Prince And The Revolution – Purple Rain

The difference between this and the "Prince" mix is night and day. This is one of the best sounding records I've ever heard!!! Completely 3D analogue sound. Black silent vinyl after a clean. Purple Rain gave me shivers down my spine, it's like nothing you'll ever hear on a digital recording

Love the dynamics, big bass lines with perfect balance. 5*

Not much to say. The best way nowadays to listen to Purple Rain which is already a classic album.

With the amount of room on Blu Ray's would have been nice to add some extras.

It was 1984 and my friends and I were in Grade 12, getting ready to graduate from high school. Then this album came out! Prince rocked my world and our world - he wasn't like any of the 1980's hair bands, and he definitely was a leader. Thank you for the most excellent music, Prince.

I have an RCA Music Service pressing, however it appears to be pressed by Allied, not SRC.

Matrix / Runout (Side A runout): 1-25110-A-SH3 [Allied 'ɑ' logo] B-19421-SH3 SLM △6851 1-1 SM1-5 0-7 R-160175 A SH-SP
Matrix / Runout (Side B runout): 1-25110-B-SH8 [Allied 'ɑ' logo] B-19422-SH8 SLM △6851-X SP03 R-160175 B 1-4 SH-SP

The mastering and pressing is great, btw, despite being a club edition. Even with the groove wear on my copy, the dynamics shine through. It seems likely the same BG mastering. I'm thinking about picking up a cleaner copy of the SRC pressing (as that appears the only club pressing listed), but my existing copy is hard to let go.

One of my best sounding albums.
The drums & bass are amazing. Absolutely worth owning this pressing.

When I first put it in this Blu Ray would not play in 5.1 on my Sony UBP-X700 4k player, it would fold that mix down to stereo. Per a Steve Hoffman forum suggestion "Try changing your player from bitstream to PCM or vice versa (or from "auto" to PCM or vice versa)." This worked for me if others had the same issue. This has never happened on any of the dozen plus surround (Atmos and 5.1) mix DVDs and Blue Rays I own. This is similar to reported issues with the 2023 Diamonds and Pearls Blu Ray.

The Atmos surround mix here, like the D+P disc before it, pays no special attention to the original stereo mix at all, merely cuts it's own way through the album. The glue that held the stereo mix together is completely removed here, and put back together in it's own way - I'm pretty certain the man himself would have hated how this sounds overall. Tracks like Let's Go Crazy and When Doves Cry amplify the vocals and the guitar, and leave the keyboards behind.

It's true in all of these tracks that you will definitely hear things you've never heard of before. Tracks that benefit the most I feel are The Beautiful Ones and I Would Die 4 You, where you can hear the piano lines of the former really well, and the vocals sound great in the latter.

This is an interesting diversion on listening to a classic album - it in no-way sures or replaces the original stereo mix, that is still king. What this surround mix does is almost put you in the seat in the studio as you get to hear all the elements that are put into creating the album, and you have a first hand experience of a rough mix before making the album you've known for 40+ years.

Another welcome addition to the catalogue, while the Estate can't get it's act together to release anything from the Vault, I'll take these Audiophile Blu-Ray's of all the albums up to and including the Black Album.

Blu-Ray disc authoring people - please stop adding menu music to these, there really is no need for it