HiRez Poll Gabriel, Peter - UP [SACD]

a niner cause some songs depress the shit out of me ..and other I find too disturbing...saw him in Barcelona on this tour "front row"

I finally won a "Like New" copy of this disc on eBay! (Paid the most amount of money I've ever paid on a surround disc, though)
Rating will follow soon!

Up sounds hot

very intelligently done arrangement of surround mix. nothing just for sake to impress listener
but at same time placement around the listener very natural, harmonical and really impressive.
sux that he doesn't did same for all his other albums.

As this is the only Peter Gabriel 5.1 mix of a studio album that I know of, as I'm lucky enough to own a copy and given that I absolutely love the album I really, really wanted to mark this higher than the 6 I gave it, but I'm afraid the mix just isn't up there with the best. The good points are that it's not heavily compressed and has a great dynamic range, but it lacks clarity and sparkle. The surround placement is very good on some tracks but is patchy. My biggest problem with it though is that it goes too far in an attempt to sound edgy and in places sounds "crunchy" instead; dare I say digital noise? Such a shame as PG's entire catalogue really should be released with a decent quality surround mix.

Oh well, will have to make do with the largely excellent DTS 5.1 on Play: The Videos which sounds considerably better than this SACD.

I thought I had better come back to this review after giving it a listen on my upgraded system (new player and amp) and finding that it's considerably better than the six I gave it. I think the issue is this; sonically this is a *very* challenging SACD that is *really* going to push and punish any system, exposing any weaknesses in the process. The bass is incredibly deep and resonant (would be more at home an a dub album) the edgy sounds have loads of high frequencies and the dynamic range is incredibly, err, dynamic! Overall it's very heavily produced; some would say over-produced. I'm easily happy to replace my six with an eight, maybe even a nine and I can only imagine that this must sound incredible on a very high end system.

one of the few Hi-Rez surround discs I'd wanted for years that really disappointed me when I finally got it.

almost all of the other more sought after rock/pop SACDs (Texas Careful What You.., Matt Bianco, Frankie GTH, Sea Change, Avalon, etc..) which consistently fetch more money than is sane.. are worthy of their status (if not their inflated price tags!)

this one's overbright, overloud.. and goes over my head! I can't abide the music, neither the performances nor the material.. for me its the worst thing of his I've heard.. yet his older/better solo stuff was given the stereo-only SACD treatment. sigh...

a "5".

I got to love the "standard" CD version before I got the SACD so I enjoy the material, but the surround mix was a huge disappointment to me on my old system. It's interesting (to me, at least) that he's pitched the mix/production at very high end systems with little or no regard to how bad it may sound across the board. Ends up being self-limiting in appeal and I wonder if this is a factor in why no more of his catalogue has been "surrounded" when, clearly, III, IV and So would(should) be stunning in 5.1

I love this SACD, it's one of my favourites. It's definitely challenging, but there's still a very melodic pop sensibility holding the whole thing together.

The last 3 or 4 minutes of the song 'Sky Blue' are absolute demo material, the singing of the Blind Boys Of Alabama makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up almost every time I hear it.

Neil Palfreyman said:

I got to love the "standard" CD version before I got the SACD so I enjoy the material, but the surround mix was a huge disappointment to me on my old system. It's interesting (to me, at least) that he's pitched the mix/production at very high end systems with little or no regard to how bad it may sound across the board. Ends up being self-limiting in appeal and I wonder if this is a factor in why no more of his catalogue has been "surrounded" when, clearly, III, IV and So would(should) be stunning in 5.1

Click to expand...

is the CD compressed/too loud as well? I haven't played the CD or stereo SACD layers of the disc (yet).

for me, this sacds especially awful in this regard, i cant play it anywhere near the volume levels most decent M/C SACDs/DVDAs etc can be cranked to, its just nastily overloud.. and some of the synth & percussion effects (I think that's what some of these swishy sounds are?) are particularly ear-splittingly horrible.. and I have to say my main systems fairly laid back and likes to be cranked with most M/C music. Ordinarily I can jack my music up and it just sounds better and better until the point its more than loud enough for me/my hearing/my house/my neighbours (!) but this one.. ouch.. no way.

Ok, fair enough if thats your impression that its been mixed for high-end systems.. but I'm not being funny, I'm wondering how high-end I need to go before I can fully appreciate this..? Maybe my system(*) is just not upto the job.

* = roughly £3,5k of components just for SACD/DVDA playback.. £1,100 Yammy AVR, £500 CA (Oppo BDP-93 clone) Universal blu-ray player, £600 AE centre speaker, £500 AE front L&R (I got over 10 years ago.. still rocking my socks off!) and my dear old REL sub (it just keeps on going.. was approx £400 well over 10 years ago now.. it's a real little beaut.).. so i guess we're talking similar price points for my old workhorse speakers nowadays, maybe bit more for the REL & AE's now if i were to replace them, which i'm not in a hurry to do as all were/are award-winning bits of kit.. and i love 'em..

