Half-Speed Winners

American Beauty – An Honest-to-Goodness Killer MoFi LP

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Grateful Dead Available Now

Sonic Grade: B+

This is a Mobile Fidelity LP with SURPRISINGLY GOOD SOUND. The transparency and presence in the midrange is outstanding for a MoFi. This copy does not have the usual midrange suckout that ruins so many of their records.

The bass actually sounds mostly in control on this copy — there’s much less of the typically bloated bass caused by Half-Speed mastering to be found here.

This is the best sounding Mobile Fidelity American Beauty we have ever heard. It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s hugely better than we expected.

Any original Green Label domestic pressing is sure to be better, but sure to be noisier too, so if you must have quiet vinyl, you can do a lot worse than this MoFi.

Which means it belongs on our list of the best sounding Mobile Fidelity records we’ve ever played.

Fleetwood Mac / Self-Titled – A MoFi Winner

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Fleetwood Mac Available Now

Sonic Grade: B+

Another MoFi LP reviewed, and this one is actually pretty good. 

The Mobile Fidelity pressing of this album can actually sound quite good (if you get hold of a decent copy that is). Audio perfection it ain’t, but all in all it’s a very enjoyable record. Its strengths are many and its faults are few. Let’s give credit where credit is due; the MoFi is rich, transparent, sweet, and natural, and you won’t hear us saying that about very many MoFi pressings.

It belongs in their Top Ten, toward the bottom I would guess, due to its own sloppy bottom, but that’s half-speed mastering for you.

Like most new audio technologies it was a giant step in the wrong direction: backwards. (more…)

Rickie Lee Jones – MoFi Reviewed, Positively (!)

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Rickie Lee Jones Available Now

Sonic Grade: B

Another MoFi LP reviewed, and this one’s pretty good for a change. 

The Mobile Fidelity pressing of this album can actually be pretty decent.

If you get a good one, that is. Records are records and limited editions have dramatic pressing variations just like all the other records out there in Record Land.

Audio perfection it ain’t, but all in all it’s a very enjoyable record. Its strengths are many and its faults are few. Let’s give credit where credit is due; the MoFi is dynamic, transparent, sweet, and open, and you won’t hear us saying that about very many MOFI pressings.

It belongs in their Top Ten (a list we have yet to make, for some reason we never find the time!), toward the bottom I would guess, due to its own sloppy bottom, but that’s half-speed mastering for you. Like most new audio technologies it was a giant step in the wrong direction.

We suppose you could live with the blubbery MoFi bass found on their remastered LP — most audiophiles seem more than happy to, right? — but instead, we’re happy to report that it will no longer be necessary. All our Hot Stamper copies are guaranteed to trounce it.

Our Half-Speed Moondance Shootout Winner from Way Way Back

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Van Morrison Available Now

This review was written more than 15 years ago, so take it with a very large grain of salt.

Check out the silly thing we said back then about the originals — just look for the asterisk.

We’ve combined our two best half-speed mastered Super Disk pressings to give you Super Hot sound for both sides. Of all the half-speed versions we had here, two of them each had one amazing side. 

“But Tom,” you might say, “I thought you hated audiophile versions of rock records!” Well, we sure don’t hate ’em when they sound like this! The best Green Label copies are going to be a step up in class, but you’re going to have a hard time finding sound this good for Moondance no matter what kind of pressings you’re playing.

It took us a long time to build up enough copies to get this shootout rockin’, a fact that anyone who has ever sought out a copy of this album will certainly understand. Clean originals just aren’t hanging around in the bins, and when you do find one it usually costs a pretty penny. Add on the fact that most copies just don’t sound all that hot and you can forgive us for thinking that we might never list a Hot Stamper copy again. (more…)

West Side Story on MoFi Reviewed

More of the Music of Oscar Peterson

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Oscar Peterson

Sonic Grade: B-

Another MoFi LP reviewed and this one’s pretty good!

I played this record a while back — it’s one of the Mobile Fidelity’s I remember liking from the old days — and sure enough it still sounds good. It does not have the phony boosted bottom and top that most MoFis do. Since it’s such a well recorded album, the sound is very impressive. Also the music is great. This is one of Previn’s best piano trio records. And Shelly Manne drums up a storm.

