Genesis in 5.1? - Page 30

I got a prerelease email from HMV in Japan for the individual discs.

Weird. Amazon has the three CD+DVD studio-album box sets on for ridiculously low prices. Clearing out old stock or just a pricing error (done three times)?

shinksma

typical...

I just got from AZN my copy of Live in Europe (it shipped later than the box) - slides right in... Seems, well, weird to get this set in bits and pieces.

Listening to the two live records, gotta say they fit well within expectations. Given the vagaries of live source material I'm not entirely convinced that an SACD upgrade would have yielded much more, but who's to say...

I would have liked 5.1 of the =full= Lamb concert from Archives 1, but, well, yeah...

Damn! And I have a SACD+NTSC DVD of "Calling All Stations" coming in from Hong Kong.

I placed an order for 2 of the boxsets (already have one of them as SACD+DVDs) and it was under $28.00 shipped. I suppose I will still get the SACDs though.

Just ordered the 83-98 set (I have the other two on SACD). Having compared the SACD to the DVD DTS 96/24 tracks, on my system, the difference is subtle enough to warrant the compromise at 14$ for the boxset.

uh, holy crap...

I didn't realize how low the price went!


Obviously a pricing error that they'll correct before shipping... But, ordered the three for the hell for a friend... At least I'll be able to bitch to them and get a gift certificate out of it...

I already have the 70-75 and 76-82 box sets (one as SACDs, one as DVDs), so I ordered the 83-98 box, which I had been reluctant to purchase as that is my least favorite Genesis era. But for that price, I finally snapped.

I had been monitoring it ever since it came out (via saving in my Cart), mostly toggling between $99.99 and $89.99 (IIRC), waiting for it to dip (even $70 might have made me bite). So seeing that extremely low price show up when I checked my Cart was a pleasant surprise (while also raising suspicions). If Amazon tries to back out, well, oh well.

If anyone I knew cared about MCH music and also liked prog rock and lived nearby, I'd pick the trio up as a gift/bribe, but that isn't the case.

shinksma

well, retail price has gone back up, so we'll see how long this lasts...

There might be more hope this time as the set has been out for a while and it was a small window of opportunity (much like the occasional deals on Blu-ray that last a few hours from which I've profited on occasion).

I held out on these boxes as long as I could, but for $13.99 I had to pick up the first two. Chronologically, that is; the Gabriel era and the "middle" era.

Amazon did not correct the pricing error before shipment! I ordered last Friday, and got them yesterday for $13.99 each.

So far, I've only listened to the Duke CD, but already I've noticed a number of instances where the compression removed much of the dynamics and subtlety. That beautiful harpsichord lick in "Heathaze" which is so quiet, almost a ghostly line, is now up front. The many instances where Tony plays the same thing on more than one keyboard but has one louder than the other, well now you get to hear them both at the same volume. The countermelodies that are supposed to be low in the mix are now up front. And so on.

On the one hand, it's great hearing a number of things I did not hear before. But the whole concept of some instruments being louder than others as an artistic decision seems lost here. Everything is pushed to ten.

I'm looking forward to checking out the 5.1 mixes, and especially the video extras, but I was primarily interested in the regular 2.0 CDs because that's what I listen to most of the time. If I'd paid $120 each for these boxes, I'd be disappointed, maybe even angry, but for $14 each, what the heck. A good deal for the extras, at least.

I just got an email from Amazon saying they were sending me the box set SOONER than their original estimate and no mention of changing the price.

ditto...

Have spun Duke three times altogether now, and have a few more observations.

I don't know how I missed this the first time, but tracks that are supposed to segue don't for me on the player I use most often, the one in my car. This is big minus. Instead of "Behind the Lines" flowing directly into "Duchess" and likewise into "Guide Vocal", there is a slight pause between tracks. This is on my car CD player, which otherwise has never had trouble reading anything from store-bought CDs to CD-Rs full of .mp3s. It may not do this on my home player, but I was really, really surprised that it did this in my car.

There are some parts that aren't pushed to 10. The descant vocal in "Man of our Times" ("and in the beating of your heart, there is another beating heart") actually seems a bit quieter than I remember. There were a few other things I noticed, but I can't think of them right now. But it was my chief complaint before, and I wanted to note that it's not universally true.

The sound itself is incredibly crisp and clear. "Duke's Travels" is amazing. It was really a treat cranking this one up. The Moog pedals in "Duchess" and elsewhere were thick and full, but clear, not muddy like on the original CD. "Man of Our Times", "Cul-De-Sac" and other rocking songs sounded great as well.

Overall, it is a sonic improvement. And since not everything is louder as I'd first thought -- there are numerous licks which were quite obviously not pushed to full volume -- what we really have is just a new mix and cleaned-up sound. A new mix is not automatically bad, and it's not automatically good; it's just different. After listening to it for a few days and letting my ears adjust a bit, I'd say I like the sound overall. Sadly, this disc won't get much play, though. The tracking issue is a dealbreaker.

dude, forget 2ch, and whip out the 5.1 already...

