MFSL

[Ralf11]

Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs, MFSL or MoFi, has remastered a number of significant recordings using such devices as the Gain System and a "high precision downconversion" from SAC to Redbook.

 

Yet, some MFSL CDs are said to not be as high a SQ as regular CD releases.  In one case the original tapes were unknown to MFSL, but there seem to be other examples of lower SQ.

 

I am curious as to which MFSL discs seem to you to be lower in SQ than the regular CDs and any info you have as to why that may have happened.

[diecaster]

I’ll take the West German Harvest release of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” over the MFSL gold CD every time. Why? The EQ choices made by Krieg Wunderlich, the mastering engineer at MFSL, were all wrong. Basically a smiley face EQ. 

 

By by the way, I own both masterings plus a couple more. 

[Ralf11]

Is that the 1985 'Harvest' release in W. Germany?

[diecaster]

18 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

Is that the 1985 'Harvest' release in W. Germany?

 

Yes. I am listening to it right now. It’s sublime!

[Ralf11]

okay!  I have both & will allow your comments to bias my listening enjoyment...

[diecaster]

I was using a little too much hyperbole when I said the MFSL mastering engineer’s “choices were all wrong”. Most people seem to like the WG Harvest release the best. I certainly do! But, you should go with the mastering that sounds best to you.

[Doak]

My experience with MoFi SACD releases has been off putting - many more misses than hits IMO. 

[Allan F]

On 1/30/2019 at 7:42 AM, Doak said:

My experience with MoFi SACD releases has been off putting - many more misses than hits IMO. 

 

From my experience, I can't say that there are "many more misses than hits", but I certainly agree that MFSL's releases are inconsistent in terms of SQ.

[Ralf11]

how about some specifics?

[CatManDo]

It's not a bad sounding disc, but I think the sound quality of the 2003 MFSL SACD of John Coltrane "Soultrane" has been surpassed by the 2014 Analogue Productions SACD.

 

MFSL seems to have boosted the upper treble and bass a bit. The AP SACD has a dryer sound with more pronounced midrange, which in my experience is closer to how those late 1950's Prestige recordings sound

 

https://www.hraudio.net/showmusic.php?title=901

https://www.hraudio.net/showmusic.php?title=993

 

On the other hand, the MFSL Bob Dylan SACDs sound more natural than the earlier Sony SACDs of the same title.

 

The MFSL Miles Davis SACD are also an improvement over the earlier Sony SACDs. Sometimes subtle, sometimes vast. I can add more specific info on those, if needed.

[Ralf11]

sure - more specifics would be great!

[semente]

On 1/30/2019 at 2:20 AM, Ralf11 said:

I am curious as to which MFSL discs seem to you to be lower in SQ than the regular CDs and any info you have as to why that may have happened.

 

Have you tried the Steve Hoffman forum?

[Digi&Analog Fan]

The Absolute Sound used to publish a 3 or 4 page Super Disc List of hundreds of the ultimate records and cds which have both the greatest music/performances and great sound. The ones with exceptionally natural sound got an asterisk designation. I looked at it one day to see which half speed master Lp's made the list. The only MFSL that I recall seeing that made the list was the album Slowhand by Eric Clapton. A few M& K Realtime lps made it: (For Duke & Fatha) direct discs. Some Sheffield too, but not much on there by what we think of as audiophile re-release labels. I have some of the MFSL discs. I have the Brubeck Mulligan, the MFSL LP destroys it for sound. Might be the best sounding MFSL LP I have heard. Robbie Robertson self titled is good on MFSL cd. I think maybe the best thing about Mobile Fidelity for me, is that before spending big bucks for their audiophile pressings, I often would try to find a regular version LP or CD cheap to see how much I like the music first, before spending big bucks. I have discovered much good music that way, thanks to them. Many of the titles they advertised, I probably would have never discovered the music otherwise. They choose mostly really good music to re-release. 

[John Dyson]

One thing that I noticed about MFSL of older recordings, and might be one reason for the sound being different than common releases:  Their recordings are often *properly* DolbyA decoded.  This is an important difference, and the expectations for the sound are very different.   For the normal consumer digital release, the highs are compressed, giving a springy sound to the highest frequencies and often 'sweeter' sound to vocal sibilance.  There are also other effects to the normal improper mastering -- the midrange is often quite woody sounding, and the lower bass is truly distorted.

On the other hand, properly decoded material will often have undesirable defects.  One such defect happens when the calibration is not done correctly when using a DolbyA -- in the worst case, it can cause expansion surges.  Almost always, a truly DolbyA decoded recording will have lost definition in the super highs -- also, there will be a 'fog' over the sound.  Vocal chorus will be indistinct.  In original, non-DolbyA recordings you can often hear voices more individually, but with DolbyA, they smear together.  Also, in some cases, esp with noisy older recordings, the sound can be 'grainy'.

There is one device that can do a TRUE noise reduction decode, better than a true DolbyA -- the DHNRDS DA, but other than that, the decision to decode or not, it is based upon which impairment is preferred.

MFSL seems to bias more in the direction of doing the canonically correct decode, and that CAN be hit-or miss, even when done very carefully.  IMO, a hybrid approach of partially decoding (e.g. disable the 9kHz to 20kHz band) might be helpful for the actualy listening quality.  It is easier to disable HF1 (9k-20+k) on an old A301 vs. the newer FET based single card per channel DolbyAs,

 

John

 

[Digi&Analog Fan]

There was an article I read a long time ago that claimed half speed mastering degraded the phase and timing of the recordings. It went into a big technical explanation. I only had one music title that I had both the regular LP and the half speed master LP. I played them both and sure enough, the regular LP pressing had noticeably better openness. Regardless of the audiophile LP sounding cleaner quieter, crisper and clearer. Most people think half speed mastering started happening in the late 1970s. I have lps that were half speed masteered from the late 1950s.  

