OK, long time Genesis fan here, so bear with me.
I got hooked on Genesis back in 1976, upon hearing their Trick of the Tail album. That moment, now more than 30 years ago, was a watershed in the evolution of my musical tastes. The sheer creativity and musicianship of these guys floored me. Even today, the music still holds its own against modern groups.
I’ve purchased every single Genesis album ever made, sometimes more than once (I wore out two copies of Trick of the tail on LP) and on every available format. So when they announced a 5.1 mix destined for high-rez formats a few years ago, I was super, super psyched.
Then the interminable delays started, as the DVD-A and SACD war was in full swing and company allegiances were pitted against each other to delay the delivery (EMI (UK) is SACD, Warner (US) is DVD-A). Anywhoo, here we are, finally able to procure these discs.
This is a very careful remastering job by their engineer, Nick Davis, in which each master track was carefully restored, then remixed for full, immersive multichannel playback.
You can read more about the remastering in this interview .
The first wave of discs is a 5 disc collection featuring:
The full set is available from this importer Music Direct, for the pretty steep price of $129. But I wasn’t going to let a few bucks get between me and this music in high-rez. Short of getting hold of the master tapes, this is going to be as good as it gets.
Or for more than twice the money, get these along with additional DVD content and booklets in this box set through Amazon
Listening to the ending minutes of Squonk on TotT (pure instrumental segment) brought tears to my eyes. This is one of my favorites, along with Ripples, on this album, both sounded like I’ve never heard them before. Even the remasters from the 90’s plus the upsampling I apply to the ripped media can’t even begin to compare to the clarity of these new SACD’s.
The bass notes in Ripples now are fully there, with ultra-low extension and appropriate levels (better have a good sub though, it will get a workout).
The instruments are much better balanced in Wind and Wuthering. This is a whole new experience of that great album, you will be floored.
The ability of the big center channel to correctly handle the onslaught of the SACD mix is impressive. Don’t know that this album would have quite the same impact otherwise.
This session reinforced why I built up the rig to this level, as I was able to listen to selected portions of these tracks at avg levels of 96db (peaks into >100db) with no, I mean no distortion. Tonal balance remained the same. Got to love ML’s ability to put out SPL’s when set up right.
The discs also include supplemental content on DVD’s. These are interesting interviews regarding the reissues, concert footage as well as 5.1 DTS / DD mixes of selected tracks.
Note that the CD/SACD’s are hybrid multi-layer affairs. So make sure you have a player that can deal with that. My Denon DVD2900 plays them perfectly.
If you are a Genesis fan, you probably already knew about these, but if you are a casual fan of good progressive rock, these are highly recommended for their content as well as their presentation.
If you do not have SACD playback capabilities, I understand Warner will be issuing these in the US as plain DVD-V’s with DTS versions of the multichannel. Should be good, but not reference quality.
More comments later as I listen / watch these some more.
I got hooked on Genesis back in 1976, upon hearing their Trick of the Tail album. That moment, now more than 30 years ago, was a watershed in the evolution of my musical tastes. The sheer creativity and musicianship of these guys floored me. Even today, the music still holds its own against modern groups.
I’ve purchased every single Genesis album ever made, sometimes more than once (I wore out two copies of Trick of the tail on LP) and on every available format. So when they announced a 5.1 mix destined for high-rez formats a few years ago, I was super, super psyched.
Then the interminable delays started, as the DVD-A and SACD war was in full swing and company allegiances were pitted against each other to delay the delivery (EMI (UK) is SACD, Warner (US) is DVD-A). Anywhoo, here we are, finally able to procure these discs.
This is a very careful remastering job by their engineer, Nick Davis, in which each master track was carefully restored, then remixed for full, immersive multichannel playback.
You can read more about the remastering in this interview .
The first wave of discs is a 5 disc collection featuring:
- A Trick Of The Tail (1976)
- Wind & Wuthering (1977)
- …And Then There Were Three…(1978)
- Duke (1980)
- Abacab (1981)
The full set is available from this importer Music Direct, for the pretty steep price of $129. But I wasn’t going to let a few bucks get between me and this music in high-rez. Short of getting hold of the master tapes, this is going to be as good as it gets.
Or for more than twice the money, get these along with additional DVD content and booklets in this box set through Amazon
Listening to the ending minutes of Squonk on TotT (pure instrumental segment) brought tears to my eyes. This is one of my favorites, along with Ripples, on this album, both sounded like I’ve never heard them before. Even the remasters from the 90’s plus the upsampling I apply to the ripped media can’t even begin to compare to the clarity of these new SACD’s.
The bass notes in Ripples now are fully there, with ultra-low extension and appropriate levels (better have a good sub though, it will get a workout).
The instruments are much better balanced in Wind and Wuthering. This is a whole new experience of that great album, you will be floored.
The ability of the big center channel to correctly handle the onslaught of the SACD mix is impressive. Don’t know that this album would have quite the same impact otherwise.
This session reinforced why I built up the rig to this level, as I was able to listen to selected portions of these tracks at avg levels of 96db (peaks into >100db) with no, I mean no distortion. Tonal balance remained the same. Got to love ML’s ability to put out SPL’s when set up right.
The discs also include supplemental content on DVD’s. These are interesting interviews regarding the reissues, concert footage as well as 5.1 DTS / DD mixes of selected tracks.
Note that the CD/SACD’s are hybrid multi-layer affairs. So make sure you have a player that can deal with that. My Denon DVD2900 plays them perfectly.
If you are a Genesis fan, you probably already knew about these, but if you are a casual fan of good progressive rock, these are highly recommended for their content as well as their presentation.
If you do not have SACD playback capabilities, I understand Warner will be issuing these in the US as plain DVD-V’s with DTS versions of the multichannel. Should be good, but not reference quality.
More comments later as I listen / watch these some more.
