Top Engineers – Derek Varnals

The Moody Blues – Days of Future Passed

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Reviews and Commentaries for The Moody Blues

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  • The Moody Blues’ Masterpiece finally returns to the site with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on both sides of this early British pressing – the vinyl is exceptionally quiet for this 60+ year old title as well
  • The sound is huge, rich and lively throughout – 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.”

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 any symphonic recording.

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. (more…)

The Moody Blues / In Search Of The Lost Chord

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Reviews and Commentaries for The Moody Blues

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  • This early UK pressing has a stunning Triple Plus (A+++) side two backed with an excellent Double Plus (A++) side one
  • Just full of that Moodies Magic: warm, full-bodied, rich and smooth with excellent size and energy
  • The first Moody Blues album to feature their trademark mellotron arrangements
  • “…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.”

(more…)

The Moody Blues – Every Good Boy Deserves Favour on MoFi Anadisc

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Reviews and Commentaries for The Moody Blues

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Sonic Grade: F

Pure Anadisc mud, like all the Moody Blues records MoFi remastered and ruined.

Completely worthless to those of us who play records and want to hear them sound good but, unsurprisingly, they’re still worth money to those who collect this sort of audiophile trash.

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.

The Moody Blues – To Our Children’s Children’s Children on Mobile Fidelity Anadisc

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Reviews and Commentaries for The Moody Blues

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Sonic Grade: F

A Hall of Shame pressing and another MoFi LP debunked.

Some of the muddiest, tubbiest, most worthless records in the world.

Well… 

Worthless to those of us who play records and want to hear them sound good. But, worth money to those who collect that sort of audiophile trash.

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

Three Qualities to Look for (more…)

The Moody Blues / In Search Of The Lost Chord – Listening in Depth

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Reviews and Commentaries for The Moody Blues

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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 (and Dutch) 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?

TRACK LISTING

Side One

Departure

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 not to sound as good as those that follow. We never really noticed that effect before but during the shootout it became obvious that the real Moody Magic starts with track two.

Ride My See-Saw
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 have a Hot Stamper for side one.

House of Four Doors
Legend of a Mind

This is the famous Timothy Leary song. Every studio trick in the book is used on this track, brilliantly. This song perfectly encapsulates everything that’s good about The Moody Blues in this period. If you have any audiophile friends visiting, and you have a top quality, big speaker system, play them this song from this pressing and blow their minds. I guarantee you they have NEVER heard it sound like this! (Or the Moody Blues for that matter.)

House of Four Doors, Pt. 2

Side Two

Voices in the Sky
The Best Way to Travel

An outstanding psych arrangement — turn it up good and loud and let it rock!

Visions of Paradise
The Actor
The Word
Om