Do Mobile Fidelity Vinyl Re-issues Have a Digital Step in the Process?

To which recordings does this refer?

I have no Idea, but there’s a link near the bottom of the email. But since it’s 2019 I’m not sure it works any longer.
 
I have no Idea, but there’s a link near the bottom of the email. But since it’s 2019 I’m not sure it works any longer.

Looks like Dylan’s Blood On The Tracks.
 
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Looks like Dylan’s Blood On The Tracks.

Glad you could make that out. I thought for sure the old link wouldn’t work, as MoFi is changing their website. :)
 
Glad you could make that out. I thought for sure the link wouldn’t work. :)

It didn’t work as is but I used my internet investigative skills to decipher it! :p
 
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I am the king ding golden ear and I detected it 10 years ago and have not purchased these digi-vinyl turd discs :D

Nice to know, but reading the post shows you detected sibilance and compared it to poor CD or digital. IMHO sibilance is not a characteristic of proper digital, on the contrary. It shows many times in analog.

BTW, as far as I could read UD1S 006 is Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks - I do not own such recording. M. Fremer reviewed it enthusiastically, but warned the readers about it:

"The acoustic guitars ring with far greater precision, again without transient overemphasis, though how it sounds on your system will depend upon its balance. The SACD played back on the big 4 chassis DCS Vivaldi currently under review, sounds mellower and more smoothly blended, which might appeal more to some, but the LP lays it all out so clearly you hear every pick strike and see each instrument in stark 3D relief occupying its own layered space."
 
Nice to know, but reading the post shows you detected sibilance and compared it to poor CD or digital. IMHO sibilance is not a characteristic of proper digital, on the contrary. It shows many times in analog.

BTW, as far as I could read UD1S 006 is Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks - I do not own such recording. M. Fremer reviewed it enthusiastically, but warned the readers about it:

"The acoustic guitars ring with far greater precision, again without transient overemphasis, though how it sounds on your system will depend upon its balance. The SACD played back on the big 4 chassis DCS Vivaldi currently under review, sounds mellower and more smoothly blended, which might appeal more to some, but the LP lays it all out so clearly you hear every pick strike and see each instrument in stark 3D relief occupying its own layered space."

You appear to be confusing what Mike B. said in post #777 with what A Bill stated prior to that post?
 
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You appear to be confusing what Mike B. said in post #777 with what A Bill stated prior to that post?

May be, I know posters mostly by the WBF nicks. I apologize to the involved people, the main idea stays. I will try to proper identify people and correct the names.
 
Nice to know, but reading the post shows you detected sibilance and compared it to poor CD or digital. IMHO sibilance is not a characteristic of proper digital, on the contrary. It shows many times in analog.

BTW, as far as I could read UD1S 006 is Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks - I do not own such recording. M. Fremer reviewed it enthusiastically, but warned the readers about it:

"The acoustic guitars ring with far greater precision, again without transient overemphasis, though how it sounds on your system will depend upon its balance. The SACD played back on the big 4 chassis DCS Vivaldi currently under review, sounds mellower and more smoothly blended, which might appeal more to some, but the LP lays it all out so clearly you hear every pick strike and see each instrument in stark 3D relief occupying its own layered space."

Boy when I read that paragraph from the review I would run away. It’s the exact opposite of enthusiasm from what I can tell. Whenever someone has to qualify the recording to that extent, it means trouble.

A great example of what to avoid if what you were looking for is a listening experience that approaches that of real music.
 
Boy when I read that paragraph from the review I would run away. It’s the exact opposite of enthusiasm from what I can tell. Whenever someone has to qualify the recording to that extent, it means trouble.

A great example of what to avoid if what you were looking for is a listening experience that approaches that of real music.

M. Fremer can't please everyone. I find it very informative - but I have a dCS Vivaldi ... ;)
 
M. Fremer can't please everyone. I find it very informative - but I have a dCS Vivaldi ... ;)

It is not about pleasing everyone. It is about describing what one hears. I agree that it is very informative. It just describes something very clearly that I would not like. A very hi-Fi presentation is how I interpret what he is describing. He manages to make both the SACD sound bland and unlike real music as well as the vinyl with the digital process, just in the opposite enhanced way.

If one likes his reviewing style and understands it, this is indeed a warning to stay away. It is indeed very informative. And he describes the Vivaldi in a way unlike I’ve heard it sound in a few systems.
 
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It is not about pleasing everyone. It is about describing what one hears. I agree that it is very informative. It just describes something very clearly that I would not like. A very hi-Fi presentation is how I interpret what he is describing. He manages to make both the SACD sound bland and unlike real music as well as the vinyl with the digital process, just in the opposite enhanced way.

If one likes his reviewing style and understands it, this is indeed a warning to stay away. It is indeed very informative. And he describes the Vivaldi in a way unlike I’ve heard it sound in a few systems.

Did you read the complete review?
 
This paragraph is interesting:

“Most importantly, Dylan's voice sounds utterly natural and convincing, though if your set-up isn't up to the task, the sibilants may go all smeary on you. Don't blame the mastering. Properly decoded it should sound as clean on this vinyl as on the SACD.”

I do not see the (TM) after “natural”. I also have a hard time following whether he’s talking about the digital vinyl or the digital SACD. How does one “properly decode“ a vinyl record?

