MOFI inconsistencies - SACD.

daddyjt

Has anyone else noticed the significant inconsistency in sound quality across the MOFI SACD catalog? This has been a passing annoyance for me for some time now, but it came into sharp focus this past week.

Let me first say that I bear absolutely no ill-will to any person or merchant that I have purchased a MOFI SACD from, regardless of sound quality. First off, the discs are what the discs are - the seller has no control over the sound quality. Second, the magic that issues from my system with the great gems that I do find makes me less annoyed/upset with the chaff that I find myself sifting through.

So on to a couple recent examples: I acquired a lot of three (3) Billy Joel SACDs recently - Glass Houses, An Innocent Man, and The Stranger. First, the spectacular - An Innocent Man. This disc is that pure magic I mentioned above. The clarity, depth of soundstage (and width, but depth is harder to pull off, and much rarer IMHO) and dynamics are just awesome. The finger snaps and vocal layering on For the Longest time, coupled with the depth of the soundstage, to the horns and cymbals in Tell Her About It - This disc is an absolute find. Next, the ok - The Stranger. This is is just that - ok. It's better than the redbook cd by a noticeable margin, but no magic. There is a bit of width to the sound stage, but no real depth, and the clarity and imaging are good, but far from great. And lastly, the why the heII did they make this an SACD - Glass Houses. This disc has virtually no soundstage, with all the sound living between the speakers, no bass, no clarity in the cymbals or vocals. In fact, the 2014 remastered redbook cd sounds significantly better. Now again, An Innocent man is SO GOOD that I have no buyer's remorse for the purchase of this lot - As I said, the only way to find the magical recordings is to sift though the chaff.

Another recent purchase, America (self titled debut) MOFI SACD - This disc contains one of my top 3 reference tracks now, Sandman. This track has it all - unbelievably wide and deep soundstage, crystal clarity, solid distortion free bass and beautiful harmonics. The track opens with one of the trio singing to acoustic guitar and it sounds great. Then the other two singers join in, and the soundstage just explodes out from the speakers, along with some almost psychedelic guitar sounds from stage left. Then the bass comes in, and its a thing of beauty - deep and adorative, but not a hint of boom or bloat. Then there's Alan Parson's I, Robot - I had high hopes for this one, but alas, no. Just no magic - flat sounding, and marginally (if at all) better than redbook.

So what gives? Does anyone else see a WIDE disparity with regards to sound quality of MOFI SACD releases? I would think(?) that MOFI would not take on a project unless they felt that they could offer significant improvement over what already existed for the chosen album. However, it seems that maybe they are just picking popular titles that they know will sell well. I have high hopes for my pre-ordered Van Halen, but I'm prepared to be disappointed.

pitdogg2

I've been looking at some Billy Joel sacd thanks for the insight.

treitz3

Honestly, I have stopped buying from Mo-Fi. Both the LP's and CD's/SACD's, unless it is verified from a trusted ear that the sonics are good. It used to be they improved things (sometimes greatly), now, not so much. The absolute worst Mo-Fi I have bought was a Grateful Dead CD or SACD that I listened to about 30 or 40 seconds of and it went into the stash, never to be touched again.

Why bother if you are going to get the end result of a stock speaker 1978 Ford Pinto 8-track type of sound? Waste of my time and money...

Tom

pitdogg2

Small thread jack here.
I'm really interested in this SACD.
Anybody heard anything?
It's cheap enough for me to find out, I may pull the trigger Monday.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/125593071767

gudnoyez

Owning a German pressing of An Innocent Man left me no desire to seek that one out on SACD, one of the best sounding LP's in my collection to this day, couldn't imagine it sounding any better perhaps I should purchase the SACD just to see if there is much improvement if any.

jbreezy5

@daddyjt - Thanks for the insightful post. Listened to Sandman on Youtube and can understand why that’s a reference track for you.

It’s strange that Alan Parsons turned out bad, since they usually sound pretty darn good even on redbook, but who knows what decisions are made during remaster to ruin it?🤷🏼

Wonder if they can introduce some magic on Van Halen, which I like purely for the music but not necessarily for audiophile quality.

Keep us posted.

pitdogg2

Bring on the Van Halen! I'd love to have all the Van Hagar as well. There's some gems in all of them.

daddyjt

pitdogg2 wrote: »

Small thread jack here.
I'm really interested in this SACD.
Anybody heard anything?
It's cheap enough for me to find out, I may pull the trigger Monday.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/125593071767

I have heard nothing about it, but I would welcome your thoughts when you grab it:-)

treitz3

It would be nice if they had some serious competition like DCC....would make them do better. Me thinks they are running off of the name and running it into the ground while they do it.

