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Bob Dylan Mofi SACDs

KrisM said:
I'm also curious if you have heard any of the Mofi SACDs? Or the Sony ones? Being how that was what I was asking about in the first place.
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Nope. Just talking about the old tapes from which any discs must be issued. They are the limiting factor. You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear. Old tapes eventually deteriorate. And the oldest stuff, the stuff that was most influential (61-65), is of course the most vulnerable to deterioration and the least likely to benefit from SACD treatment. That was my point.

I have a friend who owns some old recording equipment (good stuff), and he recently told me his tapes from the 1980s have turned to 'goo'.
 
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Theo Simon said:
Nope. Just talking about the old tapes from which any discs must be issued. They are the limiting factor. You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear. Old tapes eventually deteriorate. And the oldest stuff, the stuff that was most influential, is of course the most vulnerable to deterioration and the least likely to benefit from SACD treatment.
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They do, but there are some great sounding digital versions of music recorded in the 50s/60s/70s. I've already said it, but the Sony releases don't sound like a sow's ear.
 
KrisM said:
They do, but there are some great sounding digital versions of music recorded in the 50s/60s/70s. I've already said it, but the Sony releases don't sound like a sow's ear.
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I have seen remasters of some of this material on regular CD. The question remains how much better SACDs could be.
 
Theo Simon said:
I have a friend who owns some old recording equipment (good stuff), and he recently told me his tapes from the 1980s have turned to 'goo'.
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That his tapes have turned to goo indicates several potential issues:

  • The tapes themselves were poorly manufactured. I have a couple hundred cassettes from the late 70s to the late 80s - Maxell UDXLII, the equivalent quality for TDK and Denon - and nary a one has turned to goo.
  • He has a serious problem with how he stores his tapes (my cassettes sit in their cases in a box in my basement, largely unplayed, but when I do pull 'em out to play, the only flaws I hear are due primarily to my old cassette deck's problems, not the cassettes)
  • Actually, I'm presuming that your friend didn't mean the cassettes physically turned to goo, but rather their sound quality has deteriorated significantly. Still, this leads me to believe your friend has a storage problem. My guess, though, is that Dylan's original master tapes aren't being left around on the dashboard of a car and probably aren't being inadvertently exposed to random magnetic fields.
  • Do you report everything you're told as fact without listening to confirm what you're told? If that's the case, I'd love to sell you some speakers... Got 'em from this guy who said he had 'em left over from a custom installation job he did, and he says they sound great.
We get it. You equate popular success with influence (argumentum ad populum anyone?), and believe that because your buddy can't store his tapes properly, that studios can't either, and that you don't think studios were capable of capturing subtlety and nuance in acoustically minimalist music on old analog gear, at least to the degree that the sonic advantages offered by SACD over CD are worth it.

It seems as though the bulk of the other posters on this thread don't share your low opinion of the skills of Mr. Zimmerman, the quality and importance of his music in the decades since he went electric, the engineers and producers who recorded his music, or the studios charged with preserving the old master tapes.

It seems like you have two options: bow out gracefully or continue to be a turd in a punch bowl.
 
BlindBoyGrnt said:
My avatar thinks that Dylan is OK, loves the Sony SACD "Bob Box", and has nothing to say about potential MoFi SACDs.
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Even the ones that aren't a part of the bob box?
The main reason I started this thread was because I got the musicdirect catalog in the mail last week. The Mofi section had a bunch of Dylan titles, some that weren't a part of the box. And I'm curious if anyone has compared the ones by both Sony and Mofi.

Speaking of the box, when I bought my SACDs I wasn't a huge fan. I bought a few titles, and they threw in the actual box. I went back and bought the rest eventually, and got another box. That second NOS box has been sitting in my hi-rez drawer ever since, waiting for Sony to stop sucking so much and release another batch of titles.
 
KrisM said:
Even the ones that aren't a part of the bob box?
The main reason I started this thread was because I got the musicdirect catalog in the mail last week. The Mofi section had a bunch of Dylan titles, some that weren't a part of the box. And I'm curious if anyone has compared the ones by both Sony and Mofi.

Speaking of the box, when I bought my SACDs I wasn't a huge fan. I bought a few titles, and they threw in the actual box. I went back and bought the rest eventually, and got another box. That second NOS box has been sitting in my hi-rez drawer ever since, waiting for Sony to stop sucking so much and release another batch of titles.
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The reason I have nothing to say about the Mofi: I haven't heard them. One thing that would interest me would be a Mofi remix remaster of Empire Burlesque from the original tapes. I don't like the sound on the original CD.
 
Kris

Music Direct bought and owns the MOFI catalog now,so they are going to push their products. I do know the albums are no longer pressed on JVC vinyl in japan.
 
BlindBoyGrnt said:
The reason I have nothing to say about the Mofi: I haven't heard them. One thing that would interest me would be a Mofi remix remaster of Empire Burlesque from the original tapes. I don't like the sound on the original CD.
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I haven't listened to that one recently. It does sound quite bad. I remember when the first batch came out I was wondering if I would buy all of the 80s releases or not if/when Sony got to them. Empire is certainly one of those titles that I would think twice about dropping $30 on.

qdrone said:
Music Direct bought and owns the MOFI catalog now,so they are going to push their products. I do know the albums are no longer pressed on JVC vinyl in japan.
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Yeah, I think I knew that. I was quite surprised when I saw the Mofi section in this years catalog. A lot of titles that I wasn't aware of. Good times for SACD, and vinyl fans.

olson_jr said:
Wasn't he banned before? I was surprised to see all his posts this morning.
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I read in another thread(where he was going on like a broken record about something off topic)that he was. Threads debating Dylan's music, and SACD's worth have been done. I thought I asked a legit question that hasn't been asked here yet. There was no reason for this thread to go the way it did. cwall99's post sums up my thoughts pretty much. He just typed it out better than I would have last night. If I typed what I was thinking I would have been the one who got banned.:D
 
I'm bumping this thread for a couple of reasons. I'm still curious about how the Mofi discs stack up. I also picked up a couple of the 2009 remasters. New Morning and Before The Flood. I haven't listened to BTF yet, but NM sounds better than the original CD. A worthy purchase, IMO. I'm still bummed that Sony bailed on the SACD project, but I'm glad they are at least revisiting some of the missed titles with new CD releases.
 
I grabbed many of the Sony SACDs and like them. "It's that thin, that wild mercury sound."

Some of the original CBS CDs are swell, too.

Still would like to hear about the SACDS from a fellow AKer.

The mono LPs I, ummm, borrowed from my mom when I went off to college still sound great. Thanks, mum.
 
My mom is not much of a fan. My dad is, but I doubt I would have been able to get any of his out of the house. I think there's a NM, played once copy of Self Portrait they he probably wouldn't have missed.
 
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