Billy Joel - The Stranger Mobile Fidelity - Anyone have it?

I found a seller on Amazon.co.uk who was selling for a reasonable (to me) price, with regular Amazon shipping costs - which is usually what stops me from ordering from any of the usual US-based websites.

 

I just got 'The Stranger' in the mail yesterday and listened to it last night. Sounds nice and smooth to me, levels are all balanced quite well and I did not experience any overwhelming bass. Very pleased with this release and will now look at getting 'The Nylon Curtain'.

 

Listen to "Vienna" and you'll be absolutely thrilled you bought this. The whole thing is great. I own four and this is probably tied for second best. Favorite is "Piano Man". This is tied with Turnstiles. Fourth, but still not bad, is Glass Houses.

 

Agree.

 

Nice "review". Some say sounding as analog as a clean slab o'vinyl is the ultimate compliment for digital based music mastering.


Just to correct one minor error The Sony Stranger SACD was not Dynamically compressed in mastering. When that mastering was done in 1999 the ability to do so to the DSD stream did not exist. In addition I ripped mine w/my 1st gen ps3 and its easily "seen" the volume is lower than on some of the original pre-remastered masterings - my ears tell me the same.

Stranger will be one my later Mofi comapares. I'll probably start with Nylon then Glass unless Attic is issued before I've opportunity.

 

My MFSL sacd came yesterday and I am disappointed for $30. It is an improvement over my ancient lp, but it is not night and day better and I feel that it is not improved on the bass and mid bass over the lp. The piano is better and the clarity of reverb tails is improved. I will enjoy it, but nothing jumps out as startling better. Maybe that is not fair. The CD layer is more like the lp. I am still comparing the lp and sacd on the same system.

The distortion is way less and it is smoother and I do enjoy not flipping sides. But, the bottom line is that I would not use it as a demo of LP vs. SACD in trying to get someone to buy an SACD player and jump on board the hi-rez wagon. I have other SACDs I would pull out first over this one.

I also have Honky Chateau coming on SACD today. This experiment may ending up pushing me to not use SACD as a remastered format, but only as a start to finish, recorded and pressed as an SACD, and then buy reissues and remastered music on LPs.

I must admit that I only have a Yamaha S-1800 and a Sony 755, so I don't have a real audiophile SACD players and maybe that is what it takes. Most people I know are not into music like me and would never consider even a Marantz 8004 for a $grand. Maybe that is where one needs to start or and Oppo 95.

Just my 2 cents. If you have a great SACD player I would still recommend it.

 

To be honest, I don't think anyone should necessarily expect an SACD to sound better than a good, clean vinyl. (vinyl artefacts aside.)

That it sounds even a little better tells me that it must be pretty impressive and beat most other digital sources.

I've only played the red book layers of Stranger and 52nd Street in the car so far but those sounded amazing so can't wait to try them properly.

 

Any reviews on the MFSL record?

 

Not that Amazon reviews are he end all be all but it has not gotten very good reviews. I just purchased a copy based on the reviews here. I am excited to hear it.

 

I haven't read them, are they complaining that it doesn't sound like Dark Side Of The Moon?

 

Heard the SACD layer this morning and compared to the previous SACD. I'm not sure if I heard extra low end on it compared to the previous SACD but there does seem to be a high midrange hump EQ-wise going on. It made the dual guitar lines on "The Stranger" seem harsh and the saxophone on other tunes has the same issue. Not bloodcurdling but to me, it's harder to listen to. Haven't looked at any .wav files or anything yet to confirm this...just listened.

Heard a little bit of 52nd Street as well. I did think that one was bassy. AF still clearly the winner on that one.

 

I don't have an SACD player at this time - so my interest here is in the redbook layer of new MoFi release. I recently compared my original, Japan For US 35DP CD to my old vinyl. Overall, the LP had a "bassier" sound, which kind of surprised me. There was more "thump" in the bass drum, etc. On some songs - mostly the uptempo ones with full band - the CD just seemed to lay there - the cymbals & some of the highs sounded "spashy" in places - and the CD in general did not excite me. (I thought it might be pre-emphasis - but The Stranger is not on the forum PE list I saw - plus dBpoweramp did not detect it.

So...do you think I will notice a substantial change (improvement) over what I have with the new MoFi?

 

I listened to the SACD and was completely disappointed. It Sounded too hard to my ears. I prefer 35DP which sounds really warm and natural to the SACD.

