Every Breath You Take: Classics

The Police | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 11, 2005)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: A&M
• ASIN: B0006VXMDU
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (127 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,801 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #30 in Music > Alternative Rock > New Wave & Post-Punk > New Wave

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Love 'em or hate 'em, there was no denying that Sting and the boys released some great singles. The title track practically distills the essence of perfect pop, while "Roxanne," "Don't Stand So Close to Me," "De do do do, de da da da," and "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" helped define a generation. --Chris Nickson

Product Description

The Police, Every Breath You Take: The Classics

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Every little thing they did was magic., November 30, 2005

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H3@+h "Over 1500 reviews!" (thanks for the helpful review votes) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Every Breath You Take: Classics (Audio CD)

As is the point, this is a great collection for the casual fan. Basically this is just the old "Singles" album updated. The difference here is the inclusion of two versions of "Message In A Bottle" and "Don't Stand So Close To Me", neither of which I care about. I think any fan would much rather have two of many missing songs instead. A big plus to this collection is the remastering, and it's truly nice to hear. The biggest complaint would be that this is really just 12 songs, and again what we don't get. Truth be known, if I was getting my first or only Police disc, I'd get the "Greatest Hits" import. It has every track this does, plus "So Lonely", "Bed's Too Big Without You", "Synchronicity II", and "Tea In The Sahara". I guess it's just a matter of how big a Police fan you are.

82 of 92 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Here's the comparison of the DTS & SACD discs!!, April 1, 2003

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Elwood Conway "elwoodc" (Frankfort, KY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Every Breath You Take: The Classics (Audio CD)

NOBODY has written a comparison of these two multichannel releases, so let me be the first. I A/B'd the DTS 5.1 CD and this new SACD 5.1. I have two Pioneer DV-47Ai machines hooked up for this review and here is what I found: accoding to my SPL meter, the SACD is about 2-3db higher than the DTS CD. I can compensate for this via programming my Yamaha receiver to play the DTS version at the exact level. WHAT DID I FIND??? I will go out on a limb here, but the same surround mix was used on BOTH CDs. The edge goes to the SACD for better resolution of the cymbals and a very slightly more solid bass. A better way to describe it is that there is more air around the performers. The DTS feels a like the performers are closer together which sometimes gives the impression that Sting's solo vocals are clearer and steered a little more to the right of center stage on the earlier recorded tracks. However there is a presence on the SACD that is more immediate and less laid back. The DTS CD was one of the very best and would have been hard to beat under any circumstances. However eight years and more technology have produced an SACD that betters it ever so slightly. I guess my recommendation is for the SACD since it is a hybrid and has two additional tracks that were not available on the DTS version.

48 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great fidelity improvement, shame about the mix, November 16, 2001

By 

David Dennis "David Dennis" (San Mateo, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Every Breath You Take: Classics (DTS Surround Sound CD) (Audio CD)

Well, after getting my copy of this album in the mail today, I just spent the afternoon comparing the original CD with this DTS album.

On the good side...

The fidelity of sound achieved by moving to the higher 24bit/48-96KHz that DTS provides, compared to the 16bit/44.1KHz that CD is limited to, is remarkable (although, as an aside, the notes say that this album was first mixed in 20bits, making me wondering if a) it was left at that resolution or b) it was 'upsampled' to 24bits for DTS. I'd bet on the latter).

The net result is much more analog sounding that the previous album, and when I say 'analog', I'm referring to the kind of source fidelity one usually only gets with a mega-kilobuck turntable coupled with an equally expensive cartridge and tone-arm (the kind of system I don't own, but have been lucky enough to hear). While the older CD was hardly the worst CD out there, it definitely suffered from 'digitis', notable in particular when Sting would hit high falsetto notes. One need only compare the high-pitched wails in 'Roxanne' to hear the difference. On the original CD, Sting's voice voice would exhibit a strange brittleness that would quickly cause listening fatigue, unless listened to very softly.

In comparison, the new DTS sounds much more natural. While the Sting's voice, at times, still screeches just as high as it should, gone are the nasty high-frequency artifacts that make the old album such a (literal) pain to listen to.

At the same time, the dynamic range has been expanded. Whether this is due to the lowered noise floor, as the increased number of bits would allow, or simply more skillful mastering, is hard to know. What is apparent is that the album sounds much less compressed, with the leading edges of drum attacks, in particular, sounding much more impactful.

Along with the increased dynamics comes an increased sense of volume and space, as if more of the acoustic clues and ambient air noise of the original recording studios had been captured. While welcome and pleasant, this is particularly puzzling as it is almost certain that these songs were almost certainly not recorded using a purist miking method (such as two stereo cardioids), but instead multi-miked and multi-tracked.

Which leads us into the mix. On the positive side, the LFE channel is well-blended and balanced, allowing for judicious subwoofer use, unlike some other DTS albums. Bass frequencies, for the most part, come out well-balanced. Sting's bass, especially on 'Every Breath You Take' and 'Wrapped Around Your Finger' is tight, rhythmic, and distinct, with no icky bass boost emphasis added.

Now, on the negative side...

I use a set of fully-matched speakers in my 5.1 setup. All of the speakers are timbrally matched, and have been calibrated to within +/- 1 dB of each other at the listening position using pink noise and SPL A-weighted measurements. When a 5.1 recording is well mixed (and there are very few of these), the speakers effectively disappear. Unfortunately for the current state of 5.1 sound (I imagine the engineers are still learning), this rarely happens. In contrast, the 'disappearing speaker effect' happens very reliably and consistently on even halfway decent 2-channel recordings.

Imaging is one area where the original CD is definitely superior. For all the harshness of the original CD, it is definitely superior to the 5.1 recording when it comes to making the speakers disappear and create an image of the musicians floating in space.

Ironically, considering it has more channels, the 5.1 recording sounds spatially flat when compared to the 2 channel CD. The exception to this is when the rear channels are used for some gimmicky effects, in which case it doesn't sound spatially flat, but just weird. I became so bothered by this at one point that I disabled my rear speakers and just listened to the 3 front channels. However, even using a front only setup (LCR + subwoofer), the 5.1 recording has less of a sense of space than the original CD. Not even once, using the DTS version, did I have the illusion that the musicians were singing invisibly from a point in space somewhere behind the plane of my speakers.

So, in summary, I give the quality of sound on the new DTS disc 5 stars. It is definitely much smoother, more natural sounding, dynamic, and listenable than the original album. On the other hand, I give the 5.1 mix itself 3 stars, averaging out to 4 stars.

The album is definitely worth buying, but until recording engineers learn how to mix 5.1 channels in a way that provides superior imaging, I wish they would include a DTS 2-channel track on the disc, as some multichannel SACD discs are beginning to do.