Ahhhh... Do you realise those are digital pressings? To make it much worse they are digital from primitive times.
With the Mofi is a difficult matter, I am personally very happy with most and it is a company I have little hesitation to buy from but I have some of the Beatles albums and I can see some of their pressings aren't all what would expect. I don't think however the half speed process is to blame for the Mofis that don't sound as good but I would blame in some cases the tapes used and choices made by the people involved at the time of mastering. Yes I know the tapes are supposedly the original but obviously they weren't because some albums were done with the Capitol tapes which obviously are not the originals. It's the same with all the nonsensical claims with many new records.
That should explain why the high frequencies are limited and the mastersound records in general don't sound quite right.
Yes, I understand all of that and again my dislike of the process is that almost all I have heard (not just MoFi) have capped highs, so I question if that is a byproduct of the process. And I do like some of them for when I'm in the mood for a different interpretation of an album. But, this thread is about the best press of a Queen album, so I shall not continue with the 1/2 speed discussions.
Yes, its a mastering choice. The tapes were all original that I know of except for Submarine. Fremer used to state that it wasnt original tapes but that seemed wrong by him. But in any case the mastering makes a bigger difference than if half speed was used, so you can never truly pin point half speed as the cause for a bad sound. Likewise you cant say its the cause for it sounding good either.
Read the reviews. Basically these pressings have been compared to all past ones and the one steps have, for the most part, come out the clear sonic winners. I don't care the reasons, I only know what my ears tell me.
I have the Santana, hard to say what benefit the one step contributed, the speed at which it was cut at, and the mastering, are what set it apart, very faithful to the 'ol KC press as well.
What is your source for this info? I have an ABB of Brothers and no 1/2 speed is mentioned, but a call to MoFi and the person just sated that all are regardless of the cover notes. Oops, contributing to the off topic am I.
Your ears dont tell you what it is thats improving the sound. But if you dont care to be too critical about it then I recommend Better Records by Tom Port.
Who cares as long as it's improved?? I don't care if they danced over the tapes in purple dresses. It's better! Lol
O.K., I finally did it. I asked on the Q & A section for Bridge Over Troubled Water if they still use 1/2 speed mastering. This is the answer: "With advances in mastering technology, MFSL utilizes a proprietary technology known as GAIN2 that replaces the former half-speed legacy process that MoFi became synonymous with. Details here: mofi.com/Articles.asp?ID=254 As to how their One-Step technology is employed, it's best defined this way from MoFI Distribution's Norbert Schmied: "The difference in the UltraDisc 1-Step process (to current plating, and pressing processes used throughout the record industry) is that we still cut directly to a lacquer from the master tape, and then that lacquer gets electroplated, which we pull off and call a convert. And that’s what we use to press directly on our vinyl. That becomes our stamper, so we remove three processes/layers from traditional stamper duplication (of creating a father, and then a mother, and then a stamper off the mother). The problem with that stamper is, if it gets damaged (which is a natural effect from pressing LPs) the only way we can press more is if we have another lacquer. Because once you’ve got a lacquer and you’ve created it, and electroplated it, it’s done. That’s it, it’s over." That's a long way to say, "No, we don't need to anymore.". But now we know.
But your link states that it is still used with the Gain 2. Perhaps it's not used on the one step only? First and foremost, we only utilize first generation original master recordings as source material for our releases. We then play back master tapes at half speed enabling the GAIN 2 Ultra Analog™ system to fully extract the master's sonic information.
Sure, it's nice to know how they go about getting such great sound. What's with the recommendation to Better Records???
Well, the One steps DO NOT state anywhere "half speed mastered," so I'm going to assume that those are not. In fact, I'll have to check current verbiage on non one step, as I only recall that it states "Original Master Recording."
Well in case you choose to believe that the 1 step process somehow greatly increases fidelity then Tom Ports business should be extremely valuable to you since he seeks out to find the most early copies of each stamper. Hot pressings as he calls them are cleaned and tested against other copies to find the sonically superior one, thus reasoned to be earlier. Here you go: Better Records: Hot Stamper LPs -- 100% Guaranteed Great Sound.
The biggest issue is the opposite of the that...capturing the bottom end when everything is at half the frequency.
I was under the impression MFSL hasn’t done half-speed mastering for quite some time. I know the one marketing blurb on Gain 2 says it’s part of the process, but I suspect that’s an error. Regardless, the current iteration of MFSL has completely different vinyl mastering philosophy than the 80s iteration to my ears. And for the good.
He has neither said this nor is it even possible to determine what copies are the earliest from a stamper. He seeks out the best pressings. He doesn’t care about anything else (although that’s not to say certain labels, matrices, etc don’t help him narrow down his search). People take the “Hot Stampers” thing too literally.
I think it seems to be dependant on mastering engineer. Shawn Britton seems to cut half speed but i have noticed that Krieg Wunderlich cuts always at normal speed and i would say he cuts a significant share of the current MFSL vinyl output...