Well, here we go again with yet another--not entirely pointless--reissue. For the original stereo mix alone, worth the purchase, particularly if you don't have a nice, clean copy of the original vinyl from wherever (the US original stereo edition is common as weeds, really, though quality of the pressings is highly variable, typical of anything through London anyway). For those curious, there are two major differences in the '68 and '72 mixes. The first is this: the original is more bass heavy and less (though not by a lot) high frequencies. Although designed for the DSS ('Deramic Sound System') series, the band was lucky to have Tony Clarke as a producer/partisan, and one has to believe the mix was one they okayed, though a 'normal' audiophile release of 1967/68--that is, anything classical--would not have been mixed or Eq'd in such a fashion. The second major difference is that although there were enough intact multitrack session tapes to assemble a really strong quad album, some songs are missing overdubs from tracks that were MIA; that, and the sound has better overall dynamic range and it's not as bassy, as it were. And although the DTS edition from the original quad was No-Noised (or otherwise NR'd and processed), it's nevertheless, to my ears, a more faithful representation of the master tape than the modified 5.1 of the SACD. Your mileage may vary on that point, but I find the SACD a tad processed, but in a different way, and it has always bothered me, whereas I can get a little of the sparkle back to the quad by simply upping the highs a little bit.
Sidebar: This has been discussed a lot here and elsewhere, but the bottom line of LOST CHORD and why it was never quad was that, while some songs were fully intact, others had too much missing to be remixed, so that one was a no go.
Looking at the track listing, I also notice that the stereo mixes for the "Nights in White Satin"/"Cities" 45 do not appear, though the mono mixes do. This is interesting, as most of the Moodies' mono mixes as of this album were fold downs from the stereo, but this 45 had dedicated mono mixes, AFAIK (these two songs were also the earliest Moody stereo we have; all previous releases were mono only, regardless of how they were recorded).
Finally, the first few albums were also released in folded down mono in the UK, yet these have never been reissued. In one sense that's logical, but even with those, some Eq or other things might have been done beyond that, so they are unique in their way, too.
ED
Sidebar: This has been discussed a lot here and elsewhere, but the bottom line of LOST CHORD and why it was never quad was that, while some songs were fully intact, others had too much missing to be remixed, so that one was a no go.
Looking at the track listing, I also notice that the stereo mixes for the "Nights in White Satin"/"Cities" 45 do not appear, though the mono mixes do. This is interesting, as most of the Moodies' mono mixes as of this album were fold downs from the stereo, but this 45 had dedicated mono mixes, AFAIK (these two songs were also the earliest Moody stereo we have; all previous releases were mono only, regardless of how they were recorded).
Finally, the first few albums were also released in folded down mono in the UK, yet these have never been reissued. In one sense that's logical, but even with those, some Eq or other things might have been done beyond that, so they are unique in their way, too.
ED
