Mana-Suenos Liquidos (DVD-Audio) (1997) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Booklet Song Lyrics Gallery-Photo Music Video-Como un Lobo Discography Credits
Rating
Year Of Production	1997
Running Time	59:30
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Benny Faccone
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Maná
Case	DVD-Audio Jewel
RPI	$32.95	Music	Maná

    Although virtually unknown in this country, Mexican group Maná are considered to be big not only in their country but also in the United States. The music is upbeat Latin pop/rock with a high gloss rather than hard rock or mellow ballads, and the group rose to prominence by winning the award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal in the inaugural Latin Grammy Awards in 2000.

    The group's lead singer is Fher Gonzalez. He sounds a bit like a Latino Sting, but the music has a more reggae feel than jazz. Fher also plays rhythm guitar and the harmonica. Other musicians in the band include Alex Gonzalez (percussion and drums) Juan Calleros (bass and acoustic bass) and Sergio Vallin (electric and acoustic guitars). Supporting musicians include Randy Waldman on keyboards (remember him?).

    Sueños Liquidos was originally released on CD in 1997. If you are a fan of Latin music (like me), you will find this immensely enjoyable.

Video

    Like most of the Warner DVD-Audio discs released to date, the video content on this disc is in full frame NTSC. On the DVD Audio portion of the disc, as each track plays we can page through the track title, several photo stills and song lyrics. On the DVD Video portion, all we get is the track listing menus.

Audio

    There are two audio tracks on this disc: MLP 96/24 5.1 on the DVD-Audio portion of the disc and Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 Kb/s) on the DVD-Video portion of the disc. The back cover of the disc mentions that it can be played as "Advanced Resolution Stereo" but neglects to mention that this is done by the player down-mixing the multi-channel track. I was somewhat disappointed that Warner has chosen not to include a high resolution stereo track on this disc - so those of you who prefer listening to music in stereo be warned.

    I listened to both tracks in their entirety. I was not able to source a CD (stereo) version for comparison purposes.

     Make no mistake, this is a very loud and dynamic mix. Even with the volume control of my amplifier turned down to -22dB, the sound level is near deafening. My sound pressure meter was consistently reading in the high 80s for most of the tracks.

    Usually loud mixes tend to sound somewhat compressed, but the tracks feature a lot of strong transients. There is also lots of deep, pounding bass and oodles of high frequency energy.

    In terms of the soundstage, the surround mix can be best described as "extended stereo." Most of the music is carried by the front left and front right speakers. The centre speaker is mainly used to fill in the gap between the other two front speakers, and rear channels are mostly used to extend the soundstage. Vocals are always mixed to front speakers only.

    The subwoofer is used to support the low frequencies (of which there are plenty) in the music.

    The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track sounds quite similar to the MLP track, but perhaps slightly less bright and a bit harsher.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    All extras are in Spanish and also (mostly) duplicated across the DVD Audio and Video portions of the disc, although the menu arrangements are slightly different.

Menu

    The menus are full frame and static. On the DVD Audio portion of the disc, when you play each song you can also page through the lyrics as well as several accompanying photo stills.

Booklet

    This is one big sheet of paper (printed in colour on both sides) folded into 12 squares to fit into the case. It contains song lyrics and artwork as well as musician/production credits.

Music Video - Como un Lobo (5:19)

    This video is full frame and somewhat pixelated, and is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0. It features the band performing live, touring, and being mobbed by female fans. The audio track is recorded at a very low level.

Song Lyrics

    This is a set of stills containing the lyrics of each song in Spanish.

Gallery-Photo (DVD Video only)

    This is a set of stills containing various poses of the band and the album artwork. These stills are embedded as pages for each track in the DVD Audio portion of the disc.

Credits

    This is a set of nine stills listing musicians, production team, and a note of thanks.

Discography

    This is a set of nested menus containing names of albums and videos plus cover artwork and track listings for each album.

    This disc appears to be identically featured across all regions.

    Sueños Liquidos features Mexican Latin pop group superstars Manã. This album contains upbeat Latin pop/rock.

    The DVD Audio MLP 5.1 track is excellent, sounding loud and dynamic.

    The DVD Video Dolby Digital 5.1 track is also excellent, and sounds quite similar to the MLP track.

    Extras include discography, song lyrics, music video and booklet.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall