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Reviews: The Animals: Retrospective

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Reviews: 5

Review by jimmyjames8 September 8, 2004 (2 of 2 found this review helpful)
Performance:   Sonics:
Chas, Eric and the boys never sounded better. I think all the hits are here. No real clinkers. You can tell House of the Rising Sun was recorded a long time ago in a less than state of the art studio in a short amount of time. SACD has a way of showing you the close ups, warts and all. The later day stuff sounds much better. Never heard the Sony Animals SACD but this one does just fine even if it's more of a Eric Burden retrospective than an Animals retrospective. Will we ever hear SUN SECRETS on SACD?

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Review by DeSelby January 21, 2005 (4 of 5 found this review helpful)
Sonics:
stereo sonics: Think the remastering result is the best you can get from those old recordings. Never heard the Animals in a better sound.

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Review by clekaeljo July 30, 2010 (0 of 8 found this review helpful)
Performance:   Sonics:
Bought this one out of Amazon.co.uk, following the recommendations from this site. However.... this is NOT a SACD. It turned out to be an ordinary CD transfered from analogue tape by DSD. As all CDs, this one is limited to 44.1 Khz sampling and 16bits (non HDCDs) by design. Still sounds better than the average CD, but not close to other SACDs I have from the same time period (i.e. Sam Cooke's Copa). Anyway, my 5 cents. Cheers.

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Review by MattMan657 September 22, 2011 (5 of 5 found this review helpful)
Performance:   Sonics:
I was so happy when I finally got my hands on a copy of this. It took three tries on ebay for a seller to send me the actual SACD as opposed to the DSD mastered RedbookCD. Both failures I knew instantly from feeling the jewel case in the packaging as opposed to the digipack.

AGAIN! THE DSD REDBOOK HAS THE STANDARD JEWEL CASE FOUND WITH NORMAL CDS, THE SACD HAS THE CARDBOARD DIGIPACK WITH THE ATTACHED BOOKLET!!! Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. The SACD HAS an SACD logo right on the disc, it may be small but it is 100% there.

I'll start off by saying I am not a fan of the DSD redbook at all. I think its way to high and shrill, hurts to listen to. I was really really hoping the SACD would be an improvement and I have to say it is a significant improvement. I've heard the original recordings did not permit too high of a PCM resolution due to that time's recording practices but it doesn't matter to me, this SACD is awesome. I've never heard The Animals so clearly but with the warmth the redbook does not have. I knew instantly that this was a serious improvement.

If you can get your hands on a copy of this rare OOP SACD... GET IT! The digipack looks awesome with a very well put together booklet too. Overall I am super happy with this SACD.

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Review by pvcmusiclover January 16, 2013 (1 of 1 found this review helpful)
Performance:   Sonics:
The legendary Bob Ludwig of Gateway mastering did this project. He did a great job getting EQ/tonal balance just right on every track - even bassline and proportionate high end sheen.

As others have mentioned, a lot of the early stuff is all mono and sounds like it was mastered for 45RPM singles and AM radio. Thus, it lacks wide dynamic range and exhibits compressor "pumping" a bit. But, it's kind of an integral part of the Animals sound. That being said, the sound quality of Spill the Wine will blow you away.

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