Sound Without Frontiers

Here comes the format flood in Gabriel’s back catalogue. Everything has been re-released on SACD and somehow it seems a bit silly. They have announced the Remaster Edition in Japanese mini-CD sleeves, in the standard Jewel cases and as vinyl editions. What was released in the end were the jewel cases, limited edition CDs in a cardboard sleeve which reminds one of the Genesis mini-LP series. Vinyl never turned up, but one could also shell out lots of money and import the complete series as beautiful digipaks from the U.S. So there’s a whole lot of stuff to collect.

As we all know Peter is always in the front row when it’s about the adoption of new technologies. There was therefore no need to worry that the remastered CD would be such a rush job like the Genesis Remaster Edition. No, Gabriel’s CDs were consistently well-done and every one of them provided audio enjoyment. But why weren’t Secret World Live and the 2CD version of Plays Live left out? The latter release, of course, was available in Japan – more dough. There is, however, an even bigger problem with the Plays Live double CD. Fans agree that no remastering had taken place at all for these discs. A pity. Oh, and there were no remastered versions of the German albums. A pity, too.

Back to the music. The huge jump in quality between the original versions and the remastered CDs is just so obvious. The first four albums in particular impress with stronger bass and more brilliant trebles. The remastered Passion increases the listening enjoyment, but the biggest surprise of all surely is Us. This album had been produced merely eleven years ago with the help of modern technology, but this improvement in quality is immense. Come Talk To Me sounds much fresher and the dynamics in Peter’s voice come out stronger, an observation also to be made on the first four albums. Thank you!

But then there was yet another format, the SACD stereo hybrid. All the remaster CDs were re-released using high-resolution DSD (Direct Stream Digital) as Super Audio CDs (SACD). Another format and one may become angry at the deluge of different release forms.

At least now we have Gabriels’s albums in their definitive form. Every CD has been remixed in stereo making use of a larger frequency range than the usual 44100Hz of the standard CD. This, of course, works only on an SACD player. There’s more about the technological side of it in our SACD Special concerning the upcoming Genesis SACDs.

Is SACD stereo really that much better than the normal stereo of the Remaster Edition? The answer is a big Yes. You’ll notice the difference everytime the bass gets stronger or softer, everytime the higher notes reach new dynamics and the vocals become more insistent. All in all you are going to think that you have a superior recording. And you would be right.

The remaster edition of So was, as it were, unobtrusively better than the original version and the other CDs. With the SACD, the sound is really jumping out at you. The music comes alives, cymbals, bass, the vocals, everything is much clearer, much more immediate. If you turn the volume low, you will hear more than in normal stereo, and if you crank up the volume the music will still sound crisp. Even the third album, which had notoriously been recorded without any cymbals, sounds much better. Us marks another jump in quality. Listen to the trebles in Blood Of Eden, the density of sound in Come Talk To Me or Only Us, not to mention the whole new dimension to be discovered in the near-instrumentel Fourteen Black Paintings. Improvements can be found on almost every song on every album. Sometimes one has the feeling that it’s the first time one really listens to this song. If you go a little bit further, Passion turns out to be a pure fountain of sounds. The whole album offers so much more detail. We’d like to also mention the second album. The least difference is to be found on the fourth album, probably because of the way the original master tapes were recorded. Still, listen to the breathtaking songs of Biko and Here Comes the Flood.

Peter’s SACD series is a release that just leaves everything else from the Genesis camp standing. Plus, the format is growing from novelty of standard status. SACD hybrids cost around 18 Euros [approx. US$17; the translator] whereas one had the pay up to 28 Euros [approx. US$26; translator] before. Amazon is probably the best address pricewise at the moment.

If you are thinking about acquiring the stereo SACD please consider that the improvement of its normal CD layer over the Remaster Edition is minimal. In fact, you’ll hardly notice it on most hi-fi decks. If, however, you do have a SACD system you will delight in the SACDs. It is only regrettable that none of the CDs from Peter’s back catalogue were produced in SACD multichannel 5.1 surround sound.

If you’d like to know how Peter Gabriel’s new masterpiece UP sounds in multichannel surround sound, you might want to go here. We recommend that you hear it for yourself, though.

Autor: Christian Gerhardts
Translation by Martin Klinkhardt