Top Engineers – Derek Varnals

On this MoFi Anadisc, We Can Save You a Hundred Bucks, Maybe More!

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Moody Blues Available Now

UPDATE 2026

This awful sounding MoFi record from 1995 typically sells in used condition for about a hundred dollars.

A hundred bucks! For this piece of trash?

Yes, it’s true, record collectors are paying those prices for some of the murkiest, muddiest analog we have ever heard. A subset of these record collectors consider themselves audiophiles, but we cannot understand how any “lover of sound” could find this sound lovable. (We admit we gave up trying to understand it long ago.)

Take our word for it — you are getting nothing for your money, regardless of how little or how much you pay for it.

If you scroll to the bottom of this post you can find the Discogs stats for this pressing — how many have it, how many want it, what they pay for it on average –as of March, 2026.

We were shocked at the poor quality of MoFi’s Anadisq series right from the get-go. Our original review from the 90s follows:

Pure Anadisc murky mud, like all the Moody Blues records MoFi remastered and ruined in the 90s with their misbegotten foray back into the world of vinyl. By 1999 they were bankrupt and deservedly so.

Their records were completely worthless to those of us who play LPs and want to hear them sound good but, unsurprisingly, a quick search on ebay or Discogs indicates that they’re still worth money to those who collect the kind of audiophile trash this label has been putting out for decades. We don’t understand it.

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The Moody Blues – On The Threshold Of A Dream

More of the Music of The Moody Blues

  • Here is a vintage UK pressing with incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound from start to finish – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • You will not believe how punchy, lively, dynamic, and exciting some of these tracks sound here – this is one of their best albums for both music and sound
  • We shot out a number of other British imports (the only copies that sound any good to us) and this one had better midrange presence, bass, and dynamics than practically any other copy we played
  • 4 1/2 stars: “… [I]n 1969 this was envelope-ripping, genre-busting music, scaling established boundaries into unknown territory, not only ‘outside the box’ but outside of any musical box that had been conceived at that moment…”

Both sides give you silky highs, surprising clarity, amazing openness and transparency, real weight to the bottom end, lots of air in the flutes, wonderful texture to the strings, and so much more. The acoustic guitars sound impressive, with the proper balance between pluck and body. The vocals are shockingly clean and clear throughout.

Copies like this bring all the psychedelic Moody Blues magic to life in your living room. The richness, sweetness, and warmth on this one give you exactly the sound you want for this wild music. You get lovely Tubey Magic and clarity. The sound is cleaner, clearer, richer, sweeter, and more present that you could have imagined.

It has been my experience that, as good as the British originals of the Moody Blues records are — and I think they are the best sounding pressings of their music that can be found — their one consistent shortcoming is an overly smooth top end. We managed to find a handful of copies that break with that tradition, and the results are wonderful.

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The Moody Blues – Days of Future Passed

More of the Music of The Moody Blues

  • With two solid Double Plus (A++) sides or close to them, you’ll have a hard time finding a copy that sounds remotely as good as this vintage UK import
  • The sonics are huge, rich and lively throughout (particularly on side one) – you need this kind of space for the orchestral parts to work their Moody Magic
  • An album experience beyond practically anything that had come before (Sgt. Pepper excluded)
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Days of Future Passed became one of the defining documents of the blossoming psychedelic era, and one of the most enduringly popular albums of its era.”
  • If you’re a fan of the Moodies, this vintage UK pressing from 1967 surely belongs in your collection
  • We’ve recently compiled a list of records we think every audiophile should get to know better, along the lines of “the 1001 records you need to hear before you die,” but with the accent on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life

This album is more than 50 years old, for god’s sake! In those 50+ years I’d forgotten how good it is.

“Tuesday Afternoon” is the Perfect Pop Song, with the whole of side two flowing effortlessly from it as each song (each day) is linked by means of the surrounding orchestrations until it reaches its zenith with the climax of “Nights in White Satin.”

The sound is very much a part of the entire experience. The strings of the orchestra sound as sweet as any Decca, the soundstage wide and deep as a symphony. For those of you who still think Mobile Fidelity is the king on this one, here’s a record that demonstrates what a real orchestra sounds like.

