If you’ve heard about MFSL before, you probably know what makes it truly unique amongst other record companies. If you don’t know what their philosophy is all about, you should get a Pink Floyd MFSL CD just to get the hang of it. The ultradisk technology is truly miraculous and even though we have SaCD now, it still holds up against the newest inventions. What makes them unique and why do you have to own one of their CDs if you’re at all serious about listening to music? Read on to find out.
The company is known as Music Direct, but you can see Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs printed on their releases prior to 1999, when the original company gave up due to financial troubles. They were pioneers of sound engineering and though they didn’t spend their time inventing new technologies, they’ve perfected already available solutions. The best one available at the time was their gold coated CD dubbed as ‘Ultradisk’.
Without any pun intended the ‘golden standard’ of time-proof releases is the Pink Floyd album called The Dark Side of The Moon on ultradisk from 1988. Have you ever wondered why your CD-R media goes south a couple of years after you’ve burned it? It’s because these disks unlike ultradisks are not made for longevity. They’re there to be cheap and to hold the data for long enough. On the other hand MFSL did their best to produce a disk that can be listened to decades after its first release.
Does a Pink Floyd MFSL CD sound better than the cheap copies out there? They certainly do for several reasons. MoFi uses the best original studio recording they can find to remaster the product they’re planning on selling. They also do that on half speed so that the mistakes can be ironed out, and you will get the best possible experience. They use gold coated ultradisk technology, or at least they did when they made the legendary UDCD-1-517, which has definite benefits over other optical solutions.
Want to get surprised and find out that the Pink Floyd you’ve been listening to sounds completely differently than the original? You should rake $100 together for a vintage copy of the Dark Side of the Moon, or The Wall, and spot nuance differences between the version you know and what’s on the master tape. Most of them are still in great shape after 22 years and don’t show signs of aging. Do that with a cheap CD bought in the shop today, if you can.
