Neil Peart – Drums kit, timbales, gong bass drums, orchestra bells, glockenspiel, wind chimes, bell tree, crotales, cowbells, plywoodĪssisted by Robbie Whelan, and our computerized companions: Albert, Huey, Dewey, and Louieĭigital mastering engineered by Peter Jensen I thought it was clearly in the lower echelon.Geddy Lee – Bass guitars, Oberheim polyphonic OB-X Mini-Moog and Taurus pedal Synthesizers, vocalsĪlex Lifeson – Six and twelve string electric and acoustic guitars, Taurus Pedals Most seem clearly intended to provide a smooth, non-fatiguing experience at prolonged listening, not so much thrills and chills - and they deliver on that.įWIW I definitely AM surprised that E finished second in the poll. Honestly for me the sort of 'house sound' of MFSL discs is rather polite/laidback, particularly the older ones (pre-SACD era). Ultimately the top 3 were quite close, and in my view there's nothing 'wrong' with the MFSL - if that's all I had I'd be very happy with it. I'll have to try that experiment, listen to the whole album in each mastering (I have both), and this time on my reference system rather than on cheap computer speakers. I'm not so sure that on prolonged listening I (and others) might not find themselves giving B the nod over D. Which to pick? Very tough choice, but probably D>F>B, but possibly on more prolonged listening (or on a better playback system) D>B>F. Would not be surprised if it was a high res mastering, it felt/sounded the most natural, least 'digital.'į was also great and perhaps has more excitement/'grab' when you crank it, but there seemed to be just a tad bit of harshness in the highs (especially after giving it more volume) and perhaps (?) a bit of compression relative to D, perhaps that leading to a sense that the midrange was a bit recessed. Nice tonality all across the spectrum, nice bass without being bloated, not bright, nice balanced mids. And it made you WANT to turn it up, always a good sign. It did sound wonderful at more sustainable, lower listening volumes though.ĭ especially just sounded better and better the more volume I gave it, like you could just keep going and it'd still sound great even at the point of eardrum rupture. For prolonged listening that might well be just the ticket, non-fatiguing and smooth, again it really sounds nice but just does lack a little rock edge and isn't quite as crank-able as my other 2 favorites, actually sounding a bit worse, kind of muted on top, when really cranked. It is very nice indeed, but ultimately a little dark and polite. 'It definitely boiled down to B, D and F for me.ī sounds like a well-regarded CD mastering I have and enjoy, though I didn't pull it out to compare, just going from memory. For example I had this to say in my original post (edited to just focus on my top choices, and what I had said about B): Many, however, mentioned it in the top echelon. I'm not too surprised the MFSL didn't fare too well in the poll, since you could only vote for top choice. I'm proud to have pegged B as the MFSL (what I was referring to in my post about a certain 'well regarding mastering') - using cheap computer speakers, at that. Thanks for voting and happy 41st anniversary to Moving Pictures! Maybe King Crimson's Three of a Perfect Pair, but I'm still thinking. As for what album it'll be, I don't know yet. I'm going to take a little break before doing another blind test. Both are EQ'd nearly identically, but I opted to use the silver-face instead as it's far more common and easily attainable. Japan AMCY / SHM - Other than this one having less low-bass, the EQ is almost the same as the US silver-face.Īnthem ANC-1-1030 / VANK-1030 (record club) - Same digital transfer as the silver-face. Japan 25 8P - EQ'd very similarly to the Atomic. There were 3 masterings that I had to leave off the poll for the sake of not cluttering it up and due to the CDs sounding similar to others that made the cut: Granted, it was only by 1 vote and people still liked it overall, but I wasn't expecting that. Hopefully Magee's mastering will be left unchanged on the 40th anniversary CD! Most surprising of all was that the MFSL ended up in last place. Not always the case obviously, but it's bound to happen. I guess the tidbit mentioned on page 1 about louder, EQ'd masterings being preferred via shorter samples vs listening to the entire disc is true in this case. It's quite compressed and has a slight bass and treble boost in relation to some of the other versions. What did surprise me was the '97 remaster being the runner-up. The forum's general preference for this album on CD is the 03+ Atomic, so I'm not surprised at all that it won. Sample F = US silver-face / Anthem VANK-1030 (retail) - 3 votes Sample C = Sean Magee remaster (24/192) - 3 votes Sample A = Sector 2 / 2011 Deluxe Edition remaster - 3 votes Sample D = West German (03+) / US Atomic - 12 votes

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