The very best sound: Direct to Disc


Since I got a new cartridge (Clear Audio Virtuoso) i’ve rediscovered the Sheffield and RR Direct Disc albums in my collection.  
Wow! they put everything else to shame.  I picked up about twenty Sheffield D2D’s when Tower Records went out of business for a song (no pun intended.) I’m just now listening to them and find there’s nothing that sonically compares.  They’re just more real sounding than anything else.  Not spectacular but realistic.   
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Dear friends: My mistake: the label is Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs and the recording is an Original Master Recording. 
The recorder Brad Miller was the founder of MoFi label. Here something of his history:


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As a producer and recording engineer Mr. Miller changed the music industry for the better. Brad Miller had two driving passions - sound and quality. If you count yourself as an audiophile, you probably owe Brad Miller some measure of gratitude.

Brad Miller (1939-1998), was an acknowledged master of recording outdoor environmental and man-made machine sounds. He began his career by recording the sounds of steam engine railroad trains as a teenager during the 1950's, releasing LP's on his own Mobile Fidelity Records. In 1965, he founded the Mystic Moods Orchestra (a.k.a. Nature's Mystic Moods), which mixed the sounds of machines and/or the environment with orchestral music. In 1977, he founded the renowned audiophile label Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab. He produced music projects through the companies Mobile Fidelity Productions and Mobile Fidelity International Productions. Brad Miller died September 9, 1998. In 1955, Brad recorded the sounds of one of a steam locomotives for the first time. He borrowed his father's Ampro monaural tape recorder along with a crystal microphone, and recorded passing steam trains from the Burbank tower, and at Surf, California where he vacationed with a telegrapher friend. A kind Los Angeles round-house foreman installed a power converter (32 volts DC to 110 AC) so that Brad could make his first cab recording aboard a Southern Pacific #4455 engine.

In the fall of 1957, Brad and a friend named Jim Connella decided to record and release a record album of Southern Pacific steam locomotive sounds. In March, 1958, Mobile Fidelity released album MF-1. They released two more monaural albums before the end of 1958. In September, 1958, Brad traveled through Wyoming, Colorado and Nebraska, recording locomotives while living on hamburgers and sleeping in his car. He had purchased an Ampex 601-2 tape recorder and a pair of Electro-Voice microphones, a battery and an ATR converter. The trip resulted in Highball, MF-4, Mobile Fidelity Record's first stereo album. High Fidelity Magazine praised the album.

While recording the sounds of steam locomotives, Brad had on occasion captured other outdoor sounds. This inspired Brad's idea of expanding the soundstage to give the listener a more panoramic environmental scene. Mobile Fidelity's MF-8, released in September of 1961, was entitled Steam Railroading Under Thundering Skies. As the title implies, the record featured the sounds of locomotives combined with rainstorms. The album was recognized in Billboard Magazine as their "specialty pick of the week".

One night in 1964, a San Francisco disc jockey - Ernie McDaniel of KFOG-FM - played Steam Railroading Under Thundering Skies on one turntable and some music on his other turntable, and broadcast both simultaneously. Listeners responded very favorably, as the station's phones lit up and hundreds of requests to hear the combination flooded the radio station. McDaniel relayed his actions to Brad Miller, and Miller spent three months creating One Stormy Night, the first album of the Mystic Moods Orchestra. Among many other productions with the highly successful Mystic Moods Orchestra, Brad Miller also made two solo "sound-effects" albums in the late 70's and early 80's. The Power and the Majesty and The Power and the Majesty Volume 2 which were both released on Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab. """


R.

As some of you may know, Peter Lindemann at Soundsmith has been recording a number of D2D performances on his own cutting rig for some time now and offering them for sale. It's all to support a child welfare charity that he is a part of. You can check them out on his site.
I was fortunate to purchase over 75+ D2D discs, half from wholesalers at $1/disc in the 1980s when CD was driving out LPs. They include many RR, Sheffield, Crystal Clear, Toshiba, RCA and American Gramophone discs. They are generally well recorded. The Japanese discs were generally of Japanese performers but still very enjoyable. The performances often have a hightened presence, an excitement (or anxiety) to create a perfect performance. I find them close to R2R dynamics and sound quality. Just great to hear.
no one mentioned the 1982 Nautilus D2D LP "Secrets of the Andes" by Victor Feldman?  Lots of 'air'....you can hear the musicians breath and turn pages on the music stands if one listens closely....hard to find nowadays in mint condition...a CD is available but no cigar compared to the LP IMHO.
https://www.discogs.com/Victor-Feldman-Secret-Of-The-Andes/release/3447375