An expensive new addiction.

Ooh. See if you can find her a clownshoe (Z3 coupe).
I've been looking! I -almost- bought one when I moved to Detroit and have been kicking myself ever since. They've REALLY gone up in price. What a cool car.
 
I had a Z3! A convertible too I. A super rare metallic blue. Loved that car! Drove it to the ground though.... but it gave me many miles of fun and joy!
 
As funny as it sounds, $125 doesn’t sound unreasonable. Especially for something of truly top quality. I’ve spent enough money on disappointing audiophile releases, so knowing I was getting something really great makes it seem a reasonable value.

Well, having a couple of thousand lps in the house (60% classical, 25% jazz, 15% rock) I spin a lot of vinyl. But do I need more? Maybe. The last ‘new’ vinyl I bought were the last 4 David Crosby records - they sound amazing btw - and Bowie’s Blackstar - ditto. But they didn’t cost $125+. I’ve thought about Mobile Fidelity but haven’t taken the bait yet but if/when
I do it’s only because I’m obsessed with Jethro Tull’s Stand Up. With the exception of This Was and Benefit, other Tull just doesn’t do it for me and Stand Up is by FAR the best. I had thought about going for the Stand Up pink label pressing but the MoFi reportedly beats it handily. So, yeah, I might have to shell out the clams (heheheh ... shell, clams, oh, never mind) and get me a copy.

As a side note, on the digital side of things, I wasn’t taken with Steven Wilson’s remastering of Stand Up, which received rave reviews but not from me. In fact I’ve been disappointed by all the Wilson remasters I’ve heard - Benefit, GG’s Power and Glory, some of the Crimson. Odd.why am I not hearing what others hear?
 
As a side note, on the digital side of things, I wasn’t taken with Steven Wilson’s remastering of Stand Up, which received rave reviews but not from me. In fact I’ve been disappointed by all the Wilson remasters I’ve heard - Benefit, GG’s Power and Glory, some of the Crimson. Odd.why am I not hearing what others hear?

Maybe because they are remixed from the original session tapes, so not just a remaster but a different interpretation altogether.

They do stay fairly true to the original, and in doing a remix of those multitrack tape transfers directly to a DAW, you do remove one generation of tape and thus it's own inherent anomalies, not just noise/distortion but also speed fluctuation in the form of wow and flutter.

However in the end if you've grown completely accustomed to how the originals sound, the removal of that tape generation can in some people's mind create an all-new cleaner (too clean?) window to better see into the original recording, and for many, that's too sterile, not faithful to the original, strays a bit too far.

I rather like the remixes and Robert Fripp had said after reviewing some of the earliest work that he pretty much then gave Wilson free reign, and thought he was making many of the same decisions he himself would have if given access to that kind of mixing technology all those years ago. Of course he's trying to sell the same titles all over again, however I don't get the feeling Fripp is lying about it, the digital remixes sound great but different, and of course not quite as analog, as nearly always that ever so slight hardness or "bite" associated with most ProTools-type work (in Wilson's case not Pro Tools but Apple Logic Pro) is at times present.
 
The Making Movies 45 pressing got me to dig out my Audeze headphones to play it really loud. Wow. What a fantastic mastering job.
 
The Making Movies 45 pressing got me to dig out my Audeze headphones to play it really loud. Wow. What a fantastic mastering job.

I think of the recent MoFi Dire Straits SACD reissues that one may have impressed me the most, at least as compared to the improvement over the already very good Japanese import SHM-SACDs. Both are good but the MoFi just stands out as better, the definitive digital version, I can't imagine the all analog mastering is anything but stellar.
 
I think of the recent MoFi Dire Straits SACD reissues that one may have impressed me the most, at least as compared to the improvement over the already very good Japanese import SHM-SACDs. Both are good but the MoFi just stands out as better, the definitive digital version, I can't imagine the all analog mastering is anything but stellar.
I have the SACD of Making Movies. It’s great. I feel this is a bit better? I’m going to make space in my system for my SACD player this week partly because I’m back in Chicago and the somewhat secret store at Music Direct has b-stock mfsl SACDs.
 
I've never been much of a headphone person and I've been even less of a vinyl over headphones person but...damn. After curing my own system noise (SUT was sitting on the DAC, bad idea, hummmmm...) I cranked up the Audeze headphones with the Dylan one-step and man, its just a beautiful recording. I wish I had my interface here, I'd make a rip of some of it to share. "You're a big girl now" is just heartbreaking. Maybe its the whiskey I'm drinking while listening but I'm right back in college thinking about the girl who I used to listen to this song over. Damn you, Carolyn. And by the time you wanted to come back I was too many years and too far gone. Idiot Wind is next... Carolyn again, but with a bit more, um, bitter taste in my mouth.

