HiRez Poll Genesis - SELLING ENGLAND BY THE POUND [SACD/BDA]

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Rate the SACD/BDA of Genesis - SELLING ENGLAND BY THE POUND


  • Total voters
    90
I just discovered this album! I'd love to get this on Blu-ray Audio, but it currently seems kind of rare. Oh well.

The Russian/Chinese non Authenticated on fleabay are an option, or I could sell one of my extras of this title if interested. I usually try to be in the range of what Discogs has with shipping and condition similarly priced. I actually have a handful of discs I'm preparing to list anyways and would rather a QQ member get first dibs. PM me if your so inclined.......
 
Just got it! I received this late Friday night (yea I know it's now Saturday morning,) and I wanted to write a little about it on the same day of receiving it but you know how things go. I started listening to it about 20 minutes before midnight thinking I could get in a little bit of a sample here and there of every song. Wow I couldn't have been more wrong!

First the technical part of my system. I don't like firing up my plasma just to guide myself to the multichannel track, so I first popped the disc in and that started the stereo track. Without a visual guide; I then pressed the audio button on the remote...then I was listening to the DTS version (which as far as I could tell was still a stereo signal,) then I hit the audio button once again and BAM, full surround sound 5.1 audio!

I was really taken back on how good the audio is on this disc. Just the stereo version alone sounded like a modern recording, and when I finally got to the 5.1 audio; it opened up even more. I couldn't get over the fidelity of most of these tracks. There was only a little hint every now and then where there were certain instrument's fidelity sounded slightly dated, but that was very limited and didn't happen very often. It also seems to me that Genesis had access to a really high end recording studio that had the newest in audio equipment at that time.

Never having heard any of these songs before, it sounded like to me as if I've heard all of them in the past. This simply due to the fact that all the modern Genesis music I'm familiar with started with the first one I bought "Abacab" (1981) during 1983, and then buying"And Then There Were Three" (1978) (around 1984) and "Invisible Touch" (1986) during 1986...the influence of all their music sounds as if it was influenced by “Selling England by the Pound” (1973.) I heard a song that sounded like "Illegal Alien" (1983) from the self titled Genesis album (which I also have) and another song that actually sounded like Kansas, and I'm sure now Kansas had to be influenced by Genesis.

There seemed to be a lot of what's in the front right is also in the rear right and what's in the front left is also in the rear left, but that didn't seem to matter much since there is a heavy center channel for the voice (which also was coming out from the right and left fronts.) I only knew that because I had to get up and listen to the individual speakers to see if the vocal was planted dead center or spread out. I guess it really doesn't matter since most if not all of it seemed to come from the center anyway. And with the vocal spread out between all the front speakers; that probably helped give a sense of a bigger presence.

The only issue I have with my system is the couch in which I sit and listen. The back is kind of high (above my ears) and so that kind of blocks some of the audio coming from the rears (even though it's been professionally calibrated.) Sometimes I would get up and stand behind the couch to get a clearer idea of how the rears sounded, it gets louder, but less balanced. In a couple years or so; I'll be replacing that couch with something more appropriate for audio listening, but also has to be comfortable enough for movie watching (along with listening to surround/Atmos audio) and also be good for what ever little gaming I do. It's not cool to have this big plush leather couch trying to play a video game as I find myself having to force myself to sit up to A: Control the gamepad better and B: to get a better idea of how the surround audio sounds. I will say even with the way it is now, it's not real bad, but I do believe it could be better with a lower back and I could be sitting a more upright.

I know the rules here say to listen to the disc at least three times (if I remember that correctly) though I don't know when or how long that will take me. So without breaking the rules; I'll simply say the quality of the audio sounds like a modern recording (very high) and the mix sounds very well done; not to the artwork standard of Steven Wilson, but damn good on it's own.
 
However I will say (and I know that there might be some folks lining up with pitch forks outside my home after I say this) but there is one song on this album that I have always felt was substandard.... Which brings me to "The Battle of Epping Forest." The song has always felt very bloated to me. Too many lyrics, time signature changes not smooth, chord sequences that feel like they're trying too hard. It's the only Genesis tune that pre-dates "Me & Virgil" that didn't get into my iPod. Enough said.

Good thing you live on the 9th floor! I presume you dropped this to make room for, say, Summer 68, or even Hot Child In The City? "Right," said Fred.
 
Finally got around to a mood for some Genesis again.
This BR is an exact copy of the shitty tinny and hyped mastering the SACD and DVDV were subjected to. Avoid this if you already have one of those copies. It's the very same audio. (No worse if you don't have one of those though.)