If you want a dramatically better sounding pressing of the album, we would love to find you one, but they are very hard to come by these days.

Bridge Over Troubled Water – The CBS Half-Speed Is Not Bad

More of the Music of Simon and Garfunkel

Reviews and Commentaries for Bridge Over Troubled Water

Sonic Grade: B?

Another Half Speed reviewed and this one’s not bad!

The CBS Half-Speed is actually quite good. It’s been twenty years since I played one but I used to like it. Of course, once you hear the real thing you can never go back, but it blows the doors off the muddy MoFi.

Further Reading on Half-Speed Mastered Records

The best place to start is here:

How come you guys don’t like Half-Speed Mastered records?

To learn more about records that sound dramatically better than any Half-Speed ever made (with one rare exception, John Klemmer’s Touch), please consult our FAQs:

More Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Below you will find our breakdown of the best and worst Half-Speed mastered records we have auditioned over the years.

(more…)

Sinatra at the Sands – Mobile Fidelity Reviewed

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Frank Sinatra Available Now

It’s actually pretty good. Compressed and veiled, but the tonality is correct. I give it a B.

It will beat the vast majority of reissues, which tend to be thin, gritty, and woefully lacking in Tubey Magic.

And the vinyl will be quiet, which is something not many of the best pressings can offer. 

But who wants to listen to a B grade record when we you can buy A and better pressings from us? (more…)

Takin’ It To The Streets – MoFi Reviewed

Sonic Grade: B

This is an IMMACULATE Mobile Fidelity LP with EXCELLENT SOUND. I’m surprised how good this copy is. The mids and highs are close to Right On The Money (ROTM). The bass is not as deep and well defined as it should be, but that’s the fault of Half-Speed mastering, not MOFI.

One of their best titles. And quite rare to boot.

(more…)

Dreamboat Annie – A Nautilus Hot Stamper (from Long, Long Ago)

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Heart Available Now

This review is probably from the mid-2000s. By 2007, only a couple of years later, a lot had changed, enough so that this Nautilus title, as good as it is, would likely not be worth shooting out.

This is a Nautilus Half-Speed Mastered LP with SURPRISINGLY GOOD SOUND on side two.

I think I finally figured out why people like these half-speed mastered records so much. If you get one like this, it’s great!

The mids and highs are transparent, sweet, open, and tonally correct. There’s none of that MOFI 10k top end boost here! Listen critically to the vocals — there’s almost no phony hi-fi-ish quality to the midrange, the kind you hear on so many half-speed mastered records.  

Flip the record over to side one and there they are, plain as day: audiophile BS vocals. That makes this a Hot Stamper on side two and a pretty much run-of-the-mill stamper for side one.

Both sides actually have pretty good bass (for a half-speed), so maybe that’s being a bit too harsh. More accurately one could say both sides are better than average, with side two actually being pretty much right on the money. (more…)

What’s the Right Grade for the CBS Half-Speed of Willie Nelson’s Stardust?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Willie Nelson Available Now

Sonic Grade: B to F, depending on the copy

This review was written many years ago, so take it for what it’s worth.

This Hot Stamper CBS Mastersound LP has the BEST SOUND we have ever heard for the Half-Speed of this title. It KILLED the other two CBS Audiophile Stardusts we played. If you think there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that any two records — domestic, import, audiophile, 180 gram, or otherwise — sound the same, then you simply need to do a shootout or two with records like these to be disabused of that notion.

One copy was awful; I’d have to say it’s one of the worst sounding audiophile pressings I’ve ever played. Somebody is going to buy it thinking it somehow guarantees them a higher quality pressing, and to that person I say, think again. That’s not the way it works.

This copy, on the other hand, sounds so good you’d think it was one of our hand-picked multi-hundred dollar Hot Stamper pressings. (One of them sold for $750, FYI.) It may not be the ultimate copy, but it sure sounded amazing to us. On the half-speed scale we give it Two Pluses. That’s the highest grade we’ve ever given ANY half-speed; from guys who can’t stand half-speeds as a rule, that’s high praise indeed.