..so "if it ain't broke, why fix it" for a Peter Gabriel CD I don't like the music of.. and "is my SACD setup too low-end to resolve this PG disc?".. is I guess what I'm trying to long-windedly say!?

Sorry I've got a filthy cold, which is driving me bonkers.. I'm not good at being sick.. so my thought processes are even more hazy and all over the shop than usual..!! :ugham:

steelydave said:

I love this SACD, it's one of my favourites. It's definitely challenging, but there's still a very melodic pop sensibility holding the whole thing together.

The last 3 or 4 minutes of the song 'Sky Blue' are absolute demo material, the singing of the Blind Boys Of Alabama makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up almost every time I hear it.

Click to expand...

I think I need to..

1.) Give this another shot and see if the music grows on me (when I'm feeling less grumpy..! although I wasn't feeling ill when I gave it a spin when I first got it!),
2.) Play the CD & Stereo SACD layers and see if they're as bright and overblown as this M/C mix is to me/on my system.

Neil Palfreyman said:

The bass is incredibly deep and resonant (would be more at home an a dub album) the edgy sounds have loads of high frequencies and the dynamic range is incredibly, err, dynamic!

Click to expand...

So, you play it with the volume knob turned all the way up?

I dusted this one off yesterday having bought it when first released, and I had not played it since upgrading my system a couple of years ago. Huge dynamics is the first thing to come to mind, then after being pretty well used to the stereo version of this pretty somber (over all) disc, I was amazed how the 5.1 mix breathed new life into the music. I agree with other posters who want to hear the back catalog get this treatment, Security (PG4) would be a great jumping off point, and I'd like to hear PG2 remixed and given the 5.1 treatment as well.

I'm giving UP a solid 9, it's just really hard to listen to this disc all the way through. I must be getting old. The mix really wore me down!! But when I stopped it and resumed where I left off (Barry Williams Show), that helped me stay focused and attentive to the extreme amount of music that is contained on every track.

The sound on this is - for my ears - somehow "distant". I think this is delibarately. The music can be a bit depressing (I really like "Sky Blue" and "I Grieve", though). The surround mix is good. I gave it a 7.

First couple of listens I thought wow this is pretty lame. But then I turned up the volume and it really came to life. There is so much instrumentation going on in the background relative to the vocals that it needs to be played at a decent level to hear everything that is being played. I really enjoyed it on my third listen.

Absolutely love this album. I find it significantly more interesting than his previous work (which I also love, don't get me wrong...). He's an artist that has always pushed boundaries and done the unexpected, while somehow keeping one toe in the mainstream.

I purchased this SACD on Discogs for around $55 at Near Mint. And I would've paid double that. So good.

A previous poster commented that you don't hear nearly as much in the stereo mix - and it is absolutely true. The surround mix brings out much of the buried sounds and instruments used in the recordings. Sounds that caused the 2.0 mix to be abrasive are released into recesses of your room and allowed to breath - or slap you behind your left ear.

Darkness is a fine example. A bombastic mess in stereo becomes fearsome in surround. While Growing Up sounded great in stereo, it's truly fantastic in surround - very thumpy, and the various samples/sound effects are bouncing around the channels. The slower, morose tunes like I Grieve or Sky Blue are more tame and beautiful. All in all, great balance between bass tones and mids (which are muddied in the stereo mix much of the time).

This is a must-have for Gabriel fans. Rated a 9.

It's a whole new album in surround, and a better one.


But this album always seems a sad affair to me (apart from the dark quality of many tracks). PG took so much time between US and UP -- ten years! -- that he became culturally irrelevant in the meantime. When UP was finally released, hardly anyone cared.

I paid CDN$20.99 for this back in the day at Best Buy - I really like the surround mix and wish he'd do So and Us like this, because I'm nowhere near as fond of the songs on Up, but for that price given the current value I'd consider this a must own just for the 5.1 mix of I Grieve. My two Paradigm Servo 15s (an "a" and a "v2") just love this track and it's super deep, controlled subsonics in the final couple minutes of the album. It's definitely in my short list of demo 5.1 tracks, although I do find myself reaching for the volume control to turn it down just before the final few seconds of vocals as for some reason they sound harsh unlike any other moment in the track. I mean, I turn it down a good 8-10dBs just in time for that part.

I also enjoy The Barry Williams Show, No Way Out and Sky Blue.

9/10

Sky Blue makes the whole disc worthy

This one has grown on me steadily over the years; having owned it on CD for years before getting the SACD, I agree that some of the gloom was dispersed by the greater distinctness given to the individual elements by the 5.1 mix. The surround presentation seems pretty flawless to me, especially when I play it DSD direct over HDMI through my Integra amp. The 'direct' setting bypasses the Audessy (sp?) room correction so I'm just listening to it flat (and cranked), all is swell. Those of you having issues with ugly sounds, there are some on here but that's artistic license for you. Maybe back off on the EQ and play it flat if the deep bass and crunchy distorted bits are distressing your system.