The question assumes all things being equal. The main reason I haven't bought a lot of music in the last couple of years has been the lack of worthy titles, but that is changing.

Today I picked up the new CD by The Donnas, "Gold Medal." It was only $9.99 at Best Buy.

CD on one side, entire album remixed to 5.1 DVD-Audio/Dolby Digital on the other, plus a music video and making-of featurette.

This is the kind of thing consumers may be willing to fork over $10 for. Have the record labels finally pulled their collective heads out of their asses and figured out the reason DVDs are so popular are because they offer a lot of quality content for a reasonable amount of money?

I for one am looking forward to more DualDisc releases.

Yep, picked it up at BB also.

$10 for DVD-A disc? Hell yes! I can't wait to listen to it. I'll definately write some email saying that I think this is a cool idea.

Oh, and the fuzzy slipcover is neat

I hear it can't be ripped into iTunes - no go for me. I'll just stream it and listen to it to see if it's good.

I don't think its so much the features, but the fact that its a new CD for 9.99! It's not that common an occurance to be able to get a new CD for 9.99, at least not more than the 1 or 2 selected titles for a given week.

Too bad my crappy Best Buy didn't have any of the DualDisc's in stock, because I really wanted one, had to settle for the regular version. I'll console myself with the thoughts the features really blow.

On a side note....the conventional CD is 13.99, only the DualDisc release is $9.99. Luckily, the flip side of crappy Best Buy is lackluster salespeople who will happily change the price as long as the picture in the paper is the same.

Lucky you. I've bought hundreds of discs the last couple of years.

I need to be pickier like you.

Have you bought any of the other Donnas discs in the past?


I saw the Donnas disc at FYE today for $17 after rebate.

I plan on visiting Best Buy to pick this up too. Sadly it looks to be a special price for the intro and future releases may end up costing the usual price. Hopefully I'm wrong, but FYE doesn't think so.

is the DVD-audio side playable on regular DVD-players and able to get 5.1? Mine can play DVD-A but it only outputs a 2.0 signal.

we got an email from corporate to pull this, as it is apparently defective.

db27 that might be why you can't rip it into iTunes.

You work at Best Buy?

The disc is defective? Should I not bother grabbing it?

I was screwing around with my setup for an hour trying to figure out why the center channel did not play on the high resolution tracks.

btw, according to their website, they only printed 50,000 of the DualDiscs.

I'm curious what's defective. I've only played a few tracks on both sides (and some of the video and "making of...") and all seems fine. Because of the time I really couldn't crank up the 5.1 but the surrounds sounded a tad weak. I'll give it a better workout tomorrow. My center seemed to come in loud and clear.

From a couple threads over at the Donna's website it looks like the last song was only 53 seconds long when it should have been 2:53.

Better check your last song.


I purchased Simple Plan DualDisc and had some troubles playing/ripping the CD on my PC. I ended up holding down shift when inserting the CD. After that I could play/rip the songs on the CD. Don't know if it's copy protection or just my setup.


Drew

Wrong. It ripped into iTunes just fine. In fact, I'm listening to it now.

Yes, the defect on the DualDisk is that the last song on the CD side is only 53 seconds long instead of 2:53. The song plays fine in the Dolby Digital and Dolby 2.0 versions on the DVD side.

Since they only pressed 50,000 copies of this I'm hanging on to it until Atlantic Records figures out how they're going to fix the problem. I'm hoping there will be some sort of disc exchange. If not, the DualDisk version is worth keeping even with the defect.

The high-res track is in stereo. There is also a separate DD 5.1 track.

Yes.

Thanks for the info!

Glad to see this is finally happening. Hopefully this will be the impetus needed to ensure more bands receive the 5.1 treatment.

I ordered the autographed version from Tower and it wasn't the dual disk! How long is the "making of" video?

Only heard it once, but I was pretty much disappointed in it. Way more mellower than their other stuff (by the way, I though "Spend The Night" was their best.)

I don't mean to be a threadcrapper, but aren't the Donnas a little too lo-fi to really show off this format? I'm not very familiar with them, but aren't they pretty much 3 chord guitar, drum, and bass hard rock/punk?

Not that there's a thing in the world wrong with that kind of music, but when I think of something that will show off DVD Audio, I think of something with a lot of different things going on. Something like Dream Theater or Radiohead or some remixed Pink Floyd would be ideal to show off the possibilities of 5.1 surround. After all, when people show off their home theater audio, they always put in a big flashy action/sci-fi movie.

If the top of the disc has content like the bottom, how will this play in car cd players? Will the car scratch the top when sliding in?

Thanks for the info. I assumed it had high-res stereo and muti-channel tracks.

Speaking as a huge Donnas fan, this album isn't the best. The higher production values have diluted their fun factor, and none of the choruses are able to take off like they were intended.

And yes, the last track cuts off. Maybe that's for the best.

I think the vocals were mixed a little too loud on about half the disk (thus diminishing the guitars).

nope, Coconuts mgr

So they pulled them at Coconuts, but it sounds like Best Buy and FYE have not. At least FYE had them out during the lunch hour Tuesday.

I tried it in my car stereo and nary a scratch... but it might depend on the player.

It's almost 16 mins long. The girls seemed to have fun making the video and it's nice little segment. Each Donna gets to talk about the video and the new release.

Jason...their earlier releases were more three chord punk/pop/rock but with "Get Skintight", there were more hints of metal guitar solos. Their sound became a little more metal/pop/polished on "Turn 21" and "Spend the Night".

"Gold Medal" is quite polished but is still good, solid rock and roll. I agree that the guitars should be louder on this release. Allison is a good guitarist and should be featured more. That said, I really love the ditty "Gold Medal"...very catchy.

I purchased the regular release that contains the video.