Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab has been cutting vinyl from digital since a long, long time ago...

Just re-press this record, for crying out loud!!!!

 

Please can you tell me the 8 One Step titles you don't like?

 

The following 8 are not the definitive versions
Some may sound decent but not the best versions of those releases
Over emphasized eq, forced detail, lack of air, hifi sheen, hot low end, lack of warmth ,etc
Each has their distinct sonic signature which doesn’t match up
Each of these were bested by originals, not even first pressings and labels like Analog Productions, Speakers Corner, etc.
Both 33 1/3 and 45 rpm


1 Steps that I find have sonic deficiencies

Evans - Sunday at the Village Vanguard
Evans - Portraits in Jazz
Fagen - The Nightfly
Gaye - What’s Going On
King - Tapestry
Simon and Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water
Eagles - One of These Nights
Yes - Fragile
Crosby Stills and Nash

Oops I can’t count - nine

1 Steps I have that I feel are the Definitive Versions of that release

Dylan - Blood On the Tracks
Eagles - S/T
Mingus - Ah Um
Monk - Monk’s Dream

YMMV

A 308 batting average
Not quite Rod Carew
But then again I pretty much stopped buying them well before the RSD Tulip Festival
CSN and Hotel California were holdouts because they did so well with Eagles S/T with the resolution of layered harmony voices, dynamics and warmth. Too Bad One of These Nights and CSN didn’t measure up. How do you make the mellow Eagles sound aggressive?

 

It’s always seemed true to me, even when records were cheaper, that comparing numerous multiple releases of the same music with sufficient thoroughness to declare, with honestly earned authority, which release out of many sounds best is very strange behavior.

Of course over more than a decade of hanging around here I’ve shamelessly benefited from listening to trusted voices who’ve done the weird work and saved me quite a lot of bother (and money) by recommending great versions. But personally I’ve barely dipped my toe into the obsessive repetitive labor of relentlessly doing shoot-outs and painstakingly exposing the relative “sonic deficiencies” and glories of competing versions. I’m still amazed that this behavior is routinely treated as normal in the forum.

 

I have two copies of Dark Side Of The Moon. UK LP from '83 or so, and the Immersion set. That's it. Might get the forthcoming live LP. Maybe.

I think there might be eight copies of The White Album in the house, with my wife kicking in three, but that's an outlier. Mostly, there are some beloved rock and jazz records that I have on LP & CD, but I try to avoid that.

"Records are like snowflakes, no two alike." Sorry, but I don't believe that, and if that's the conclusion one comes to as a result of owning a system that costs upwards of say, $20k, then I'm glad I'll never have the privilege.

 

8 copies of the White Album
Your wife kicking in 3

Seriously, you should marry that woman

 

Shootouts are not normal?

Man, this place is filled with weirdos

We would not have anything to talk about except the weather otherwise.

 

Well, I am guilty of this strange behavior. I do enjoy it.... but glad when I'm done and can go back to just listening.

 

It's become 'the elephant in my room' at times. As has 'collecting' to some extent. All to the detriment of listening to different music and artists I like...

 

My source at Mofi told me that all of the Pixies titles are all analog.

 

I have specifically asked him if this title was cut from digital files. He said it wasn’t…

 

Trust me…..trust me……right.

 

@spewey got this answer.

@Sex Lies And Master Tapes can update the list.

 

Updated !

 

Why do you think they did Bossanova to DSD 64 and the others were straight to lathe?

 

The only reason I end up with multiple copies of an album is if I really like the album enough to want to get a reissue or an earlier pressing or a different pressing in the attempt to get the best one I can find. It's not hard to do if you're over a certain age and have been collecting records for a while.

The strangest behavior I see is the obsessive tendency in some to buy literally every reissue of an album, or every album by a particular artist, when it seems certain that the persons in question are already convinced of the unimpeachable superiority of that very first UK pressings that they own, and by God no modern re-release is going to measure up.

 

This is really great, the list seemingly being completed by a host of different members here. Anything yet on Allman Brother S/T or Eat a Peach? The Dead's "Wake of the Flood" or Roy Orbison's Alltime Greatest Hits? We can assume the more recent and unspecified Dylans were from DSD256. Sea Change is also still unaccounted for.

 

I do this with some albums - it's part of the hobby to compare.

 

I agree...besides, how do you truly know unless you try it?

 

I understand that, but I couldn't stand to buy the same albums over and over IF I was convinced in principle that the original was the best. When I see people jumping on the latest reissue and then their comments are "This is the worst pressing of the album I have ever heard, typical modern mastering the OG is so much better", I always think, why bother? Why spend good money to be disappointed?

This may not be you though. I'm not saying all people who buy multiples are like that.

 

I see a LOT of people doing that with Beatles reissues. I don't buy any Beatles.

Also, I generally don't buy the reissues, especially not now when I know I have the best pressing of Bitches Brew. I'm more into the archaeology of older pressings. Seems more interesting.

 

How did the analog emperor's best sounding vinyl (from Mofi) suddenly start sounding bad after the analog emperor discovered that it was cut from digital?
Enlighten me please!

 

I haven't looked at this thread for a while. On the subject of shoot-outs, I was doing them extensively circa 2015 forward til say Covid. Some were based on multiple copies I already had-- crazy that I'd have ten different copies of RLJ's first album, but somehow, over the years, I'd just pick up more copies if I saw them on the cheap. Sometimes I had to buy copies to make it a more complete shoot-out, but unless it was a rare or collectible record, it did not cost that much.
And what I found sometimes, say with the "Pronounced Lynyrd Skynyrd" album was there would be some unremarkable label reissue (not third party) that would sound better than the OG or the MoFi. (Published this in 2015 not relying on sonic memory here).
I'm largely done doing that at this point since the stuff I'm chasing is hard enough to find, and often, there aren't many reissues, let alone ones of quality. And the price of some has gotten stupid. I don't view this stuff as collectible for its own sake. But unfortunately, I'm colliding with that market in what I buy.

 

Show me proof of that. Any post on this board from anyone who stated this. I'll wait.