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Neil Peart, Geddy Lee & Alex Lifeson

Sat, Dec 21, 2024

Moving Pictures 30th anniversary deluxe edition initial reviews

Mon, Apr 11, 2011@5:26PM | comments removed/disabled

The Moving Pictures 5.1 surround sound 30th anniversary deluxe edition hit stores last Tuesday and the initial reviews have been very positive. Big Picture, Big Sound gave it their highest rating of 4 stars: Outstanding:

... If Moving Pictures is a harbinger of things to come, I plan on repurchasing every single release because listening to this collection of seven tracks in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 has been a revelation; and annoyance to my wife who is decidedly sick of hearing "YYZ" at this point. The 96K 24-bit recording has so much more information, it is like you are listening to this album for the first time. Universal has included a 24-bit PCM 2.0 recording, PCM 5.1 surround mix, and a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track; every one sounds spectacular in its own unique way. ...

Their only criticism was the quality of the 3 bonus videos:

... Moving Pictures is really a Blu-ray audio disc, but there are three videos included which deserve mentioning. The picture quality of the videos is downright awful, but the video for "Vital Signs" falls into the category of "previously unreleased" which will please die-hard fans. I may be wrong -- but I could swear that the "Tom Sawyer" and "Limelight" videos look significantly cleaner on past Rush video releases. The picture is very grainy, and the colors look very washed out; take a look at Neil Peart's shirt. Need more Calgon. The videos are clearly bonus content, but Universal could have done a better job with these considering the step-up in sound quality. ...

The man behind the mix - Rush sound engineer Rich Chycki - posted the Big Picture, Big Sound review to his blog earlier today along with one from David McWilliams at avsforums.com and another from Glassdream at Mike Portnoy's forum. Both of these reviewers were just as wowed by the remix as Sound & Vision Magazine editor-in-chief Mike Mettler, who gave the following first impressions a couple of weeks ago via Chycki's blog:

.. "First impressions: W-O-W. It's going to be really, really HARD to ever listen to this album "only" in stereo ever again! THIS is what surround was built for, so to speak ... Living inside it and loving it! ... Everyone needs to know how GREAT this 5.1 mix is!"

... "One of my favorite albums of all time is now better than ever. I look forward to listening to it again and again and getting more out of it each time I do ... Each song has its own individual sense of space ... It's such a rewarding listening experience."

Wow definitely seems to be the common theme among all of the reviews so far. So what do you think? Please let us know in the comments.

The CD+DVD version of the Moving Pictures remix is available via multiple retailers but the CD+Blu-ray is only being sold exclusively through Best Buy for the first 30 days; other retailers will have the Blu-ray version on May 3rd. In celebration of the release, Sound & Vision editor-in-chief Mike Mettler put together a 2-part series on Rush and their journey towards embracing the 5.1 format titled Rush: The Fountain of Surround (part 1, part 2). Pre-orders of the Moving Pictures deluxe edition pushed Moving Pictures back into the Billboard 200 after 30 years; it made a fleeting appearance at #137 for the week of April 9th but is now off the charts once again. In addition to the 5.1 remix, the deluxe edition contains an extensive gallery with previously unreleased photos from the original recording sessions, new liner notes by music journalist David Fricke and 30th anniversary artwork by original album designer Hugh Syme. John at Cygnus-X1.net has scanned these images and liner notes and put them online. You can check out the liner notes at this link and all the images here. John is also holding a contest to give away five copies of the CD/DVD version in celebration of the release. The first 2 winners have already been selected and John will be giving 3 more DVDs away; one each Friday for the next 3 weeks. To enter just go to this link. You can get more details regarding the Moving Pictures deluxe edition in this post and order your copy at Amazon (CD+DVD, CD+Blu-ray).