More of the Music of Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66
Reviews and Commentaries for Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66’s Debut
Sonic Grade: D
An Audiophile Hall of Shame pressing and another MoFi LP reviewed and found wanting.
So spitty and thin! Why, in God’s name, why would you want to ruin such a wonderful recording?
When you have a recording that is already plenty bright, adding top end and taking out more lower midrange is the last thing in the world you should be doing. Since that was the standard operating procedure for MoFi and other Half-Speed mastering outfits around this time, that’s exactly the approach they ended up taking.
Those of you who have had the opportunity to play the Mobile Fidelity pressing of this record should know what a disaster it is.
Is brighter better? Apparently Mobile Fidelity thinks so. It sounds like a bad CD.
But it’s not a bad CD. It’s an expensive audiophile record!
If you’ve spent any time on this site, you should know by now that many audiophile records sound WORSE than the typical CD.
The typical CD does not have an equalization curve resembling a smile. The classic smile curve starts up high on the left, gets low in the middle, and rises again at the end, resulting in boosted bass, boosted top end, and a sucked out midrange — the Mobile Fidelity formula in a nutshell.
But they forgot to boost the bass on this album, so it’s closer to a half-smile I suppose.
This record is good for testing: