One of the most exorbitant purchases I can remember in my younger days of playing with this stuff is when I got my first job in it with Lafayette in the early '70s. I would stop at Craig Audio Lab on Ridge rd. on my way home from work.If you were not a Classical music fan Dave would pop on something else, usually pretty obscure. I listened to the Large Advents often there, my favorites but at 17 I just couldn't swing a pair.
Anyway, he started playing this really bizarre instrumental, and it made the Advents sparkle! It was a new record from a company called Sheffield Labs, and you could buy it for $10. TEN DOLLARS? Mind you this is 1973. You could get a steak dinner for two, let alone three normal records for the same price! It was Thelma Houston and Pressure Cooker. "If they are going to go through all this trouble why not use somebody good?" "They can't afford to." OK.
This album kind of developed a cult following, kind of put the direct to disc recording technique on the map, and I can remember walking into Maynard's Sound World on State St. and seeing a budget $300. system with a Garrard changer set to repeat playing this album over and over. Yes, I did buy it.(the record, not the system). I still have it. My original 40 year old copy.
Sheffield was a company that went on to release several more offerings, All great quality, and the early ones were about as all analog as you could get, not even any tape recorders involved! The band played, the cutting stylus was working. Not sure how many of these are valuable today, as none of them were really classic albums. I still have several. Amanda McBroom, Lincon Mayorga, the Dave Grusin above is very good.
TELARC
The Telarc label surfaced a couple of years later, and had almost exclusively classical music. Featuring their Soundstream digital recording process, they had unbelievable dynamic range, especially for a record! The bass drums slammed! Famous were the cannon shots on 1812 (pictured above). Magnified the groove looked like a Z! Cartridge companies bragged about being able to track it. The better tables I played it on couldn't, the cheap BSRs could. These albums were for the most part hard sounding early digital. Great for demo, though. Made speakers sound great, as long as it was a short listening session!
MFSL/MOFI/ MOBILE FIDELITY
Probably the most popular of the audiophile labels, they continue to thrive today. Half speed mastered means simply that a master was made with the cutting stylus traveling at half the normal speed, allowing for more detail and a cleaner mother image. A more expensive way to make a record, but usually better. I must have played the Dark Side of the Moon and Supertramp Bloody Well Right a thousand times during my hifi demo days. To this day if I never hear either song again it would be OK. Most of these we sold for $15, outrageous in the day. I would constantly get people returning them for the tinyest little glitch or pop, People would expect them to be perfect. MFSL did not de-hone their records, so you needed to play them a couple of times."For that kind of money....." Whatever. We would just keep it and use it for demo.
Funny, I went to the Record Archive a couple of nights ago, and most of the off the shelf regular releases were $27-30!
I probably have 50-60 Mobile Fidelitys, some fairly new (Patricia Barber, Metallica, Grateful Dead Skull and Roses). The Beatles box set pictured above is probably the greatest coulda-shoulda-woulda in the record world. A smart colleague of mine back when it first came out bought two, one to keep and one to play. $300. each at the time, I thought he was crazy. Today they range around $700- 1000. for a clean used set, and even more for ones still sealed! I do not own one of these, but have enough of the other MoFi Beatles releases that I don't feel I need it.
My most treasured Beatles records would be mint condition monos, a couple dozen or so that a friend gave me a while back,virtually unplayed. I still look for used MFSLs, often will buy them even if I'm not crazy about the artist (read Air Supply). They probably have the highest resale value of any of the audiophile labels. A word of caution- there have been differences in these over the years. While they were all cut at half speed not all were on good thick vinyl. There was a time when MoFi was more serious about their gold CDs, although they never completely gave up on vinyl. Safe bet- the lower the serial number the better the specimen. They dabbled a bit in a few other products, a couple models of speakers, accesories, etc.
Nautilus Super Discs
Probably the most significant competitor for MFSL, Nautilus had some significant titles. I actually liked them as well, some of my all time favorites are on Nautilus (Quincy Jones the Dude, Fleetwood Mac). I also will snap these up whenever I can. To the best of my knowledge they are no longer in business. The quality was equal to that of MFSL.
Other audiophile labels
A few other companies jumped on the bandwagon eventually, CBS with their Mastersound series, RCA Red Seal, M&K Realtime, Proprius, Gale, Crystal Clear, Reference Recordings, and others.
There are a number of newer specialty companies popping up today that are releasing new vinyl, Analogue Productions being one of the more prominent. Impex, OGR/ Original Recordings Group, and Speakers Corner being some of the less than well known offerings to recently surface.
The quality of off the shelf vinyl has risen tremendously,as have the prices. There is not as obvious a difference as there used to be in comparing to the audiophile labels. Still, if you get a chance to pick some of these up they are cool.
AND NONE OF THEM CAME WITH ANY FREE DOWNLOADS!
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