Alan Parsons in Nashville, TN Oct 27th, 2007
How This Day Actually Turned Out - page 3
Since I now had the opportunity to claim a QQ exclusive (to my knowledge) on an unheard 5.1 recording that I would not have expected even to exist, you bet I was going to hang out until I heard it! The Sony DVD player was now pushed aside ("it WAS outputting DTS 2 days ago...") and replaced by a Toshiba player somebody borrowed. They even took the video projector back to the mixing board so that they could check the on-screen menus to be sure it was set for DTS and not turned off or set to PCM. Gee, maybe these guys know what they're doing after all. I started to relax knowing this and chatted with another attendee at length about European music festivals not being so segmented as they are in the states. "Slayer and R.E.M. at the same show? No kidding..." Pretty soon it was 2pm and Alan Parsons was back from that very quick lunch.
?
It was with renewed enthusiasm (and secret knowledge) that I took my seat for the 2pm session that was actually going to start on time. If I'd known what was going to be the first thing out of AP's mouth I'd have never wasted my time on European music festivals:
"Hello and thanks for coming; by chance would anyone happen to have a DTS capable DVD player under their arm?"
My heart skipped at least a beat. It appears that technical difficulties were still dogging us. No one responded of course and I contemplated the 5 or 6 players at home that could've easily saved the day. But I live 45 minutes away. Now my head was spinning like the confused emoticon we use on QQ. This is a bloody train wreck for both Alan's now; do I just sit here and let it happen? I listened to a couple more questions but realized I wasn't even hearing them. It was now or never so I got up and worked my way to the back of the room where I see the fellow who said we could stay late and asked isn't there something that can be done and that they hadn't given up. He checked with another person and then the next SNAFU was revealed...
It seems that that while I was chatting about European festivals, they were discovering that the Toshiba loaner DVD player was boxed with the wrong remote and they never were able to get into the setup menu! This operation is now officially a clusterf*&k and my chances of hearing something rare and special were in jeopardy again. Here's where it takes an unexpected detour. The Sony DVD player is back up on the mixing desk but it's sitting on something; a formerly rack-mounted black Millennium 246 decoder (!) that was ripped out of a room somewhere. Okay, the Toshiba is out of the picture (I did ask if there was a TV or monitor in the building to see if I could persuade it to work for DTS, but no dice) so now the Sony is back up as a transport only. Let's make it work...
So if we're feeding the Sony's coax digital output to the Millennium digital in and the analog outs are connected to the snake feeding the board, why are the Sony analog outs feeding the Millennium analog ins??? Suddenly, my mind is racing back to the 2 units I used to own and how the rules of Pass-thru worked on these units (not to mention the DIP switch positions). By this time the older studio guy (40's) is plugging and un-plugging the cables to see if the snake is bad. I attempt conversation and get that 'don't get in my way' look. I offer that I used to own one and was watching for the DTS lock light on the front, while I held both units in place from sliding around. When the DTS light locked, I felt better immediately. But then he wasn't getting anything at the mixing board.
By now I've been standing back there for 20 minutes and only hearing a few of the questions. I can't seem to make this guy understand that it isn't necessary to have the analogs from the Sony DVD to the DTS decoder if he was using the coax. Did he think that he HAD to have the analogs hooked up? Wasn't he one of those techs that proclaimed that the Sony was NOT outputting decoded DTS? I'm trying to encourage the guy and not piss him off, which is a very difficult task under the circumstances. He works on it another 5-10 minutes and then abruptly leaves to take a seat against the back wall. Is this how it's going to end? Do I pursue the matter or give up?
Continue to page 4 to read the conclusion of this story