I received my 83-98 box today. So it seems Amazon really did mean it this time with the pricing. Weird.

No time to listen to it tonight, and not really in the mood for "poppy" Genesis right now anyway. Perhaps on the weekend...

But for folks like Orbert who are not happy with the compression/limiting/whatever of the 2-CH mixes: how do you feel about the MCH mix? Do you feel the same, or does the additional space make for a better result? This issue has been discussed ad nauseum previously, but I thought I'd see what the new "fresh" perspective had to say...

shinksma

Hopefully I'll get a chance this weekend to spin some of the 5.1 discs. During the week, I only get a few hours a day free time, after the kids are in bed. And that, unfortunately, is not a good time to give the 5.1's a proper audition.

Yeah, I know there were plenty of posts when they first came out, so I'm pretty late to the party. But I figured if I was going to post in this thread to say I'd picked up one or more of the boxes, I might as well give my impression of what I've heard.

Am I the only one or has anyone else noticed that there are a few "missing" guitar licks on Misunderstanding in the new versions? It is the only case where I find the new mix inferior to the original (though it is a relative thing--it's not like I skip the song because of it).

Don't get me wrong - I encourage you to post your thoughts. Some fresh perspective is always welcome. I've only listened to the MCH mixes of the first two eras so far, and didn't find it to be as severe as the impression I got from the previous discussions, which may have been centered around the 2-ch mixes, but maybe I'm just more tolerant of the compression artifacts.

shinksma

So I've listened to "Genesis" and "Invisible Touch" from the 83-98 box set tonight (tonight, tonight, ahh ohhh).

Maybe it's because they are 80's albums, but the DTS MCH mix doesn't seem overly compressed. Might be they were more compressed originally, or that I heard the songs so much way-back-when on FM radio (where some compression gets done by the station in transmission), and I think I only ever had them on vinyl, not CD (until now).

I did experience a few audio drop-outs while listening to Genesis (the DTS 96/24 tracks), using my Oppo 970 into an Onkyo 606 receiver bitstreamed via HDMI. I originally did not notice any of that on Invisible Touch, but I just replayed The Brazilian and got a drop-out (dunno why but I like that song the most from the album). I need to repeat with Genesis to see if it is a repeatable glitch, and if so, how to isolate it. The disks looks fine, visually.

If anyone has a hint or two, feel free to reply or PM, otherwise I won't pester this thread.

shinksma

My boxed set, according to Amazon, shipped earlier today at the low price. Just fyi.

Got it last night. Will tackle some MCH listening in the next couple of days. Looking forward to Home By the Sea/Second Home by the Sea in MCH.

Indeed, they are not specifically repeatable. I do have my TV on when experiencing this, but thanks for that tip.

In the Oppo BDP-83 Owner's thread, Bob Pariseau had an excellent description of why HDMI re-handshakes might be at the root of problems like these. So I need to check all my cabling and re-seat the connectors just in case. Might be as simple as that.

shinksma

Hello all,
A while ago I posted a reply on this thread regarding the quality of these Genesis live 5.1 mixes. I said they were horrible. Well allow me to eat my words and take back what I said. I swapped out my rear speaker cables (Monster basic copper cables ) with some. 10 gauge Blue Jean cables on my Paradigm studio 10s. Seconds Out and The Rainbow concert sound amazing! The imaging of the instruments is amazing! I have not listened to the rest of the CD's but wow great stuff! Can you imagine this kind of remix in 5.1 for a concert like Yes's 1974 Relayer Tour

heh, from the way he spends his time I'm not sure you wish to eat Russel Crowe, or Cameron Crowe for that matter... Still, "eating crow" (sans extra "e") is certainly a refreshingly honest contribution to AVS, glad for your second listen.... And, most importantly, that you've found enjoyment in your setup!

Spelling is not my strongest point!

Have been able to sample the non-SACD 83-98 box with a reasonable cross-section of tracks and I'm more than satisfied. Would it sound better on SACD? Judging from my comparisons of the DVDs and SACDs in the other two sets, I'd have to say yes, but not overwhelmingly so. Certainly not enough to pay ten to twenty times what I paid for the non-SACD box (14$). I don't regret getting the SACD sets for the other two as there was no way to anticipate such a fantastic price on the non-SACD sets when I bought the first two, but if I had not gotten any of them before the sale, I would be perfectly happy with the DVD set for all three. Moreover, I'd have happily "settled" for the non-SACD set for up to 75-80$ per box. The discrete MCH mixes matter a lot more to me than the extra audio quality (something I would not have said even 5 years ago--perhaps a sign of aging ears or a growing sense that wringing that extra smidgen of quality out of audio is no longer as important to me as it once was?).

Huge Genesis fan here...but I've only been able to enjoy the 5.1 sound by using my Sony CT-100 sound bar...Please PM me if you guys have any suggestions on what I should get for a real 5.1 system (I'm a novice in audio tech - budget under $1000)