As already reviewed:
Over the top excellent mix work!
Detail revealed in these recordings like never before.
All Steve Hackett's guitar solos and electric parts in general turned down or REALLY turned down throughout.
Appauling bright hyped treble eq in mastering. (The style usually found on CD editions.)
= about the most frustrating listening experience I've ever had! Extreme bi-polar love/hate
 
That simply could be the difference between the heaviness in the bass region my audio system offers (I'm using two subs) as that tends to distract from the highs a little bit, (if it's turned up a little bit too high) and how my ears are compared to yours. The fidelity seems very adequate for a recording made from 1973. I've listened to it a couple more times (from another room) just to get a bit more familiar with the tunes before critically listening to it again in the sweet spot.

This after all is not a Alan Parson's Art & Science of Sound Recording demo like Dark Side of the Moon. However, it does sound way less compressed than another likable Genesis album "...And Then There Were Three" which was recorded a full five years later...which by the way never makes sense to me. The newer the recording; the better the fidelity should be (if of course the best equipment possible was used at the time.)

"Dark Side of the Moon" was also released in 1973 and we all know how that sounds. If the sound room and recording equipment are the same, then you have to start looking at who was the sound engineer.


Finally got around to a mood for some Genesis again.
This BR is an exact copy of the shitty tinny and hyped mastering the SACD and DVDV were subjected to. Avoid this if you already have one of those copies. It's the very same audio. (No worse if you don't have one of those though.)
 
I suspect it was damaged at the mastering stage by a different hand than who mixed it. The mix work, again, is top notch through and through. The attention to detail and sonic framing of EVERY detail is right on point. Soundstage, use of surround, etc. Then we have an obvious treble slam here along with about 3 or 4db peak limiting and boosting. And the limit and boost are inconsistent between the different channels. This is NOT the work of the same person that mixed this! It just flat out can't be.

There's the fidelity of the original stereo mix as a guide for one thing. One might speculate that all their multitracks are damaged to explain this? That doesn't line up either. The sound is mostly still in the mix, actually. It's been limited but not "volume war" limited. The treble boost is unfortunate and gives the whole thing a tinny delivery. But it's more around a 6db boost than the typical 18db blast that CD editions get when this happens. I was able to bring the balance back on my personal copies of all these and preserve the mix work. I kind of obsessed over these a bit because I thought the mix work was so good and revealing. The tinny presentation puts them at lower fidelity than the original stereo mixes out of the box. Nothing in 1973 to blame for this!

The revisionist history with pulling the electric guitar out of the mixes is blasphemy to this fan. That's actually worse than the trebly move and makes for the most frustrating listen I've ever had with these remixes. That took some tinkering to bring those parts back up. I feel like the engineer left a trail of breadcrumbs for some of that though. What I hear here sounds like the guitar was in his mix originally but that was followed by a studio session with Tony where he was instructed to unceremoniously turn all kinds of parts down. You can find some of them isolated in the C channel or pull them out of one of the front channels with MS tricks.

At the end of my re-re-mastering, I have the overall fidelity of the original stereo mix back and the whole thing has the increased detail and fidelity of the new mix elements preserved. Steve Hackett is back in the mix well enough that I've stopped standing up and yelling WHAT?! every few minutes.

Yeah, same review as the DVDV or SACD because this is a carbon copy.
Same review as all these remixes on the mastering damage and Steve Hackett removal.
We knew this would be the same revisionist mix. There was hope that the BR edition might be free of the hyped mastering. Nope! Very same mix and master and everything.

PS. I listen to my systems strictly calibrated flat. I always want to hear the music as intentionally delivered. No sub boosts, no anything boosts. If I decide I want to tinker with someone else's work with remastering, I go into a DAW app and have at it. So it's all or nothing. I never 'hype' the system with tone controls or altering channel balances in surround. I'm more inclined to leave imperfect stuff alone, comment, and work on my own projects but like I said, I was a little obsessed with these. I guess I was impressed by some of the mix work and moved to try preserving it as more than an aside bonus track to never listen to again.
 
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We never hear what the control room heard, because we never know exactly what that was (unless we were there). All we can do is try not to color the sound coming off the disc with our loudspeakers or rooms. That works best if our loudspeakers are 'flat' (on and off axis, though off-axis is less a factor for surround than stereo) and the bass response at the listening seat is 'flat' (which it rarely is when left to chance). Otherwise some sort of EQ adjustment at the listening seat (achieved by whatever means, e.g. electronic -- DSP, tone controls -- or physical -- room treatment, moving the subwoofer(s)) can help.
 
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At the end of my re-re-mastering, I have the overall fidelity of the original stereo mix back and the whole thing has the increased detail and fidelity of the new mix elements preserved. Steve Hackett is back in the mix well enough that I've stopped standing up and yelling WHAT?! every few minutes.

Wow! I'll bet a lot of us would like to hear--and/or replicate--the results of your work, Jim.

Otherwise: some very enlightening discussion on this thread.
 
