Re: Genesis on SACD soon
I bought Abacab last Friday, and listened to the CD first via our stereo HT system consisting of vintage Pioneer CS-99A loudspeakers. These speakers have a very mellow/laid back personality. When playing back the CD of this album I bought back around 1995 I guess*, I can really crank these speakers to loud volumes because of the recording's basically-neutral sound.
But while playing the 2007 version of this album, it's like the speakers had been transformed into a pair of pseudo-Klipschs: not bad sounding mind you, but definitely a whole different animal.
And when played on my HT system with Boston Acoustic CR9s? At anything but conversational listening levels - ouch. Even on the $40 Altec-Lansings that are part of this computer's sound system this CD has an etched & bright quality.
The DTS96/24 surround mix sounds
less aggressive but still maintains the stereo mix's in-your-face quality.
So.....................
* Both mixes are pretty bright but I can handle that, as I do with many other of my albums that are recorded that way.
* The amount of compression used on these mixes isn't that bad either, since it (and I guess the new mixes) helps bring out details I've never really heard before which is nice.
---> But for this guy who likes to turn things up, these two qualities
together make for an unpleasant listening session at anything but "normal" listening levels. The resulting sound is much like listening to the music over the radio i.e. it has a rather tinny and dry quality that to me cheapens the listening experience.
(Surprising) sound comparison: my dvd-audio of Linkin Park's
Reanimation, an album with much more aggressive music and mastered by Bob Ludwig, is much smoother/more natural sounding than this album and thus is easy & great fun to listen to at immature levels.
So why music aimed at an older crowd was mastered the way this new Abacab album is is confusing, though I bet it was to make it sound better on sub-$500 5.1 sound systems and low bitrate MP3s listened to via cheap earbuds.
The surround mixes: the engineer did a good job of placing sounds in the rear channels when certain things were happening in the music i.e. good synchonization, but the end result was that most tracks were basically stereo......with occasional surround sound. Personally I like my surround mixes "on" all the time (unless that would interfere somehow with the intent of the music) so these mixes don't do anything for me.
Phil's voice came through rather prominently, with lots of detail but also with some harshness (and that "dry" effect). In the end I thought his vocal was too "up front" in the surround mix.
And sometimes the surround reverb effects sounded kind of like my receiver's "hall" DSP function (hint: I never use this particular soundfield choice because of its artificial feel).
And a major non-music irritant: to get this disc to play, I had to wait for the audio menu to appear then hit enter then wait for another menu to appear and choose another onscreen icon. Why oh why can't they author these dvd-video surround discs to
automatically play when inserted so I don't have to screw with my TV??
I wish I had spent my $18 on another album.
*
printed on the disc itself: ATLANTIC 82693-2
My general take is that a lot of people do like the multichannel mixes and mastering. But a lot of people also have problems with the 3 dB of compression used (admitted by Nick Davis who mixed them) on the MC mixes *and* the stereo mixes. For the people who have listen solely for the difference in the 2 ch mixes, I think most of them said the differences aren't that large. The compression used seems to affect the 2 ch mixes more than the MC mixes. Lots more excrutiating detail over there.