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The Moody Blues – In Search Of The Lost Chord

More of The Moody Blues

Reviews and Commentaries for The Moody Blues

  • Incredible sound throughout this early UK pressing, with both sides earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this killer copy in our notes: “jumping out of the speakers”…”big and tubey”…”sweet and breathy vox”…”weighty and rich”…”much more transparent and detailed” (side two)
  • Chock full of Moodies Magic: warm, full-bodied, rich and smooth, with tremendous space and plenty of rock energy
  • The first Moody Blues album to feature their trademark mellotron arrangements, and what a glorious sound that is when it sounds like this
  • “…the album on which the Moody Blues discovered drugs and mysticism as a basis for songwriting and came up with a compelling psychedelic creation, filled with songs about Timothy Leary and the astral plane and other psychedelic-era concerns.”

This early Deram British import LP has outstanding sound and reasonably quiet vinyl. It has higher resolution, is more dynamic, sweeter and clearer than practically all other copies, without sacrificing the richness, warmth and lushness for which the Moody Blues recordings are justifiably famous. I’ll put it this way — this pressing is correct from top to bottom, so present and alive, while still retaining all the richness and sweetness we expect from British Moody Blues records.

This copy has all the elusive elements that we search for: vocal clarity, real weight down low, great energy, tight punchy bass, and lots of texture to the keyboards and synths. This copy is full of Tubey Magic and, importantly, it doesn’t sound too murky or muddy. That’s a neat trick for any copy of this album, as those of you who’ve been playing it for years certainly know by now.

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The Moody Blues – A Question of Balance

More of The Moody Blues

Reviews and Commentaries for The Moody Blues

  • With outstanding Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides, this vintage UK pressing (one of only a handful of copies to hit the site in about a year) will be very hard to beat
  • Huge and spacious, as well as wonderfully Tubey Magical – to our way of thinking, if this isn’t exactly the way the band wanted to sound in 1970, we can’t imagine what would be
  • This pressing has some of the best Moody Blues sound we’ve ever heard – it’s a truly exceptional recording in their canon
  • Includes the big hit “Question,” one of the all time greats by the band, which sounds fantastic here of course

Achieving just the right balance of “Moody Blues Sound” and transparency is no mean feat. You have to be using the real master tape for starters. Then you need top end extension, a very rare quality on these imports, and finally, good bass definition to keep the bottom end from blurring and bleeding into the midrange. No domestic copy in our experience has ever had these three qualities, and only the best of the British imports (no Dutch, German or Japanese need apply) manages to get all three on the same LP.

Allow me to steal some commentary from a Moody Blues Hot Stamper shootout we did years ago, for the wonderful In Search of the Lost Chord, in which we say that, on the best Hot Stamper pressings, the clarity and resolution come without sacrificing the Tubey Magical richness, warmth and lushness for which the Moody Blues recordings are justifiably famous.

We guarantee this copy will take the Moodies’ wonderful music to a level you have never experienced in all your music-loving days.

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Listening in Depth to In Search Of The Lost Chord

More of the Music of The Moody Blues

Achieving just the right balance of Tubey Magical, rich but not too rich “Moody Blues Sound” is no mean feat.

You had better be using the real master tape for starters.

Then you need a pressing with actual extension at the top, a quality rarely found on most imports.

Finally, good bass definition is essential; it keeps the bottom end from blurring the midrange.

No domestic copy in our experience has ever had these three qualities, and only the best of the imports manages to combine all three on the same LP.

On the best of the best the clarity and resolution comes without a sacrifice in the Tubey Magical richness, warmth and lushness for which the Moody Blues recordings are justifiably famous.

In our experience the best LPs are correct from top to bottom, present and alive in the midrange, yet still retain the richness and sweetness we expect from British Moody Blues records. They manage, against all odds, to remove the sonic barriers put up by most pressings of the Moodies’ unique music.

Who knew, after so many years and so many bad records, that such a thing was even possible?

Side One

Departure

Ride My See-Saw

The beginning of this track is fairly quiet and noise will be audible behind the music. Side two will suffer likewise.

Also, for some reason this track tends to not sound as good as those that follow. We had never really noticed that effect before but during a shootout many years ago it became obvious that the real Moody Magic starts with track two.

Dr. Livingstone, I Presume?