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I suspect it was damaged at the mastering stage by a different hand than who mixed it. The mix work, again, is top notch through and through. The attention to detail and sonic framing of EVERY detail is right on point. Soundstage, use of surround, etc. Then we have an obvious treble slam here along with about 3 or 4db peak limiting and boosting. And the limit and boost are inconsistent between the different channels. This is NOT the work of the same person that mixed this! It just flat out can't be.

There's the fidelity of the original stereo mix as a guide for one thing. One might speculate that all their multitracks are damaged to explain this? That doesn't line up either. The sound is mostly still in the mix, actually. It's been limited but not "volume war" limited. The treble boost is unfortunate and gives the whole thing a tinny delivery. But it's more around a 6db boost than the typical 18db blast that CD editions get when this happens. I was able to bring the balance back on my personal copies of all these and preserve the mix work. I kind of obsessed over these a bit because I thought the mix work was so good and revealing. The tinny presentation puts them at lower fidelity than the original stereo mixes out of the box. Nothing in 1973 to blame for this!

The revisionist history with pulling the electric guitar out of the mixes is blasphemy to this fan. That's actually worse than the trebly move and makes for the most frustrating listen I've ever had with these remixes. That took some tinkering to bring those parts back up. I feel like the engineer left a trail of breadcrumbs for some of that though. What I hear here sounds like the guitar was in his mix originally but that was followed by a studio session with Tony where he was instructed to unceremoniously turn all kinds of parts down. You can find some of them isolated in the C channel or pull them out of one of the front channels with MS tricks.

At the end of my re-re-mastering, I have the overall fidelity of the original stereo mix back and the whole thing has the increased detail and fidelity of the new mix elements preserved. Steve Hackett is back in the mix well enough that I've stopped standing up and yelling WHAT?! every few minutes.

Yeah, same review as the DVDV or SACD because this is a carbon copy.
Same review as all these remixes on the mastering damage and Steve Hackett removal.
We knew this would be the same revisionist mix. There was hope that the BR edition might be free of the hyped mastering. Nope! Very same mix and master and everything.

PS. I listen to my systems strictly calibrated flat. I always want to hear the music as intentionally delivered. No sub boosts, no anything boosts. If I decide I want to tinker with someone else's work with remastering, I go into a DAW app and have at it. So it's all or nothing. I never 'hype' the system with tone controls or altering channel balances in surround. I'm more inclined to leave imperfect stuff alone, comment, and work on my own projects but like I said, I was a little obsessed with these. I guess I was impressed by some of the mix work and moved to try preserving it as more than an aside bonus track to never listen to again.

Nope, it was completely the fault of the remix engineer. The massive compression was used in the remixing stage in this case, not the mastering stage. It's a travesty.
 
Well, I gave the SACD a 9, like I've rated Trespass, Nursery Cryme, and Foxtrot. I'm very happy with the 1970 - 1975 box. I wish all the classic '70s prog albums sounded this good in 5.1. It may not reach the heights of Wilson's mixes for Crimson, Tull, Yes, etc., but it's certainly good enough. I almost never rate these surround sound discs a 10, simply because that level of perfection is rarely attained in my estimation. But it seems most of the discs I rate here get a 9 because I only buy things which are supposed to sound great. I don't bother with product which has inferior ratings.
 
A "7" for me. I'm not a big enough fan of early Genesis to spend big bucks on the long out-of-print and expensive '70-75 box, but I enjoyed the recent Steve Hackett/Genesis Revisited live Blu-Ray enough to seek out the standalone HFPA Blu-Ray of this one (not cheap!). Sonics are a mixed bag for me: the acoustic intros to "More Fool Me" and "The Cinema Show" sound fantastic, but the more bombastic moments like the "Moonlit Knight" chorus and "Firth Of Fifth" guitar solo seem to have that unfortunate 'crowded' quality where it feels like there's no space for the music to breathe. Cymbals in particular get to be pretty fatiguing at higher volume. There didn't seem to be any lack of electric guitar presence on my system, but I did feel Gabriel's vocals were a bit too prominent at times.

The 5.1 mix, while perhaps more adventurous than what was done with the '83-98 material, is still pretty safe to my ears. Vocals are nicely centered upfront, while nearly everything else appears somewhere between the front & rear speakers instead of fully upfront or behind. I'm not advocating for everything to be hard-panned, but I would've liked to see elements like the percussion in "I Know What I Like" or backing vocals in "More Fool Me' mixed more forcefully to the back. The aforementioned Spectral Mornings & Selling England live Blu-Ray mixed by Steven Wilson is a far more engaging surround experience.
 
Can anyone post the minutes:seconds of an obvious example of a Steve Hackett part being buried in this mix?

@jimfisheye isn't coming up in a member search.

As with the previous studio 5.1 mixes, I'm just not detecting any revisionism.
I heard missing Hackett parts easily listening to Genesis Live, but on none of the studio albums.
 
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