Funny that you got back so quick, because I was just coming up here to say that your post made me realize that my matrix of this show has WAY too much AUD in it. It's easy to get carried away with adding the audience sources, since that's what matrixing is, in a sense. But the best matrixes (IMO) are relatively subtle in this respect. So I'm going to redo and reup my matrix of this show. Thanks for getting me thinking more critically about it!
------------------- ORIGINAL POST
To each his own: we all have different listening set-ups and different things we're looking for in a recording. That said, I want to urge people to take barreramusic's review for what it's worth -- and not more than that.
For one thing, I'm not sure what s/he has in mind in saying that the SBDs of this show are "crappy." Are all non-officially-remastered SBDs crappy, in her/his opinion? If not, then what's wrong with this one in particular? It strikes me that the straight SBDs of this show (
i.e., this one and the Samaritano) are both quite good.
The reviewer complains about the level of "noise" here. What sort of "noise"? I suspect -- though I could be wrong, obviously -- that the reviewer is referring to the amount of audience-noise in the mix. Personally, I don't think of this as 'noise' (in a pejorative sense) nor as a liability in any way. This is my guess because it seems to me that the PainoMan SBD is slightly 'flatter' and 'drier' than the Samaritano: that's the only reason I can see for the reviewer to prefer it. If there were less audience-noise, then the sound would be even more flat and more dry.
A final remark about matrixing this show: the reviewer claims that there is no need to matrix the show given the amount of audience noise in the SBD. I disagree. (Obviously, since I made one of the matrixes that are available for this show.) A matrix treatment gives the sound added depth: it is not intended merely to add crowd noise, but to 'deepen' and 'round out' the sound. It is true that this makes the band more 'recessed' than in a straight SBD; and certainly it makes the music more recessed than is typical of contemporary recordings (which are almost all 'brickwalled' to hell, with the result that the sound is plastered right up on the front of the speakers). I think listeners will find that although a *quick* comparison between my matrix and this SBD might lead you to prefer the SBD, lengthier comparisons would reveal that the matrix is overall a better (more immersive, less fatiguing) listen. You can really sink your ears into the matrix in a way you can't with this SBD -- and the matrix won't give you a headache if you crank it up!
But then I'm biased.