Author Topic: All that glitters.......  (Read 4362 times)

Offline tmazz

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All that glitters.......
« on: September 20, 2018, 08:09:07 PM »
I recently came across a 45 RPM 12" promo record of the Title Track from Linda Ronstadt's "What's New" album.

Today curiosity got the best of me (and I had a little free time) so I thought id was time  to do a sonic comparison between the 45 pressing and the same track from my standard MoFi version of that album (pressed at 33 1/3 .)



The first thing I noticed about the 45 is that the sound stage was a bit bigger than the Mofi  in height and width. However; it had virtually no depth at all, it had significantly less bass than the Mofi and the overall sound was very dry and hard, compared to the lushness of the MoFi.

Another case something that was presented on a media that was supposed to be superior, but sounded much worse.

Once again we see how the importance of mastering far exceeds the choice of the media. And this cuts across all kinds of media. In addition to 45 vs 33s, I have heard the same thing where original redbook digital, be it CD or file have sound significantly better than Hi res PCM or DXD versions of the same recordings.

Just because something can sound better in one format over the other doesn't need that it will.

You would think that if a record company is preparing a release of something on a higher quality format (which presumably is being aimed at audiophiles they are the only ones who would be willing to pay a higher price for it) they would take the time to to the right mastering job rather than just rushing it out the door, but unfortunately it seems that this is often not the case.


« Last Edit: September 20, 2018, 08:11:55 PM by tmazz »
Remember, it's all about the music........

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