Tom

Emlyn

jbreezy5 wrote: »

Wonder if they can introduce some magic on Van Halen, which I like purely for the music but not necessarily for audiophile quality.

I think therein lies the problem. MoFi and others can't introduce something new that didn't exist in the original recording on media that have deteriorated with decades of time. They've been doing this remastering thing now for 40 or more years and the sources haven't been getting better. They tend to do the best they can with what they have to work with. I think the only way to introduce some magic is through remixing, as with Pink Floyd's Animals, but then it's not truly faithful to the source recording. Remixing can make a recording sound "better" from an audiophile perspective but totally wreck the listening experience because it's not something someone's who's listened to that track identifies as the original. Jimmy Page made some big improvements on the high resolution Led Zeppelin remasters but to my ears most of the initial CD releases were just awful.

Some original recordings just suck and always will. A lot of remastering for CD also isn't good because of compression because to many louder sounds better. At least MoFi doesn't take that road.

treitz3

Emlyn wrote: »

Some original recordings just suck and always will.

Adele comes to mind. I'd love to hear her albums done up the right way.

Tom

jbreezy5

treitz3 wrote: »

Emlyn wrote: »

Some original recordings just suck and always will.

Adele comes to mind. I'd love to hear her albums done up the right way.

Tom

I think the problem in Adele’s case isn’t the recording; though still not audiophile quality, imo.

Her voice is like nails on a chalkboard to me. Some great songwriting though.

erniejade

Sorry to chime in late on this. I am just seeing it. As a person who owned the LP of The Stranger and Glass Houses when they came out, I can say the sacd on Mofi was better. They can only do so much to the sound from the original masters. Glass Houses in LP was flat sounding. The Sacd is better then the LP but, again good music but falls flat on the mastering.

I will give another example, Chicago 2 album just called Chicago. Amazing music. I had it on 8-track, bought it again on LP, then mofi sacd. While the Mofi sacd sounded better, the mastering on the original was not that great so there is only so much they can do when the original mastering is only so-so or not that good. Same with Meatloaf Bat out of Hell. Great music but the mastering wasn't that good. Thats another one I had on 8-track, LP and then sacd. Sacd sounded better then the others but still not amazing.

With Billy, innocent man mastering was outstanding from having the original lp in the 80s and the sacd version brought it to another level.

America, I had on 8-track , lp and sacd. Back in the day I had an Akai 8-track player and that album actually sounded darn good on it. Lp again brought jt to another level and what Audio fidelity did on that disk was even better. Still one of my favorite.

SIHAB

I'm awaiting some AP SACDs to drop. (Jethro Tull 'Stand Up,' etc)
Not so much MOFI but at least I know where I stand with them...
I like others taking the plunge first these days.

skipshot12

erniejade wrote: »

Sorry to chime in late on this. I am just seeing it. As a person who owned the LP of The Stranger and Glass Houses when they came out, I can say the sacd on Mofi was better. They can only do so much to the sound from the original masters. Glass Houses in LP was flat sounding. The Sacd is better then the LP but, again good music but falls flat on the mastering.

I will give another example, Chicago 2 album just called Chicago. Amazing music. I had it on 8-track, bought it again on LP, then mofi sacd. While the Mofi sacd sounded better, the mastering on the original was not that great so there is only so much they can do when the original mastering is only so-so or not that good. Same with Meatloaf Bat out of Hell. Great music but the mastering wasn't that good. Thats another one I had on 8-track, LP and then sacd. Sacd sounded better then the others but still not amazing.

With Billy, innocent man mastering was outstanding from having the original lp in the 80s and the sacd version brought it to another level.

America, I had on 8-track , lp and sacd. Back in the day I had an Akai 8-track player and that album actually sounded darn good on it. Lp again brought jt to another level and what Audio fidelity did on that disk was even better. Still one of my favorite.

^ I agree with this.
There are quite a few that are hit & miss.

The only ones, all of their redoes, I haven't been disappointed in were Classic Records LP's. The Led Zeppelin vinyl collection are fantastic.
DCC was awesome too, whether it was their LP or the gold CD version. The DCC Roy Orbison LP is nutty good.

nooshinjohn

Seems they are more interested in making a name for themselves in the fickle world of audio gear than they are about the legacy of what made them essential to audio in the first place.

pitdogg2

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