

--
'04 TL, AT, Navi, Black/Camel

 

I have a few DVD-A discs and so far Linkin Park's Reanimation is my favorite. It makes great use of all channels and has a great mix of sound frequencies. Seal's IV is pretty good too, but I prefer the music on Reanimation. I also have a couple of classical discs which are good only for the sound quality - you won't get any amazing use of 6 discrete channels.
Also Foo Fighters' One By One is decent. Again, no awe inspiring use of surround, but still sounds great.
I don't think any of the other discs I have so far are really worth mentioning.

Hope this helps some one make a decision

 

IF your a Doors fan and realize that thier music was originally laid down on analog tape and you do not already own all the Doors albums on CD's now then the perception box set is worth getting.
The DVD-audio disks are not up to the level of most DVD-A's out there but putting 70's analog tape on DVD-Audio is going to show the inadaquicies of the analog tapes. But if you were around when they were together and listen to this set you realize that they put out alot of good stuff in their time together.

 

Any Ideas where I can get a copy of Donald Fagen's "Nightfly"

 

I have the Snow Patrol dualdisc, and it will play in the TL... but for some reason there is absolutely no bass on the DVD-A side, so half the time I just end up flipping it over and playing the CD side. Good disc though.

 

It is out of print now. Ebay is your best bet.