 

I have the SACD and I am not that impressed as I was expecting a great diff from my well-worn lp. I'm still glad I bought it as it is one of my fav Joel albums. I may buy the new LP as well. My vinyl rig is not as bad as I though or, maybe, my 2 SACD players are not as good as I thought....a Yamaha S-1800 and an older Sony 755. My 755 is through my Triangle Cometes which are pretty revealing. My Yamaha is through my old refurbished AR 58's, 3 way with 12"s which I try and part with once in a while, but I have not found anything under $2k that really jumps at me. Just different. Different is not enough to make me part with my green.

 

I enjoy it. But, that's my opinion.

 

I agree. After repeated listening to both, I found the 35DP to have a much warmer presentation than the SACD!

 

Maybe Mofi should hire a better mastering engineer

 

Can anyone comment on THE VINYL MOFI RELEASE? Is it out yet? Heck, as far as any digital version is concerned, I could have told ya just to stick with the original vinyl. I'm reading many of the comments above that state how disappointed people are with the SACD, etc., and I'm just shaking my head. Hey, bottom line is if you want to really hear the BEST of any Billy Joel, get yourself a decent vinyl rig. Sorry for the truth, but my ears have yet to hear a CD or SACD compete with a well done (like MOFI) vinyl pressing. On occasion, I too , will purchase a CD or SACD. But digital has always been in second place in my house in terms of ultimate sound quality. No different for Mofi and all of their releases. The vinyl will sound superior. Most recently, I did a shootout with the new Springsteen release "Wrecking Ball," since the CD came with the double lp. Can you guess which one sounded better? I even had two of my sons listen for the comparison.

 

I'm also interested in the Mofi vinyl. The newest Mofi LPs I've heard have been well executed. A couple have blown me away.


And how does the Mofi The Stranger vinyl compare to the Robert Ludwig 1st pressing LP? I don't know how many posters in this thread have heard the Ludwig version, it is stunningly good IMO.

 

Some recent Mofi reissues are not as bad as The Stranger. I like The Band's Mofi CDs very much. Carol King's are good, too.

 

I'm not familiar with the 755, but I can tell you from personal experience that the Yamaha 1800 is the most disappointing sounding player for playing SACDs that I have ever heard inside of my HT system. I'm not saying this because I have anything against Yamaha players. I just happened to purchase one on a closeout sale a couple of years ago after reading people rave about how good it was, and discovered that I could not agree less. If you want to know why universals got a bad name early on, this player demonstrates the phenomenon very well. By contrast it sounds quite decent on DVD-Audio disks. But IMO you should't even bother buying SACDs if this is what you plan to play them with.

OTOH: The Oppo BDP 103 will give you a taste of what the format is capable of. I haven't heard the 105, so I can't comment on that player yet, but the 103 is a bargain for $500. No its not the last word in digital playback, but it is certainly quite respectable. If you want something cheaper, look for a used Denon universal. Some of those units sound quite nice.

 

Just got this on SACD along with the Turnstiles SACD. Both sound fantastic!

 

Stated objectively, of course. You would probably feel different if you had interviewed Rob LoVerde and had your picture taken with him.

 

I've been listening to the MOFI SACD of the 'Stranger' for the last couple of days, and doing some comparisons between it, the 35DP, and the 32DP Japan for Japan CD pressings. The MOFI SACD of 'The Stranger', has a good amount of bottom end to it, and actually has some pretty good punch to it. The vocals seem to be a little more up front, and the instrumentation has nice seperation, and openess to it. The 35DP CD pressing of 'The Stranger', has a very nice sound to it, and has a nice amount of clarity going on with both the vocals and the instruments. It too has some bottom end to it, but not like the MOFI SACD, and does not have the "punch" that the MOFI SACD has. Both the MOFI SACD, and 35DP CD versions are going to provide for a pleasant listening experience, and I think this is one of those cases where preferences for either pressings, could easily be split down the middle. I guess a good question would be "is this MOFI SACD of 'The Stranger', worth the $29 asking price?". I have no problem recommending this MOFI SACD, but then again, I am a big fan of the album.

I've done extensive comparisons of the 35DP CD to the original double "RL" vinyl pressing, over the years, and the "RL" vinyl pressing of 'The Stranger', is the easy winner betweent the two. I need to focus now on doing indepth comparisons between the MOFI SACD, and the "RL" vinyl LP. I should mention that I have several copies of the "RL" vinyl pressings of 'The Stranger', and there are two pressings that sound different from one another, which is somewhat surprising, but then it might not be entirely out of the question that Robert Ludwig mastered 'The Stranger' more than once.

*Note: I didn't do a comparison between the MOFI SACD, and the Sony Multi Channel SACD of 'The Stranger', mostly because I haven't had time to do so yet, and I've always listened to my Sony SACD copy of 'The Stranger', in 5.1 surround.