One thing I noticed, there's a line here in Idiot Wind that always sounded like they'd patched into the recording with a different take, and its less apparent..they smoothed it over a bit. Less distracting. Thanks MFSL for fixing that, it always took me out of the song.

This is all with the re-cantilevered Ortofon Cadenza Bronze, one of Redboy's MIcrotrans SUTs and the Luxman 507's phono stage, played on a Mitsubishi LT-30 linear tracking table with a Funk Firm Achromat and some fancy bottle stopper cork feet. I'm shocked at how good this table is sounding.
 
However in the end if you've grown completely accustomed to how the originals sound, the removal of that tape generation can in some people's mind create an all-new cleaner (too clean?) window to better see into the original recording, and for many, that's too sterile, not faithful to the original, strays a bit too far.

I rather like the remixes and Robert Fripp had said after reviewing some of the earliest work that he pretty much then gave Wilson free reign, and thought he was making many of the same decisions he himself would have if given access to that kind of mixing technology all those years ago. Of course he's trying to sell the same titles all over again, however I don't get the feeling Fripp is lying about it, the digital remixes sound great but different, and of course not quite as analog, as nearly always that ever so slight hardness or "bite" associated with most ProTools-type work (in Wilson's case not Pro Tools but Apple Logic Pro) is at times present.

Well, that all makes sense and I thank you for that. But it’s not so much a ‘too clean’ sound - though I certainly know what you mean - it was more as if a cohesiveness to the layers of music was replaced by too much a sense of separate layers, if that makes sense. And yes, it was Fripp’s boostering, and a respect for Wilson’s musical output, that brought me to his remixes. If Fripp’s solo output is any gauge, he can lean towards a bright sound, and in some instances almost a ‘cut glass’ sound. I’ll give ‘Stand Up’ another listen but again, with ‘Stand Up’, we’re on sacred ground, at least for me.
 
Well, that all makes sense and I thank you for that. But it’s not so much a ‘too clean’ sound - though I certainly know what you mean - it was more as if a cohesiveness to the layers of music was replaced by too much a sense of separate layers, if that makes sense. And yes, it was Fripp’s boostering, and a respect for Wilson’s musical output, that brought me to his remixes. If Fripp’s solo output is any gauge, he can lean towards a bright sound, and in some instances almost a ‘cut glass’ sound. I’ll give ‘Stand Up’ another listen but again, with ‘Stand Up’, we’re on sacred ground, at least for me.
I find this happening with gear sometimes. I got to a point with my main rig where it was so clean and clear that the individual instruments didn't gel back into a cohesive whole. On the digital end that's why I went with the Topping over my Berkeley Alpha DAC... perhaps the Berkeley was 'better' but the Topping held together better musically. On the turntable front, it's meant using SUTs instead of active head amps, and overall the Transformer Volume Control that I used tended to hold everything together, despite it being incredibly clean/transparent. Transformer based step up/downs seem to be good at that trick.

Both of the MFSL releases I've spoken about here do a good job of retaining the analog nature of the recordings.
 
I love the 1-series and have almost bought one a few times. At least around here the collectors are in them now. Or at least, those who want a modern BMW that feels more like an older one. We were looking at E30s just for a spare car for my wife, she’s had 3 of them. They used to be almost free. Hundreds to a few thousand depending. Occasionally one is still cheap but it’s a mess. E46s are pretty cheap now so we might just get another one. Ours took a beating driving from Chicago to Detroit back and forth a few dozen times and is worth less than it’ll cost to get it back to good shape. Though now my wife says she wants a Z3.

It may be the time to collect E-46s. Just saying...
 
It may be the time to collect E-46s. Just saying...
We have one and I'm up for another but Alejandra is super into the idea of a Z3...we're just talking about it right now. Her logic now is "We can't go to restaurants or bars, all we can do is drive so we might as well have a fun car". Hard to argue with that. She needs a car, her E46 is currently a disaster in need of about $2500 of work, which is about what its worth...
 
However in the end if you've grown completely accustomed to how the originals sound, the removal of that tape generation can in some people's mind create an all-new cleaner (too clean?) window to better see into the original recording, and for many, that's too sterile, not faithful to the original, strays a bit too far.

This was my experience with the remastered Beatles LPs that came out a few years ago. I grew up listening to the Capital versions, flaws and all, and the correct EMI releases just don't sound right to me...
 
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