The review did not encourage me to go out and buy the recording in either format. And I don’t know what this review has to do with the subject of this thread. It doesn’t really go into the digital step process or describe how the digital vinyl sounds different from the digital SACD. He does imply that it sounds different from the other vinyl re-issues, but not necessarily better.

I may withdraw my comment that the review is informative.
 
Even today no one has elaborated a complete list of MFSL tittles stating those who have a digital step by listening - the audiophile community is politely and lazily expecting MoFi to update the information on their site.
Not sure why that is lazy? I would have thought it was a fair expectation. Do you eat at restaurants where you need to guess at the dish and ingredients or do you lazily go to those who actually describe it?
 
You are far too trusting. How do you know they are quality SACDs? If MoFi deceived so many regarding AAA vinyl how do we know they are really doing what they claim to do on their SACDs?

Someone needs to do spectral analysis of all the mofi sacds to check for the presence of music content above 22kHz to confirm if they had really used real dsd captures of the studio mastertapes or they were merely upsampled pcm files provided by the original music label(s).

Remember: Archimago found that a lot of Sony sacd titles were derived from 44.1kHz/48kHz pcm sources.

And then what if these less than perfect "dsd" files were being used to make the 1step vinyl records...
 
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Interestingly Fremers review of Doug MacLeods "There's a Time" done by Reference Recordings which was digitially recorded is super positive in 2013, this is an excerpt near the end "P.S.: Yes, it's too bad Johnson didn't haul out for this project his incredible analog recorder, since blues and tape go together better than blues and the digits, but whatever he did to his digital rig and whatever Stubblebine did in the mastering will probably convince you both that high resolution digital and lacquer cutting produces a more than acceptable result and that Johnson's abilities to produce the sound of live music produced in a real space are undiminished by the digits." I don't own the vinyl but I can say that the Hi Rez digital played on a good system sounds as analogue as anything I have heard.

https://www.analogplanet.com/content/doug-macleod-can-sing-blues-can-classical-engineer-record-it

I had my eyes opened many years ago by Chad Kassem when I met him at a show in L.A. and I was raving to him about how good the vinyl release of Greg Browns "Poet Game" was that I had purchased from Acoustic Sounds and wondered if they had any more Greg Brown and Chad said "yes and incredibly there was no master tape available so it was mastered from the CD" ! I thought he was joking but he was serious. I soon discovered that there is more vinyl cut from digital masters than I could have ever imagined and digital does not equal evil.
 
Interestingly Fremers review of Doug MacLeods "There's a Time" done by Reference Recordings which was digitially recorded is super positive in 2013, this is an excerpt near the end "P.S.: Yes, it's too bad Johnson didn't haul out for this project his incredible analog recorder, since blues and tape go together better than blues and the digits, but whatever he did to his digital rig and whatever Stubblebine did in the mastering will probably convince you both that high resolution digital and lacquer cutting produces a more than acceptable result and that Johnson's abilities to produce the sound of live music produced in a real space are undiminished by the digits." I don't own the vinyl but I can say that the Hi Rez digital played on a good system sounds as analogue as anything I have heard.

https://www.analogplanet.com/content/doug-macleod-can-sing-blues-can-classical-engineer-record-it

I had my eyes opened many years ago by Chad Kassem when I met him at a show in L.A. and I was raving to him about how good the vinyl release of Greg Browns "Poet Game" was that I had purchased from Acoustic Sounds and wondered if they had any more Greg Brown and Chad said "yes and incredibly there was no master tape available so it was mastered from the CD" ! I thought he was joking but he was serious. I soon discovered that there is more vinyl cut from digital masters than I could have ever imagined and digital does not equal evil.
to my ears Reference Recordings recent vinyl efforts are disappointing. i prefer some of the high rez files to the vinyl. but here i suppose it might depend on how great your digital front end is. the RR vinyl versions are mostly ok. to me it's a mortal sin to choose a digital source in the cases where there happens to be a perfectly great native tape. and with RR's tapes, it's not a case of the tape not being pristine, just a choice to make it easy.....or maybe protect the tape.....but for what possible reason would you protect the tape if you are not using it to cut the record?

grrrr.:(

not everyone likes RR recordings......but personally i do enjoy them and many are references for years. so not optimizing the vinyl is a shame.
 
not everyone likes RR recordings......but personally i do enjoy them and many are references for years. so not optimizing the vinyl is a shame.
What is left for you to optimize Mike. Your vinyl has reached the end point...with a luxury to choose variation too. The way I see what you are doing is just out of curiosity.
 
Nice to know, but reading the post shows you detected sibilance and compared it to poor CD or digital. IMHO sibilance is not a characteristic of proper digital, on the contrary. It shows many times in analog.

BTW, as far as I could read UD1S 006 is Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks - I do not own such recording. M. Fremer reviewed it enthusiastically, but warned the readers about it:

"The acoustic guitars ring with far greater precision, again without transient overemphasis, though how it sounds on your system will depend upon its balance. The SACD played back on the big 4 chassis DCS Vivaldi currently under review, sounds mellower and more smoothly blended, which might appeal more to some, but the LP lays it all out so clearly you hear every pick strike and see each instrument in stark 3D relief occupying its own layered space."

Um you need to do a maths course again. You did 2+2 and made 5. The above statement was a JOKE!! That was not my quote in the email and I have said nothing of sibilance but thanks for your silly lecture hahaha.

Enjoy the day. Regards.

Mr Sense of Humour
 
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