ok.
You are one of the most experienced contributors on this site. You have an amazing system that most of us could only dream about having. Your considered opinion is what I am seeking, sans considerations of any previous postings (by you or those whom you respect).
thank you for the kind words.
MoFi have a long history of cutting vinyl and no one could argue that they don’t know how to make the very best-sounding pressings that the master tape is capable of, no?
Add to that recording at 45RPM, using the absolute best vinyl available and of course the “One Step” process, all designed to make the highest-quality pressings that anyone would be capable of producing.
So why does the original pressing sound so much better than the subsequent MoFi pressing?
here is my
2013 post about Rumours. the Rumours 45 was not a MFSL pressing.
but an original pressing is done when the tape is most alive, and also the motivation of the mastering engineer is the highest. they are pressed with the cleanest lacquers, the earliest stampers.
we do find cases where re-issues are remarkable, such as many of the original Classic Records early work, and many of the earliest series AP and Music Matters Blue Note 45's. but still the first pressings have the freshest and earliest master tapes which can be a head start. i give the people involved in those legendary projects much credit that they did achieve some great reissue results. sometimes on the level of the original pressings. sometimes just a bit different.
little things like whether the tapes used Dolby or 'Q' sound, and how was that handled in the re-issue. i think the recent Steely Dan 45's from Chad somewhat suffered from that, although 'Gaucho' was much better. but these were 40+ year old tapes.
MoFi use the finest ingredients and apply their best proven processing techniques. They should sound much better (and they think they should too, hence the higher price you pay for their premium product). The only difference I can find is that while the original pressings were mastered from an analogue master tape, MoFi masters theirs from a DSD file made from the master tape, a digital intermediary step.
Your thoughts?
i have all three major MFSL box sets, and all the MFSL original special UHQR's plus plenty of the original series MFSL pressings, and then the later series too. then also the latest, last 10 year pressings from the 'digital step' era. certainly the earlier MOFI pressings are closer as a group, than more recent one's. the more recent non digital step MOFI's are inconsistent. i don't have all of them.
the digital step really should be a stop sign. once lost the musical essence of the tape cannot be recovered. modern native digital recordings mostly turn out to make better pressings as a group than vintage tape sourced digital transfers then mastered to vinyl......to my ear. could be my lifetime musical reference for how it should sound. might be any number of reasons, but somehow the energy balance of those pressings seems more real.
