Recommend some DVD-Audio titles for a newbie?
 

Hi, I recently got a sound card with DVD-A decoding and was wondering what the blow-you-away reference DVD-Audio titles were. In contrast, have you experienced any underwhelming, "why bother?" titles?

I have several DVD-A discs and the two best are:

The Flaming Lips: Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots 5.1 - a must if you own a dvd-a. It is by far the greatest dvd-a I have heard. Buy it now.

Beck: Sea Change - in my opinion his best album and it sound even better on dvd-a. It gets the most plays out of any of my discs.

Queen's mix of A Night At The Opera is outstanding and really made the album seem new to me. And this is one album I know backwards and forwards. The Game also sounds really good.

I like The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds but many people compained about the mix.

Others that I have that are good are Eagles: Hotel California, Fleetwood Mac: Rumours and Elvis Presley: 30 #1 Hits.

Every disc pales in comparison after listening to the Flaming Lips/Yoshimi. Trust me.

I have others but those are the best. I hate to say it but I love the format but hardly ever listen to DVD-A anymore.

Both of these are definate must buys. :thumbsup:

I have that, but I don't think I would recommend it if you already have the CD. The stereo mix is much better than the 5.1 IMHO. It does have a nice little documentary, but it's also available on the Pet Sounds Sessions boxed set.

The only other one I have is "Automatic for the People" by R.E.M. It's pretty good.

BTW, if you're going to use WinDVD 7 to listen to them, don't download the latest update. Because of someone figuring out how to save the DVD-A streams, in addition to patching it, they disabled DVD-Audio support.

I forgot to answer this question. I have never heard a DVD-A when listening to the Advanced Resolution track and thought it sounded bad or no different from the cd. They always sound good & better than the cd but some just don't really use the Advanced Resolution sound to its full capabilities. Some that fit that bill in my opinion are:

Stone Temple Pilots: Core
The Doors: L.A. Woman
Metallica: Metallica (aka The Black Album)
Disturbed: Believe
Steely Dan: Everything Must Go & Two Against Nature

Again, none of these sound bad by any means but they won't blow your mind (or at least they didn't blow mine).

A couple of others I forgot to mention that I have:
Beck: Guero is decent.
Linkin Park: Reanimation - it sounds incredible but I would rather have the real albums instead of remixes.
Donald Fagen: The Nightfly & Kamakiriad - both of these sound better than the Steely Dan releases for some odd reason.

Hope that helps. I only spend the money on DVD-As by artists that I really like (unless I find a steal & want to try it out). The only DVD-A I ever bought & ended up getting rid of was a Chicago disc (can't remember which one).

What I learned is no matter how good the music sounds, it you don't like to listen to it, it's not worth buying.

Joey Ramone's "Don't Worry About Me" is my personal favorite. Great songs, excellent sound, very accessible for a new listener and compelling for an old fan.

As others have mentioned, Flaming Lips is about as good as it gets, and more extras than you can shake a one-eyed snake at!

Tipper: Surrounded -Electronica/techno/chill-out with aggressive surround involvement. About half the songs are really good, but those alone are worth the purchase, videos included.

Buena Vista Social Club: Old school Latin/Cuban music with great accoustic/percussive surround involvement.

Dishwalla: Opaline- Great Alt/pop with incredibly subtle yet very effective surround ambience.

I think that is a great quote. I rarely listen to my Trey Anastasio disc, but I would not say it's not a good quality disc. I probably need to give it another listen. I'm just not a big fan.

Along with the obvious already mentioned Lips and Beck discs, I love my Grateful Dead American Beauty DVD-A, along w/ Workingman's Dead. Ripple will indeed send Ripples up your arm, if the Dead are your thing.

Porcupine Tree's In Absentia is a pretty heavy mix, if you like them. I have not heard the new one yet.

Medeski Martin & Wood's Invisible is great, and in DTS-ES. If you have a rear center, it is a true 6.1 discrete mix, and highly recommended.

does any have the Iron Maiden Dance of Death DVD-A ? is it defective in any way?

I have it and on my copy it has kind of a wierd defect on the surround portion. On all the tracks it switches to the next track a second or 2 early just before the song fades out and the end of the previous song starts up after the 2 second silent spots. It doesn't have this problem on the stereo portion.

I would reccomend Dishwalla's - Opaline, too. Great audio commentary track from the band, as well.

And, of course, Beck's - Sea Change.

The only other I'd add, that no one else has yet, is Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral. That one really gave my surround system a good workout.

I have and like:

Al Green - Greatest Hits
Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
Grateful Dead - American Beauty