I’m still very interested in MoFi releases but on a case by case basis, AAA or otherwise. However I just picked up three Vinyl Me Please LPs including the Blonde On Blonde mono. All were AAA, flat, quiet vinyl, no seam splits, heavy jacket, yadda, yadda yadda…for the same price as a single One Step. I could have added a 4th disc and about equaled a $150 UHQR. I’m sitting there listening to these VMP albums and repeatedly thinking to myself, damn this sounds great. The Dylan BOB also includes a larger size booklet and a nice art print. MoFi may want to seriously consider upping their game in 2023.
Does anybody really believe that MoFi is jumping the shark with that Studer tape machine? That thing is so big it seems like they couldn’t get the elevation to clear the shark. And why wouldn’t they just use the transfers already available on the other side? Doesn’t pass the smell test for me…
I mean they put out SACDs sourced from the same DSD, it’s just got some mastering spice on it instead of being a flat DSD transfer
Yeah but I don't want to bother with importing SACDs or buying overpriced imports (50€ for a 30$ SACD). But I would purchase DSD files for their full price.
I would too. But wouldn’t they need to downsample them from their production masters’ resolution, like they do for the SACDs? I don’t think there are any commercial DACs available that would decode them operating at that high a bit rate. If there were or will be someday, their One-Step mastering process game is effectively over.
Does anyone really know their mastering chain for the SACDs? For vinyl, the DSD256 transfer is used as the input to an analog console (where EQ is applied), which outputs to the lathe. For SACDs, are they using the same (or an independent) analog console EQ, which is output to for a DSD capture? (no down-sample there, just an analog step) Or they master the SACDs independently in the digital domain? AFAIK, this has never been made clear. For all the questions about transparency, the SACDs are still a mystery.
Very interesting observation. And most likely correct since Norman remixed these again for the RSD and box set. Perhaps they removed the overdubs and used the Plangent Process for the speed and pitch corrections?? According to what I have read only Mr. Charlie from Europe 72 contains no overdubs.
I know for sure that they wiped the original vocals of the version of Jack Straw released on Europe '72, but beyond that, I may have misremembered the extent to which they erased the original vocal tracks. The more I've thought about it, I think I was conflating the overdubs for Skull & Roses and those for E'72. David Lemieux has said that they were unable to release a complete set of the shows that became Ladies & Gentlemen... the Grateful Dead because the lead vocals for a bunch of songs were wiped but never re-recorded when they were putting together Skull & Roses.
What we know is, that Mike Esposito said in one of his videos about his MoFi studio tour, that the SACDs are mastered in a different room than the vinyl, on a computer. This means, that the SACDs are not mastered on the analog console but in the digital domain. As you cannot EQ in 1-bit DSD, MoFi has to convert to a higher bit format that is or is similar to PCM for that. Then they have to convert to DSD 64 for producing the SACD. Even if they would do a flat transfer without EQing they would need to convert from DSD 256 to DSD 64.
They only printed so many due to the "rush" on Thriller (and maybe with nervousness over how many will sell) and they had to do a repress for some more copies.
In 2011, Rhino released a box set of the entire tour called Europe ’72: The Complete Recordings. No information was provided regarding which live tracks were supplanted by overdubs performed in the studio after the tour. Sometimes Jeff Norman, the audio engineer, used the studio-dubbed vocals; in other cases he recovered the original live vocals. Some of the differences are obvious, some are only apparent when comparing to circulating tapes, and others can’t reliably be sussed out. Unless Norman wants to tell what he knows, we may never be able to untangle all of the details, and I suspect he has been sworn to secrecy. Quoted from link here… Grateful Dead Guide: The Europe '72 Overdubs (Guest Post)