[John Dyson]

16 minutes ago, Digi&Analog Fan said:

There was an article I read a long time ago that claimed half speed mastering degraded the phase and timing of the recordings. It went into a big technical explanation. I only had one music title that I had both the regular LP and the half speed master LP. I played them both and sure enough, the regular LP pressing had noticeably better openness. Regardless of the audiophile LP sounding cleaner quieter, crisper and clearer. Most people think half speed mastering started happening in the late 1970s. I have lps that were half speed masteered from the late 1950s.  

If you want truly perfect phase shift, you either need real-time direct to disk or Platanget (sp) time base corrected material.  Even the time base corrected material might not be properly DolbyA decoded, (might be FA), and if so -- the phase is especially screwy around 80Hz, and the DolbyA HW decoding has delays in it, therefore causing fog and loss of crisp HF transients.  But, the EQ used for FA also damages the phase.   Safest bet for pure recordings is direct to disk.

My DHNRDS DA/FA decoder is the cleanest possible (or nearly so) decoder that can process DolbyA material, but even properly decoded material with the true DolbyA HW is all scrambled because of the delays and limits to a straightforward HW compressor design (the compressors used for decoding and encoding in a weird way).

 

Bottom line -- totally 'pure' is hard to get.  Most pop is never going to be available to the consumer in the pure form.  Even MFSL decodes have some interesting things done to them.   I have an FA copy of the song 'That's the way that I heard it should be' from Carly Simon.  I noticed that I initiially  couldn't get the same sound as the MFSL version...  However, I could get almost exactly the same sound by disabling the hf1 (9k-20+k) processing on the decoder...  Even MFSL might be doing 'interesting' things to their recordings.   I can demo a fully decoded copy of the song, vs my hf1 disabled version vs. MFSL if you want -- the comparison is interesting.   My decode is more 'smooth/clean' sounding, but the MFSL version is more bright.  (Again, I can reproduce the MFSL version by disabling the hf1 processing.)  It is possible that even MFSL made a marketing choice by providing more of what was expected by even an audiophile instead of what was on the recording?

PS:  I do admire MFSL for apparently trying to do something closer to the 'right thing'.

 

 

John

 

[John Dyson]

3 hours ago, John Dyson said:

If you want truly perfect phase shift, you either need real-time direct to disk or Platanget (sp) time base corrected material.  Even the time base corrected material might not be properly DolbyA decoded, (might be FA), and if so -- the phase is especially screwy around 80Hz, and the DolbyA HW decoding has delays in it, therefore causing fog and loss of crisp HF transients.  But, the EQ used for FA also damages the phase.   Safest bet for pure recordings is direct to disk.

My DHNRDS DA/FA decoder is the cleanest possible (or nearly so) decoder that can process DolbyA material, but even properly decoded material with the true DolbyA HW is all scrambled because of the delays and limits to a straightforward HW compressor design (the compressors used for decoding and encoding in a weird way).

 

Bottom line -- totally 'pure' is hard to get.  Most pop is never going to be available to the consumer in the pure form.  Even MFSL decodes have some interesting things done to them.   I have an FA copy of the song 'That's the way that I heard it should be' from Carly Simon.  I noticed that I initiially  couldn't get the same sound as the MFSL version...  However, I could get almost exactly the same sound by disabling the hf1 (9k-20+k) processing on the decoder...  Even MFSL might be doing 'interesting' things to their recordings.   I can demo a fully decoded copy of the song, vs my hf1 disabled version vs. MFSL if you want -- the comparison is interesting.   My decode is more 'smooth/clean' sounding, but the MFSL version is more bright.  (Again, I can reproduce the MFSL version by disabling the hf1 processing.)  It is possible that even MFSL made a marketing choice by providing more of what was expected by even an audiophile instead of what was on the recording?

PS:  I do admire MFSL for apparently trying to do something closer to the 'right thing'.

 

 

John

 

Follow-up on the MFSL vs. canonical version.  (Ignoring the undecoded FA version), I verified that I am most likely correct about MFSL disabling the HF1 (9k-20+k) compressor in the Carly Simon 'That's the way that I heard it should be'.   Of course, the DHNRDS direct decode doesn't sound precisely the same as the MFSL version when the HF1 band is turned off, but the verification of what MFSL did to disable part of the DolbyA -- the hiss is close to identical on the MFSL version and the DHNRDS version with hf1 turned off.  I know that not many people are all that interested -- but I have put together a canonically correct decode, hf1 off decode with DHNRDS and the MFSL version of the 1st 30 seconds.   Also, later on, the brightness of canonical and MFSL swapped, but in both cases, the HF1 disabled version is the closest to the MFSL version by far.  (Levels might not be 100% matched, esp on the FA version, but the point is pretty obvious.)

 

If you want to hear the complete recording for the differences, we can make arrangements.

 

PS: in this case, I believe that the FA version might sound better -- that edginess in the recording is very difficult to reproduce correctly.  This is a case where it *might* be reasonable to leave the compression in the recording!!!

 

08. That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be-FA.flac 01-MFSL-Carly Simon-Thats The Way I've Heart It Should Be-snippet.flac 08. That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be-canonical.flac 08. That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be-hf1off.flac