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Feeling Guilty? ...about Music On Vinyl reissues..

Supercool!

Supercool!

Super Member
I have been purchasing a number of Music On Vinyl reissues lately and they consistently sound fantastic. Wish I could say this about all the Mobile Fidelity pressings which are hit or miss (not just taking about the Silver series).

Here's the rub. The MOV stuff is all digitally sourced! Guilt?..oh well I simply can't deny what I keep hearing. The Bond Skyfall soundtrack which, thank goodness, left out the Adelle song, is absolutely jaw dropping. What the heck is going on? Has anyone else had this experience with MOV?
 
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I’m one of those not wanting to buy anything from MOV. Hearsay is that they use CD’s as their sources. But in truth, I really don’t know what their sources are. Definitely not any sort of master tapes.

Also questionable would be their vinyl mastering techniques.

IDK how much of this is true.

Let’s see what others can say about this.

cheers!
Luis
 
From their website. They claim to issue officially licensed releases, by either the original label or the artist.

They clearly state no CDs are used as a source, but “the best available source”, such as lacquer cut tapes, analog masters, digital high res files, and such.

They claim their cutter/engineer has 40 years experience on this.

So, it seems like a good gamble.

Luis
 
Hey Luicus, from the outside I couldn't agree more, but having purchased a number of these, the pressing are incredibly nice, like not a single flaw; on par with the best. This is based on first hand experience on over 12 or so pressings. I have a huge record collection and listen on both vintage and audiophile systems and they sound better than 90% of the reissues or first pressing I have ever heard...that's what driving me nuts. You might want to try at least one and hear for yourself.

Oops...just saw your second post...
 
I have several great records by MOV, and I don't feel guilty in the least. Never cared whether the LP was sourced from a digital file or from analog tapes as long as the end result was worth the price of the LP.
Anybody who thinks MOV is crap should hear the Shocking Blue reissues, or Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors.
 
I would imagine the latest James Bond recording you're referencing wouldn't 't have been recorded to tape, anyway, so likely all vinyl releases would have been sourced from a hi-res digital master. I could be wrong, but in the end it doesn't really matter.

The record is just the delivery medium - the truly important part is how well the music was originally recorded and mastered. A really killer recording will sound great on vinyl, CD, heck, even a streaming 256kbps AAC file.

People who typically like the sound of vinyl, in many cases, are actually responding more to sound of older analog recordings, rather than what the vinyl format itself has to offer. Partly because records used to be engineered a bit better for major label releases, and our human ears just really like the sound (more accurately, the sonic characteristics, if you will) of music on well-recorded tape.

That's not to say digital recordings can't sound amazing. They ABSOLUTELY can and do. But when people go on and on about vinyl's "warmth," I think they're really describing the sound of the music, and less the vinyl medium.

Just my two cents...there's never any reason to feel guilt if you like the way something sounds. That's ridiculous audiophile nonsense. For what it’s worth, lots of LP’s have come from digital source material for about the past 40 years.
 
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Really like the clean sound, but find the high cost factor comes into play as quickly.

Sometimes, I can score a great album (only at a garage sale now) that I don't have, or one that I might like to buy new, but the lower prices drive me to take that route. At the record stores a mint is in the range or even more. If I really want it, I go with the orig copy.

Q
 
Guilty because digitally sourced??

LPs have been “digitally sourced” since 1979! Herb Alpert’s Rise LP was digitally recorded (sourced!) on all tracks except the first one. The remainder were recorded on the 3M 32-bit system.
 
I hate to admit it but some of my better sounding records were produced digitally back in the 80s. For example, John McLaughlin/Al Di Meola/Paco de Lucia - Passion, Grace and Fire. It's a fantastic sounding LP and it was recorded when digital was in its infancy.
 
Wolfie62 said:
Guilty because digitally sourced??

LPs have been “digitally sourced” since 1979! Herb Alpert’s Rise LP was digitally recorded (sourced!) on all tracks except the first one. The remainder were recorded on the 3M 32-bit system.
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The more it goes, the more I realise this to be true.

I've been watching a ton of in-depth documentaries in the past year, and there's one common point across them all :

in the first part of the '80s, between 80 and 85, they all say : ''and we got really interested by the technology, getting a computer setup with Cubase and some DACs/ADCs''

it almost never fails


Well, regardless if they used a DAW : there's still a final mixing/mastering done exclusively for the vinyl version. So we're getting a bit of uiqueness either way. And as some have said already : the important is to have a good recording to work with. Whatever the medium
 
Luicas said:
Will definitely look out for their stuff and try them out. Thanks for coming up with this topic.

Seems to be a legit way to get a quality record. Except for their colored vinyl releases, maybe.?
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From Google:

All vinyl records are made of PVC, which is naturally colorless. To turn this clear material into a solid color titanium dioxide and other additives are mixed in. To make the standard black vinyl color, black carbon is often added, which strengthens the PVC mix
 
I only have a couple MOV albums - "Core" and "Purple" by the Stone Temple Pilots...and they sound amazing. I'm sure there are winners and losers in every pressing, and my sample size is very limited.

But as for recording sources...I couldn't care less - as long at the sound coming from my albums sounds good.
 
Ok, I'm intrigued.

I went to the MOV web site and it appears you can't actually buy albums from MOV.

Maybe I'm missing something obvious here. Where can you actually buy a MOV album?
 
MOV will tell you what the sources are for a specific release if you contact them. Typically it is a digital file and that is cut via DMM by an in-house cutting engineer at the plant (Record Industry - Netherlands) in owned by the same parent company.

MOV is really just a licensing operation. They don't do audiophile grade reissues as a general rule. They aren't going the extra mile to source the best analog tape, they aren't working with "name" engineers and so on. Many of their releases have pixelated covers that are just cheap scans given to them by the license holder and they use whatever source they are given (typically hi-rez digital).

I've purchased a couple but likely won't buy anything else from them. Not worth it IMHO.
 
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