doesn't seem like there's a thread. this was quite the fad in the dying days of vinyl. I only have three. the Fleetwood Mac 1975 S/T, found in a thrift store, a bit scratchy but sounds great especially on "Over My head". Seals & Crofts Summer Breeze LP, another dollar bin score, only listened to it once so far and have no regular version to compare to. and an Editions EG halfspeed pressing of King Crimson's Starless And Bible Black that sounds oh so good and has made me interested in this odd corner of the recording industry. Over at Perfect Sound forever, the vinyl Anachronist columns also mention Ghost In The Machine and Crime Of The Century as stereo test records of choice among high end addicts.
the recent spate of 220 gram virgin vinyl remasters seems to be a continuation of this aesthetic. any recommendations of specific releases from ILM-ers? Good stories? Seems like a lot of these records were pressed years after initial release, once the demand had been proven. This could be viewed as an initial foray by the major labels into the "make 'em buy it as many times as we can" strategy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Fidelity_Sound_Lab
― sleeve, Friday, 26 October 2007 05:36 (eighteen years ago)
I cannot believe MFSL pressed White Light/White Heat.
― sleeve, Friday, 26 October 2007 05:39 (eighteen years ago)
list of records released by Nautilus:
http://www.audioinvest.no/tt_vinyl/suprdisc/naut_rec.htm
― sleeve, Friday, 26 October 2007 05:42 (eighteen years ago)
more forum discussion:
http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/archive/index.php/t-13321.html
interview with half-speed master expert Stan Ricker:
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue1/ricker1.htm
― sleeve, Friday, 26 October 2007 14:45 (eighteen years ago)
Gino Vanelli "Brother To Brother" was the one we used to demo stereo equipment back in my retail days. I wasn't much on the music, but it *was* a great-sounding pressing.
― Dan Peterson, Friday, 26 October 2007 15:04 (eighteen years ago)
Oh man, to have a nice copy of that Mobile Fidelity Beatles box! Which ones were mono I wonder?
― Mark Rich@rdson, Saturday, 27 October 2007 03:06 (eighteen years ago)
actually Stan has some interesting things to say about that in the interview:
One of the things that interested me was that with some of the earlier Beatles’ tapes the voices singing were all on one channel, and the instruments were on the other channel. And it’s not what you’d truly call stereo. It was, in fact, two mono tracks which were originally designed to be combined into a mono release. But we found these things very interesting in their original form. So a discussion grew into, "Well, how do you think we ought to release these things? Should we be true to our format and say, we’re gonna release ‘em exactly as the tapes are, or we’re gonna release ‘em exactly like the original records were?" Well, we really didn’t want to release them exactly as the original records were. One of the very interesting reasons for that, among other things, was that the MoFi cutting system was dedicated, hard wired stereo. There was no mono switch on this thing at all. I’m sure I could have easily enough rigged up some wiring to make it mono, but we thought it would be really interesting to release the records as the tapes really existed. And we got into kind of a discussion. "Well, geez, you think we ought to call them up and ask them?" or something like this, you know.
The net result was we placed a phone call to George Martin to find out, "Well, sir, do you have any preferences, or do you care?" or whatever, you know. And the tone of his answer was that he seemed to be quite much burned out on Beatles stuff and really didn’t give a rat’s behind what we did with it. So we elected to cut it exactly as the tape format presented itself. And then later I heard that Mr. Martin bitched vigorously about "Why the hell did you release it that way?" And I believe my answer to it was, "Well, earlier I phoned you up and asked you and you, in your words, told me you didn’t give a shit what I did with the things." "So," I said, "It’s a little late now to complain about it." He agreed and so, rightly, it is. That was the end of that hassle.
― sleeve, Saturday, 27 October 2007 05:00 (eighteen years ago)
i have a half-speed master of switched-on bach that sounds pretty great
― 69, Saturday, 27 October 2007 05:13 (eighteen years ago)
Destroy XTC's Slylarking because it sounds the same as the Virgin one.
― Autumn Almanac, Saturday, 27 October 2007 10:58 (eighteen years ago)
i used to have the editions ed half-speed master of in the court of the krimson king, it sounded amazing. i stupidly sold it after I got the CD though.
― akm, Saturday, 27 October 2007 13:58 (eighteen years ago)
MFSL's pressing of R.E.M.'s Murmer requires the near entirety of my volume knob to bring it up to a sufficiently FULL listening level. Sounds great - but my system needs a few more watts to get the recording were it really needs to be.
My half-speed master of Jeff Beck's Blow By Blow is sweet, but i can't say my sound system is good enough to disern any many differences from the CD-version.
---I think you mean to say 200 gram vinyl - in which case, it's really hit and miss depending on the particulars. I can say, however, that GBV's Director's Cut of Bee Thousand and Cat Power's The Greatest, both sound incredibly sweet.
― christoff, Monday, 29 October 2007 13:59 (eighteen years ago)
I have some on 220 (Cortical Foundation label records), but they also press 200 and 180. Thanks for the info about the REM, I'll have to keep an eye out for that.
I just plowed through that Ricker interview for real last night after skimming it before. So much technical info for those who thrive on that stuff like me. Anyway, he cut all the MFSL records up until April 1983 so I think I will continue to look for those.
― sleeve, Monday, 29 October 2007 16:10 (eighteen years ago)