Audionerd-gasm ? MFSL Gold CDs

Today, I'm gonna talk a bit about what people no as "Gold CDs", released bexteen 1985 and 1999 by the Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab. It is clearly an audiophiles-oriented release. Claiming that the audio surface as more relfective than the usual CD one, these special discs were supposed to offer a better digital translation of the analog tapes, and therefore an incomparable audio quality.

The first Gold CD to be released was Joe Jackson's Will Power :

 The now famous MFSL Label includes the mention : "Original Master Recording", indicating that the Gold CD was mastered directly from the original first generation-master tapes, and not from later ones ,as are most CD remasters nowadays. Gold CDs didn't feature a remix of the album : normally, it's a pristine version of the original masters, as intended to be after the final mix of the album by the artist and the producer. Therefore, some people consider all the MFSL Gold CDs to be the best CD versions of the albums that have been applied the Audio Fidelity Sound Lab treatment, and prices for used copy reach huge amounts of money on eBay : see good examples here, there or there.

Of course, albums that passed through this process are mainly very famous ones, or from very famous albums (see here for the complete list). But is the process worth the price? Let's compare with .wav rips from the current CD version of some albums and their Gold disc counterpart. On top, the CD in its supposedly best remaster, on bottom, the Gold Disc.

Queen - A Night At The Opera

2011 Digital Remaster vs Gold Disc (1992)

First, rips from The Prophet's Song :

 We can first remark how well-treated the 2011 Digital Remastering has been. No occurences of clipping, or brickwalling in the song. The main dynamics are kept. However, the volume has clearly been upped to accomodate with the limited playback power of portable devices.

If we continue with Bohemian Rhapsody :

there are problems that appear., i.e. clipping occurences, marked in red on the waveform. What is clipping? Without being technical, you should know that there is a limit in terms of volume to what you can record & master on a CD. If you bypass this limit, clipping appears, meaning that if you try to crank up the volume on your playback device, distortion will be heard on the clipped portions of the song. No differences will be heard at low volume, but your ears will make you regret at high ones. With the Gold CD, you can push up the volume as you want, the sound will stay crystal clear : no buzzing, no distortion.

Guns N' Roses - Appetite For Destruction

1987 Original Geffen CD vs Gold Disc (1997)

 First and only waveform, Welcome To The Jungle :

Looks, and sounds pretty similar. The reason is purely the absolutely perfect CD mastering done by Barry Diament. In terms of mastering, the album seems impossible to better, and here, the impact of the MFSL Gold Disc is pretty limited. Maybe a little more depth, but that's all.

Guns N' Roses - Use Your Illusion II

1991 Original Geffen CD vs Gold Disc (1997)

Let's listen to Civil War :

Here differences are somewhat more evident. The original CD seems more dynamic than the MFSL, which is kind of a surprise. One thing to remember is that Axl Rose stated that the records were specifically mastered for CD, and not LP, back in 1991. However, some portions of the original CD flirt with the volume limit of the format, and the MFSL doesn't : with an advantage  as small as this one, it wins this match.

To be continued...