This is THE key track for side one. The chorus “we’re all searching…” can sound shrill and hard on some copies. When it sounds ABSOLUTELY MAGICAL, you almost certainly have a very Hot Stamper side one.

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The Moody Blues – Every Good Boy Deserves Favour

More of The Moody Blues

Records We Only Sell on Import Vinyl

  • Both sides of this vintage copy have excellent sound for the band’s 1971 release, earning Double Plus (A++) grades
  • With a wonderful combination of Tubey Magical richness and clarity, this UK Threshold pressing will be very hard to beat
  • Full-bodied and lush, yet not veiled or distant, this is the sound that brings the Moodies magic to life
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The best-realized of their classic albums, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour was also the last of the group’s albums for almost a decade to be done under reasonably happy and satisfying circumstances — for the last time with this lineup, they went into the studio with a reasonably full song bag and a lot of ambition and brought both as far as time would allow…”

This copy had the big, rich, lush British sound that can only be heard on the better Moody Blues pressings.

Great-sounding Moody Blues albums don’t show up on our site too often — they’re just not that easy to come by. Dull, veiled, boring sound is the rule, and big, rich, clear sound like this the exception.

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The Moody Blues – Seventh Sojourn

More of The Moody Blues

Reviews and Commentaries for The Moody Blues

  • Seventh Sojourn is back on the site for only the second time in thirteen months, here with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER on both sides of this original Threshold pressing
  • Side two was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be shocked at how big and powerful the sound is
  • Forget the dubby domestic pressings and whatever crappy Heavy Vinyl record they’re making these days – the UK LPs are the only way to fly
  • Great sound isn’t easy to come by for the Moody Blues – it takes a lot of copies to find sound as good as this
  • The Moodies’ biggest success on the American charts – “I’m Just a Singer (In a Rock & Roll Band)” is the killer hit from the album
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you

This pressing is excellent on both sides. It has lovely vocals — sweet and breathy — so critical to the Moodies sound. It’s also spacious and energetic, two qualities that the average copy simply has very little of. To top it all off, this copy rocks about as much as this album, in our experience, CAN rock. Most pressings are shockingly compressed, recessed and murky.

And the domestic copies are made from dubs; they’re brighter but grainy and transistory as hell. They convey NONE of the Moodies magic.

Moody Blues records have a marked tendency to sound somewhat murky and muddy; that’s obviously the sound these guys were going for because you hear it on every album they released.

Compound their “sound” with bad mastering, bad pressing or bad vinyl — not to mention vinyl that hasn’t been cleaned properly — and you will find yourself trying to wade through an impassable sonic swamp. With anything but a Hot Stamper the result is going to be sound so fat, thick, and opaque that it will confound any attempt you might make to hear into it. (more…)

The Moody Blues – To Our Children’s Children’s Children

More of The Moody Blues

More Psych Rock

  • An early UK Threshold pressing with lush but clear Tubey Magical Double Plus (A++) sound throughout – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • You get richness, fullness and warmth on both of these sides, which is exactly what you want for the Moodies’ music
  • We shot out a number of other imports and this one had the presence, bass, and dynamics that were missing from most other copies we played
  • “It is the fourth of what are popularly considered the group’s “core seven” (or Classic Seven) albums from 1967 to 1972, and as such represents the peak of their career to some.”
  • “There are no extended suites on this album, but Justin Hayward’s ‘Watching and Waiting’ and ‘Gypsy’ have proved to be among the most popular songs in the group’s history.”

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To Our Children’s Children’s Children on Mobile Fidelity Anadisc

More of the Music of The Moody Blues

Sonic Grade: F

We here present yet another MoFi pressing that we played and found seriously wanting.

Pure Anadisc murky mud, like all the Moody Blues records MoFi remastered and ruined in the ’90s with their misbegotten foray back into the world of vinyl. By 1999 they were bankrupt and deservedly so.

Their records were completely worthless to those of us who play them and want to hear them sound good but, unsurprisingly, a quick search on ebay indicates that they’re still worth money to the audiophile types who collect the kind of trash this label put out.

Folks, seriously, you really have to work at it to find pressings of the Moody Blues albums that sound worse than the ones MoFi did in the ’90s.

To be honest, we really don’t know of any. Which means that, as far as we’re concerned, their pressing of To Our Children’s Children’s Children is the worst version of the album ever made.

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