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I had great hopes for this disc as it is one of my favorite recordings and never liked my Red Book version. It is little better than the Red Book. The recording seems opaque, lacking in richness and transparency. I have no idea of how it was recorded but Id bet is a fair amount of overdubbing was involved. It sure wasnt recorded live off the floor. It has been a long time since I played the Lp version but I played the hell out of that thing when it first came out and it sounded way better.
Follow Ups:
We have a nice magnet which is planet Earth.
We have the actual little bits of magnet on the master tape itself.
Over time these two forces help to re-align the bits of metal.
Degradation of the 'music' is both time dependent, and storage dependent.
Ideally the master tape would be encased in a lead housing, stored well below zero.
Opps!
Availability to be announced, for what seems like a year or more.
like the Dead Can Dance SACDs, they likely tune to old Krell & B&W & Sony.
The Simple Minds, Pixies, Velvet Underground, etc, all have recessed treble and lumber under the weight of their chocolate sauce.... But then classical heads would never want to hear a modern drum kit, & god forbid, a tambourine...
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
Also, I don't think the VU discs are a good example - they are redbooks,and the originals had no high end to begin with. I have original & Japanese vinyl on both, as well as the MoFi. The latter are only marginally better, because the source is compromised.
New Gold Dream was better balanced & more full range on the remastered redbook CD of 2004. The SACD sounds better because of the increased resolution of the instruments: but worse in another sense because Mobile Fidelity EQ'd in warmth.
The "banana" Velvet Underground had the same thing happen.
Both the vinyl & the redbook were better balanced across the sonic spectrum. But as you say, both original final mixes kind of sucked.
The Pixies were a different story. Surfer Rosa sounded pretty good on vinyl & redbook, but Mobile Fidelity messed up the SACD.
IMO, the Dead Can Dance SACDs illustrated MF getting it right with another band, on the same label, with the original final 2 channel mixes happening at around the same time.
Cheers
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
Do you have them? I've never come across any - only Virgin SACDs and DVD-As. Neither Discogs nor Popsike nor AllMusic report any SM MoFi releases, and there's nothing currently on eBay. If MoFi did release NGD, I'd like to find it (and get the info to Discogs).The unofficial SM website shows only Virgin hi-res, and reports that the SAs were sourced from the digital rebook remasters. Only the DVD-A of New Gold Dream was completely remixed for 5.1, and was released in conjunction with the DTS label, who licensed a bunch of EMI offerings.
Like I said, if it's out there, I'd like to find it, and any help would be appreciated.
Edits: 12/29/13
an old recording redone onto SACD that did much for me. When you really love the material it's nice to have a slightly better version but that's about it. My favorite SACD's recording-wise were all recent done to DSD which I'm sure surprises nobody.
ET
The Universal releases of the Who, Elton John, Steely Dan, and the ABKCO Rolling stuff were all pretty great IMO, and the Peter Gabriel stuff was pretty pucker as well.....
Cheers Awe!
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
Agreed, the better the original source recording was the better the SACD could be. Steely Dan's were always above average to very good. I had a few of those you mentioned. Happy happy, joy joy.
ET
SACD cannot make a poor recording sound better. It all ends and the quality of the recording as laid down in the studio in any format.
PJB
I was wondering why MoFi picked this one. Maybe my LP wasn't very good, but I was always less than thrilled with the sound.
Usually for the recordings they choose, if it isn't a fine master in the first place they'll put it out on a gold disc instead of SACD. I suspect that is due to the CD medium not being as revealing as that of the SACD.
LP does not mean good sound, it is only as good as they recorded it. Over 30 years I see about the same core recordings released over and over and they are not all released because they sound good, they are released because they feel they will get enough sales to make it worth their expense. 24 bit. SACD or 32 bit does not mean a good sounding recording and with them now eq'ing a lot of the releases in both digital and vinyl you are not hearing the way they were laid down in the studio, different yes better well that a individual thing. I heard the Mo-Fi release of Nat King Cole "After Midnight Sessions, and I was shocked how much of the sound had been lost of that 50's era. Could not listen to even on track the sound was so far off from how they intended it to sound. But then others may like it so to each his own.
PJB
it's Analogue Productions, remastered by Hoffman and Gray.MoFi is getting blamed here for a lot of things they didn't do. They've made some fine SACDs and records, and they've made some that are not so fine. End of the day, it's not the label, it's the condition of the tapes (both how they were originally recorded and how much they've degraded) and the mastering choices made by the engineers.
Which also points up "MoFi" (or AP, or Sony, or any label) does not remaster an album - an engineer does. Many of the current MoFi SACDs are done by Rob LoVerde. To my ears, his work on the Doobie Brothers and Band releases is fine - the former, especially, have an exceptional dynamic range and clarity. A few years back, their go-to guy was Shawn Britton, who was responsible for both the Pixies and the Dead Can Dance releases. Hoffman and Gray have done work for a number of labels. Some people swear by them, and some swear at them.
Edits: 12/28/13
Sales of the original recordings certainly play a major role in what gets reissued. But the other major factor is what can be licensed. There may be (and probably are) better sounding Chicago albums, but the label that owns them may either not allow them to be licensed or may be asking so much it become economically impossible to make even a slight profit.
Just my (adjusted for inflation) $2
John Crossett
___
It sounds like English, but I can't understand a word you're saying.
I thought Sony simply didnt do a good job of re-mastering the recording and Mo Fi would; not so.
of tape.....
The recording that leaves the recording studio is the final mix. It sounded one way on the 2 channel mix-down, reel-to-reel deck played through the speaker system in the recording studio. Then it was given to the manufacturing plant and MORE EQ was added, as well as compression, and noise gates and limiters, as well as the level setting. This is applied as the lathe is cutting the lacquers.
So a recording could very well have been improved from the recording studio to the mastering plant: this is just with vinyl.
Then, depending on WHAT "masters" or final mix-down tapes the people who built the DSD files from had, - they could have applied similar limiters, EQ, gates, etc. when the computer constructed the DSD computer files.
Likely, if Mobile Fidelity is using a certain playback system to listen to the new DSD mixes, they MAY decide to "warm it up."
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
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