Dire Straits Communique MoFi SACD

[Haselsh1]

Dire Straits - Communique
MoFi SACD

Back in 1979 I became a bit of a fan of the very first Dire Straits album having first heard it on the radio. I bought it to play on my first ever 'Comet' sound system and when Communique came out I bought that too. Around 1980 I went to see them at a gig in Sheffield City Hall and was completely stunned as I walked in to see a huge stack of keyboards on stage. There ended my association with Dire Straits.

So last week I bought the MoFi SACD of Communique to see how it sounded and to gauge whether it was worth nearly forty quid. Sound wise..? Extremely sharp, clear and precise. To my ears it sounds just too much, just far too digital. In the same way a Hasselblad medium format digital camera image looks so amazingly 'false', this SACD sounds 'false'. Compare it to the original CD release of the album which is warm, soft and refined. It doesn't though cover over the superb craftsmanship of the musicians made even more perfect by the drummer Pick Withers who left after this album was made.

So is it worth the money..? No. Is it better than their first 'white' album..? I don't know as I bought that one too days before I bought this one but rather oddly that one hasn't turned up yet. That one may end up the subject of a Paypal dispute. The quality is good, the music superb but for me there are only their first two albums worth listening to.

Maybe a nice single ended 300B amp with the correctly matched speakers would do this recording true justice..? It may be just the thing to 'de-digitise' this recording. Who knows..?

[Pharos]

I borrowed the first album and 'Revoxed' it, as I did also with the second, both vinyl. I think both exhibit well written and played art.

I was far less keen on the third album, but thought that 'Brothers' was very good.

As reproduction tightens up with increased technical standards so that exposes certain flaws in performance and recordings, but also these improvements can expose other technical flaws in equipment; a more accurate and hence 'sharper' pulse can reveal ringing elsewhere in a system which may have been previously masked, and missed.

I think many here have such good systems that further improvement is unnecessary for obtaining the maximum from the art, pleasant though extra finesse may be, and that it is important to differentiate between quality of the reproduction, and extraction from the art; does a man with a £1M system really get that much more from the art?

[Haselsh1]

does a man with a £1M system really get that much more from the art?

Speaking for myself only the answer has to be 'no'. The more I have spent on the system the more dissatisfied I have been. I have never spent more than ten grand on a system though and found that justifying that amount of cash was almost impossible when it came to assessing customer satisfaction. I currently have a system that takes me back to the 'old' days of customer satisfaction whereupon I am still amazed at how much I love the sound and can therefore fully appreciate the art.

[AJSki2fly]

does a man with a £1M system really get that much more from the art?

Speaking for myself only the answer has to be 'no'. The more I have spent on the system the more dissatisfied I have been. I have never spent more than ten grand on a system though and found that justifying that amount of cash was almost impossible when it came to assessing customer satisfaction. I currently have a system that takes me back to the 'old' days of customer satisfaction whereupon I am still amazed at how much I love the sound and can therefore fully appreciate the art.

I completely agree, I have been round the hifi merry go round several times, multiple speakers, amplifiers, several CDP's, at least 7 Turntables, and a variety of other gear. At several points I have been pretty satisfied with the overall system sound and yet I have allowed myself to get suckered into changing a major component, but with little improvement in SQ, more different.

[paulf-2007]

Send me that sacd and I'll give you my opinion on it.

[anthonyTD]

First record i ever bought, still have it, great album! :)

[Barry]

I remember a colleague at work buying a copy of Communique, and complaining about the "noise" at the start of the last track on side 2. His system clearly could not resolve the sound as being that of waves breaking on a beach!

[anthonyTD]

:eek:
I remember a colleague at work buying a copy of Communique, and complaining about the "noise" at the start of the last track on side 2. His system clearly could not resolve the sound as being that of waves breaking on a beach!