Pink Floyd - Dark Side Of The Moon MFSL Original Master Cut Japan MINT & SEALED

	A$		383
	$		253

Pink Floyd -  The Dark Side Of The Moon.
Audiophile MFSL Original Master Release

"Top Copy and Factory Sealed 12" LP Vinyl Record"

Factory sealed, and in Mint condition.

This is a USA Issue, that was pressed in Japan.

This issue is like new - faultless, even the bag wrap is in superb condition.

It has been stored upright and in a proper vinyl record storage case for most of it's life.

There is no ink loss, disc impression, creases or bumps.

This is a "Top Copy Sealed"

An absolutely stunning copy, and even sealed - they do not come like this very often.

Super Vinyl: Super Vinyl was used to press the finished records. This Super Vinyl was only available in Japan from JVC where it was originally developed for CD-4 discs, and had anti-static properties, longer wear, quieter surfaces, and rigid groove walls. It also has no "memory" allowing repeated plays of a record without having to rest it in between plays.

Production Runs: MFSL produced Original Master Recordings in very limited editions. In fact, their advertisements guaranteed not to produce more than 200,000 copies of any release.

According to Gregg Schnitzer, the Director of Product Development at MFSL from 1980 through 1986, and Chief Engineer from 1984 to 1986, the total production run for Dark Side of the Moon on vinyl was only 25,000.

In a recent interview, he explained the production runs, "For vinyl it was directly proportionate to the number of lacquers cut. Some titles only got as high as A1 and B1 or even A2 and B2. Others would go as high as A9 or even A11 or A12. Look on the disc. Just outside the label land where the lead out groove is at the end of the record side, you will see a scribe mark of the lacquer side and who did it. Stan Ricker would be SR/2, Jack Hunt would be JH/2, John LeMay would be JL/2 and so on.

"[Determining] the number of discs to press was guess work. Sometimes we would cut extras and have them plated but never need to make stampers from them. Others we would run out of and have to request the masters back for another go. They would carry a mark like A1-1 and would almost always sound a bit different from the original work we'd done as our gear was not total recall."
Note: Stan Ricker cut all of the MFSL lacquers for Dark Side of the Moon. Ricker had been the cutting engineer for JVC in the 1970s, and had been cutting CD-4 quad albums for JVC prior to working for MFSL.

Record Debut: In a recent interview published in Goldmine Magazine, Herbert A. Belkin, former President of Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, recalled the debut of the MFSL Original Master Recording LP of Dark Side of the Moon. He was quoted as saying, "We presented Dark Side of the Moon at the Chicago Consumer Electronics Show in June of 1979. The response was so amazing. The commercial response was so amazing that the company literally was turned upside down, and these two fellows, neither of whom had a great deal of business experience, were swamped. I wound up spending more and more time helping them. Late in the fall, Brad Miller asked me if I would come in and take over the running of the business for an equity position and a salary. On January 1, 1980, I became the president of Mobile Fidelity."

Record Production Process:

The MFSL Original Master Recording record production process began with the use of the original stereo master tape. Herbert A. Belkin, who had worked for Capitol Records and ABC Records before becoming President of Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, originally worked for MFSL as a consultant and helped MFSL gain access to the original master tape for Dark Side of the Moon in 1978.

Using the original master tape, MFSL cut a disc lacquer. This was done on a disc cutter turntable, which was driven by a quartz-lock motor that rotated the turntable at 16 2/3 rpm, one half the speed an LP plays at (33 1/3 rpm), while the master tape was played at one-half the actual recorded speed.

This half-speed disc cutting process allowed the cutting stylus twice as much time to carve an accurate groove in the disc. Although half-speed cutting uses only one quarter of the power needed for normal speed cutting, two 600 watt per channel cutting head amplifiers were used, producing significantly better top end and overall frequency response. No transformers, limiting, or compression were used during the process.

Immediately after the metal lacquer was cut, it was refrigerated for protection. For the plating process, the metal lacquer was sent to Japan where the metal master (negative), and the mother stamper (positive) were created by the Victor Company of Japan (JVC) for MFSL.

A test pressing was then made for approval by the MFSL production department. After their approval, the vinyl records were stamped.

The system used for cutting the albums was made by Ortofon, and used 17 op amps in series with the gain path.

Note:

The metal master is indicated by the number following the written matrix number. For example, MFSL-1-017-A1 indicates metal master number 1. The stamped matrix number, such as 2105, indicates stamper set 2 from master number 5.

Reference System: At the time of the cutting of the first issue of Dark Side of the Moon, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab used a reference system that consisted of:
Turntables:
Revox B-790
Denon
Turntable Arms:
SME 3009 / 2 (modified)
Grace 714
JH Formula 4
Pickups:
Promethean Phase Two
G.A.S. Sleeping Beauty - Shibata, with Verion transformer
Mark III (non-linear) with MLAS D-6 card
Ortofon MC 20 with Ortofon pre-preamp
Preamps:
Mark Levinson ML-1
Spatial Coherence
Audio Research SP-6
Speakers:
Beveridge Model 2 (includes amps)
UREI 604 E "Time Align" (mastering center)
Sub-woofer - RH Labs, driven by G.A.S. Ampzilla II
Crossover:
Crown VFX-2, used as low pass filter below 55 Hz
Master Lacquer Cutting System Components:
Neuman VMS 70 lathe, with quartz-lock motor drive by JVC
Neuman SAL 74 amplifier system, modified - no input transformers
Neuman SX 74 cutting head
Transformerless console custom built by JVC
All playback decks, heads, and electronics were modified to accommodate half-speed eq curve, and maximum separation, imaging, and frequency response.

Dark Side of the Moon LP production note: In a recent interview, Gregg Schnitzer of MFSL revealed, "Did you know that the Dark Side of the Moon master was ruined? Somebody put it on a recorder instead of a playback-only mastering deck, and a little piece of Supertramp got dubbed onto the outro of Breathe. Big secret, that. Stan had left the company so a redo wasn't gonna happen. Makes me seriously wonder where MFSL got the source for the Dark Side of the Moon CD. Hmmm. It would have had to have been a second generation safety or the digital master I made for the cassette run."