Second Genesis 2007 remasters (1983-1998 box): A Visible Touch

Sounds good. I'm really looking forward to the set - it should be with me within the next few days. I'll only listen to the 5.1 versions.

 

Hi Achim, Do you mean "painful" because of the high end boost (and/or mids suck out) or for some other reason? Have you heard to SACD multi-channel mixes, how do you find these? Greetings, SolarWind

 

Painful to me means "loud", "shrill", "harsh" and "dynamics killed" or as you put it "high end boost" and "mids suck out".
The sonics are unacceptable there's no excuse for that (except for the bonus SACD as I already mentioned.)
It's not the remixes which I think are quite interesting but not necessarily important. Anyway, like most of you I have all the original mixes and I can listen to them if I want.
I don't have a multi-channel system so I can't comment on that.
Achim

 

I agree. Tried my fix for stereo mixes? It eases the pain to a certain degree....

 

To be fair I find the albums through Genesis AKA Shapes to at least be listenable even though my heart definitely lies with Trespass-Wind And Wuthering where Genesis is concerned. Since the DE series ended with Abacab I wouldn't mind picking up the new version of Shapes if it were an improvement over the original issue and the extras were worthwhile. However, IT is where Genesis and I part ways pretty decisively.

 

There ya go! That is why I am considering an EQ.

 

According to a follow-up post to the above linked thread:

Nick Davis:
its been fixed- if your copy is faulty you can get an exchange in the store- this wont effect america or japan.
the european ones will be correct soon

 

Why did you buy this set after complaining so much about the first set?

I have this new set and it is not painful. One must be careful when reading threads about the Genesis box sets. The naysayers, most of whom don't even own the set, are loud and very negative, using adjectives like painful and ear bleeding.

There are plenty of people like me who think these box sets are ok, not great but not horrible either.

These box sets are not perfect by any means but to totally trash the sound is not fair IMO.

 

I hate the word "painful" when used to describe music. Unless it's literally causing you physical pain as in a headache that you need to take asprin for or whatever, and you can actually directly correlate it to the music, painful is an absolutely ridiculous adjective to use and is reduced to just another in a long line of petty audiophile buzzwords.

 

They're worse in that they seem to stray *even farther* from the original releases.

What strikes me is that this stuff is all layered so differently from the original mixes that even though everything is there... it doesn't sound like the same songs in many aspects.

 

I'm not finding that. But each person has a different experience when they listen, so that's cool.

One thing that's interesting to me is that of all the 2007 catalog reissues, the Genesis projects have created some of the most controversy. Genesis, of all bands. Kinda cool and funny at the same time.

 

What I wanna know is: WHEN IS THE EARLY YEARS BOX SET'S GONNA BE ISSUED?? You'd THINK it would be the first one Rhino would put out! As it stands,they've decided to reissue these CD's LAST instead of FIRST! WHAT GIVES 'ERE,ANYWAYS? And,will they EVER get around to reissue the "Seconds Out" and "Genesis Live" Lp's on remastered CD's? Or will they wait until we Genesis fans get fed up,THEN reissue the blasted things? This is so FRUSTRATING ME! Michael Boyce

 

As a die-hard Genesis fan I will even buy the last box set with the Gabriel-stuff on it for collectors reasons alone.
As a customer who paid a lot of money for this I have the right to complain about it if I am not satisfied with the delivered quality.
And what does fair mean in this connection ?
Is it fair to deliver sound quality that is far below average ?
And if you've read my comments on this carefully you would have discovered that I throughout had positive words for the respective bonus discs.
I appreciate that you and most of your friends enjoy the box set(s).
I don't and after listening to the music I think I can share my experiences on this forum like all of you do.
Besides I didn't use offending words in my description. But since I was getting headache after listening to "Invisible touch" for example I found the term "painful" quite appropriate.
Achim

 

Would you allow the term "painful" for headache ?
Which I got after listening to "Invisible touch" with the volume much more down than I usually listen to music.
I'm sorry if I offended your personal taste in describing what you hear. I referred to the sound not to the music which is a difference in my opinion.

Achim

 

This is exactly my current view on this box set, too (having listened to it for a while now).
It is different, which is not a bad thing. The original CDs are good transfers and we have them already, it would be boring if this new set just contained the same old mixes in a different packaging.

I will have my box exchanged as soon as the correction becomes available.

I am kind of hoping that since they have to redo it anyway (the distributor said the whole box would be replaced, not just one faulty DVD, it'd be easier for them to handle) they might have listened to the fans and they might undo 3 dB digital peak limiting (at least on the SACD layers) and correct the shrill EQes on tracks like "Anything She Does", etc. This would be easy possible to do. According to Nick Davis US and Japan Boxes will yet be corrected too, so they might fix the digital limiting and EQes on them either. This would doubtlessly improve the set. Silly-silly me.... They just don't listen to us, do they?

 

See, that's the thing. The science behind lack of dynamic range causing a headache is well founded. That said, I have a hard time believing that those Genesis discs have so little dynamic range as to cause anyone a headache. I'm not calling you a liar but I'm just really having a hard time being sold on that. Compared to a lot of modern music, these aren't bad at all and have plenty of dynamic range. Yes, they're compressed and loud, but they just don't seem *that* bad. Maybe they are and I'm just not as sensitive to it, I don't know.

 

Not a chance, unfortunately. Besides, the fans on the Genesis forums love the remixed discs--lousy mastering and all.

 

Thanks for the info. At least I'm glad its the DD track. I will probably never listen to that one anyway.

Oh, the pain (sorry for using this world in this thread, folks!) of having to return the box set. I mail ordered mine and it was hard enough to get hold of one once again (I had problems finding the first SACD box as well). I won't bother returning it unless they find more faults with this set. I haven't had the time to listen to it all yet. So I don't know if there may be any more issues.

 

Which is where the problem lies. People are taking their love for Genesis' music to heart and take it as a personal affront when negative things are said about the discs.

I personally found Trick and Duke painful, where other discs I have are not.

 

That's interesting because they never seemed to be on that level. Iggy's remix of Raw Power I consider to be painful.

I guess some people must be more sensitive to it than others because I can honestly say that the Genesis discs have never bothered me at all.

 

Well, I am trying to use words like "personally" and "I feel" and " for me" because I don't want people to have a spaz attack. These were my feelings. I can throw on Jeff Beck's Blow By Blow SACD and blast the daylights out of it with no ill effect, so it's not like everything I play on my system is like that.

As I said, if you like em, play em, wish I could!

 

If those terms don't apply to these discs I'm not sure they should ever be used.

Maybe everyone's terminology has been ramped up a bit but the harsh sound of these remixes are far from pleasing. If they want to use the terms "painful" and "ear bleeding" I think they're completely appropriate.

 

Prolonged exposure to extreme compression makes my shoulders ache, regardless of volume.

 

I thought we could use some wavegraphs. Here is Tonight, Tonight, Tonight from the original US disc and the remaster/remix. Guess which one is which! Just got my NTSC box set today from Acoustic Sounds. Haven't had a chance to listen to the SACD layer (girlfriend is asleep - the hi-hats will wake the dead so I best not play them) but from a casual redbook listen it sounds like the s/t album wasn't remixed as insanely as Invisible Touch.

 

Can anyone here report on what is going on in the Genesis forums regarding this box set? I saw some thread titles like, "Did you do anything differently with the second box?" I would like to know the answer to that too.