Finding The Best Sounding Genesis (Part 1), Album By Album...

I will pick up the London disc if I run into it one fine day. If not I'm very happy with the vinyl.

 

Thanks for the info. Given that you have a very early pressing of the LP and the other discs match it, then yes, I think we can conclude that the DCC had its channels inverted, and is incorrect.

Maybe the Disky CD (which people have said matches the DCC but has inverted channels) actually uses the old London mastering?

 

As I suspected, something is wrong here. Your EAC values match those of my original Atlantic issue, but my Virgin/Charisma is totally different (which makes sense given that it is a completely different mastering from the one Zal did for Atlantic):

Live - Virgin/Charisma CLACD1 sonopress


Track 1
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\1\My Documents\My Music\Track01.wav

Peak level 93.4 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 0360AF27
Copy OK

Track 2
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\1\My Documents\My Music\Track02.wav

Peak level 94.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 82ADD4FA
Copy OK

Track 3
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\1\My Documents\My Music\Track03.wav

Peak level 85.5 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 95C5BA82
Copy OK

Track 4
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\1\My Documents\My Music\Track04.wav

Peak level 81.1 %
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC 8A93303B
Copy OK

Track 5
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\1\My Documents\My Music\Track05.wav

Peak level 93.3 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC A8AD06F6
Copy OK

 

How does channel inversion happen? How can it be that whoever is mastering it doesn't pick up on that? That's no knock against anyone, I'm just wondering. I think the original Atlantic CD of Duke has the same problem.

 

For what it's worth, I've compared the waveforms of at least eight CD reissues of FGTR (and one set of AAC files from the iTunes Store) other than the DCC. Two of them have the same phase characteristics as the DCC (the 2005 Edsel reissue, and the 2006 Revvolution, which appears to be an exact clone of the Edsel); the rest are the inverse.

I've found only three truly unique transfers: the London, the DCC, and everything else. That is, everything since at least 1992 (the Rock Machine) up until the present syncs perfectly with each other; only the EQ and indexing vary (and in the case of one Japanese reissue, compression has been applied). These 1992-and-later releases do not sync with either the London or the DCC.

I suspect it's just a coincidence that the Disky sounds identical to the DCC. It's more likely that the earlier CDs had little or no EQ tweaking and therefore sound similar to one another.

I hope all this makes some sense at least.

 

Someone mentioned that the Transluxe version of FGTR sounds fantastic. Does anyone else have that one?

 

That was me, and yeah mine sounds awesome. It was on sale in the US in the mid 90s.

 

Oh, oh, now what is going on? Time to re-cap Live:

LesPaul666 in post #618 (http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showpost.php?p=2805710&postcount=618) listed his Sanyo copy as:
100% - 100% - 91.3% - 86.5% - 99.7%

Then in post #619 (http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showpost.php?p=2805861&postcount=619), I listed my UK copy as:
96.7% - 100.0% - 95.4% - 100.0% - 100.0%

In post #623 (http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showpost.php?p=2806478&postcount=623), Raf pointed to this post (http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showpost.php?p=2552633&postcount=284) by Dr. Merkwürdigli in which he listed the levels for his copies as:

Sonopress = 96.7% - 100.0% - 95.4% - 100.0% - 100.0%
Nimbus = 82.8% - 88.9% - 100.0% - 94.2% - 94.4%

And in post #699 (http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showpost.php?p=2891434&postcount=699), chiagerald claimed both his Dutch V/C and US Atlantic copies had levels of:
82.8% - 88.9% - 100.0% - 94.2% - 94.4%

Now Jeff seems to have an alternative Sonopress version with levels of:
93.4% - 94.0% - 85.5% - 81.1% - 93.3%

So, we have four sets of EAC levels already, and do we know for sure what the levels of the US Atlantic really are?

 

Yep. I confirmed this a couple of posts up.

 

I sure would like to get to the bottom of whether the DCC has inverted channels or not.

Given the fact that the London CD matches up with an early vinyl pressing, it would seem likely to be correct, but then again, maybe Steve got it right.

 

Oops! Indeed you did, Jeff.

So, this means the UK Nimbus = US Atlantic? If so, this still leaves us with four versions, two of which we know of as 'Sonopress'.

1. UK Nimbus = US Atlantic
2. Sanyo Japan
3. Sonopress 1 = my UK V/C (no pressing plant info)
4. Sonopress 2 (Jeff's)

 

I think waveform comparisons are called for here....

 

I'll bet that the Sanyo Japan and Jeff's Sonopress will cancel out. Call it a hunch. (And also because everything except track 2 on Jeff's Sonopress is consistently 0.6 dB quieter than the Sanyo.)

 

I doubt it.

I speculated that this info was incorrect. People make mistakes; run the same disc twice, open the wrong text file, etc. etc. etc.

I would rate this as more likely than Virgin/Charisma adopting Zal's mastering at some point.

 

But you said that chiagerald's numbers matched your Atlantic. Those are the same numbers as for the Nimbus.

 

Sorry, I guess I'm lost.

Do we have another confirmed source of the EAC values for the Nimbus from a second person?

 

Dr. Merkwürdigli and I both have the Nimbus, and we've both confirmed those values. I don't think you need more reliable sources than that.

 

I'll try this again.....

Am I correct in surmising that there are no pre-remastered versions of The Lamb that a) contain all of the title track, and b) do not have the low-level hum??

 

I never knew anything about the edited title track, but I believe the DE Remaster was the first one to night have the hum.

 

Indeed.

Well, that is bizarre.

 

A: I have never heard of any version of the Lamb having an edited version of the title track.

B: No.

Matt, note that the DE of the Lamb is no-noised so heavily that the hum may have been removed via that process, as opposed to having found different source tapes.

 

Thanks OJR and Jeff for the responses. Jeff, good point--you may be right about the no-noise taking away the hum.

Regarding the title track, let me explain what I mean by "edited". On the LP, the title track started "cold" (but quietly) and faded in. On every CD version I have ever heard (V/C, Atco, DE) the piano intro just fades in..it does not start cold. Check with your LPs and see what I mean.

--Matt

 

I found a WG target of the self-titled Genesis CD today. I have two US CDs (one with an "RE" prefix that is digitally identical to the non-RE CD) and the sound on target CD was much brighter (in a bad way) and had a very thinned out low end (in an even worse way) compared to the US CDs.

 

Avoid the DE Remaster. I was very disappointed when I first heard it.
No-noise sux.

 

I seem to remember an old post here that mentions the hum being on the LP too.

As for the intro of the title song, the DE has slightly more of it during the fade-in compared to the V/C or Atco. I mentioned it in this thread sometime back.

(Sorry I didn't reply to your questions sooner, but you seemed to be looking for definitive answers and, well, I just didn't know. )