Prior to last year's holiday season, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab caused a bit of a stir in the audiophile community when it announced the Original Master Recording release of Maria Carey's perennial favorite Merry Christmas. With availability in a variety of individually numbered, limited edition formats, including a 33 rpm UltraDisc One-Step LP, a pair of 45 rpm LPs, and a hybrid Super Audio CD. To say this announcement sent shockwaves through the audiophile world is perhaps an understatement; rarely has an album polarized as many listeners as Merry Christmas. Its appeal would appear to be undeniable, with album sales in excess of nine million copies, placing it head-and-shoulders above competition that includes Elvis Presley, Bing Crosby, Johnny Mathis, and even Frank Sinatra. And I recently read that Mariah Carey earns close to $2.5 million annually in royalties just from seasonal spins of "All I Want for Christmas Is You." MoFi's press release for Merry Christmas proclaims the new audiophile quality transfer "breathes with a newfound transparency that enhances the spirituality, passion, and festive tenor of Carey's singing."
I received both LP sets for Mariah Carey's Merry Christmas, including the 33 rpm UltraDisc One-Step LP ($100 MSRP), along with the pair of 45 rpm LPs ($59.99 MSRP) for comparison. Both releases were mastered from the original half-inch, Dolby SR analog master tapes using MoFi's GAIN 2 system by Krieg Wunderlich, assisted by Shawn R. Britton at Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab in Sebastopol, California. The analog tapes were transferred to DSD 256, then lacquers were cut for LP production. All LPs were pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing, where every step of their production was overseen by Rick Hashimoto. MoFi's tip-on LP outer jackets are manufactured by Stoughton Printing, and all LPs are inserted into MoFi branded rice paper inner sleeves to prevent scratching and static buildup. The UltraDisc version inserts the LP into a graphically striking, stylized, gold foil-stamped inner jacket that's then inserted into a heavy, gold foil-stamped outer slipcase. The crisp album artwork is sourced from Sony's vaults, and the UltraDisc LP is secured inside the inner jacket with a heavy paperboard gatefold sleeve to preserve the LP's integrity. While the UltraDisc represents the culmination of Mobile Fidelity's perfectionist approach, that expert level of precision trickles down to the 45 rpm sets, which also are exceptionally good-sounding LPs.
My take on Mariah's Merry Christmas
Regardless of its undeniable popularity, Merry Christmas falls into two clearly defined groups of listeners: you either love it, or you hate it with every fiber of your being. I tend to place myself in the first camp, but I didn't come to an appreciation of the album immediately following its 1994 release. My holiday listening has always been steeped in more traditional fare, and Mariah's Merry Christmas was completely off my radar.
That changed when I picked up a minty used CD copy of Merry Christmas. Which I promptly ripped, placing the song "All I Want for Christmas Is You" on a flash drive filled with holiday music, mainly to mix things up a bit from the tried and true. And hopefully get a reaction out of my occasionally stodgy wife; to my great surprise, she really liked it! Over the course of the next few years, our appreciation for the song grew to the point that the entire album eventually made it into regular rotation during the holidays. With my deepening involvement online and in social media, I gained a fairly acute awareness that quite a few people actually despise Mariah Carey's Merry Christmas, with "All I Want for Christmas Is You" being the object of particularly venomous rants!
I tend to see many albums in my collection as snapshots of a particular moment in time, even when they transcend the moment and continue to speak to generations, as Merry Christmas does. When I listen to Mariah singing these songs, I hear a voice (with a five-octave range!) that's still innocent, uncorrupted, and free of over-the-top theatrics. Her overwhelming fame and its accompanying baggage would later in life turn her into something of a cartoon of herself, and perhaps that's what the haters see and hear every time "All I Want for Christmas Is You" plays somewhere.
Mariah Carey, Merry Christmas. 33 rpm UltraDisc, One-Step LP, $100 MSRP, 45 rpm (2) 180 gram LPs, $59.99 MSRP
I was never a huge Mariah Carey fan, but I've gained a definite appreciation for her work on Merry Christmas, which contains a surprisingly eclectic mix of the sacred and profane. Ranging from the power pop of "All I Want for Christmas Is You," the nearly disco stomp of her campy take on "Joy To The World," and the full-on soulful gospel of tracks like "Silent Night," "O Holy Night," and "Jesus Oh What A Wonderful Child." Where the mixture of cheeky irreverence and deeply-felt religiosity is quite intoxicating. I grew up steeped in backwoods Southern gospel music, and while I'm not particularly religious in my current world view, I do still have a certain appreciation for gospel music as a form of expression. Mariah's delivery on many of these tunes is faithfully drenched in authentic gospel, and exudes a deep spirituality throughout the performances. Regardless of whether or not I'm totally in tune with the message, I still find her interpretations of holiday standards and heartfelt originals to be very uplifting. And Merry Christmas is almost completely free of the vocal histrionics that populate so much of her later catalog of pop and R&B-tinged works.
On "Oh Holy Night," a really jazz-inflected Hammond organ takes over in the song's middle section, giving it an emotionally expressive and even more soulful delivery. On "Joy To The World," following Mariah's vocal entry, a gospel choir spreads across the width of the soundstage, and the usually tranquil carol is transmorgrified into something more like a Studio 54 raveup. "Jesus, Born on This Day" is another Carey original that uses a children's choir to great effect, adding a measure of innocence and authenticity to accompany Mariah's vocal that overflows with emotion. On "Jesus Oh What a Wonderful Child," Mariah really breaks loose and displays the kind of range that, while nearly note perfect, totally rocks the house! A brief bonus track, "God Rest You Merry Gentlemen," gets an acapella rendition from Mariah accompanied by the choir, and it makes for a sublime ending to a truly entertaining album.
Merry Christmas makes for an exceptional listen!
Click on my name in the header above to see the full complement of components that occupy my dual audio setups. For Merry Christmas, I used my all-analog system for its evaluation; it features a pair of XSA Labs Vanguard compact monitor loudspeakers; they offer an updated homage to classic British monitor designs like the LS3/5A and are arranged in the room for nearfield listening. They run in tandem with a pair of Caldera 10 subwoofers that add a few extra octaves to the overall bass response. The system also features PS Audio's superb Stellar phono preamplifier, and the monitors are powered by my PrimaLuna EVO 300 tube integrated amplifier. Which now features RAY Tubes exclusively, with a matched quad of Reserve EL34 power tubes and three matched pairs of Select 12AU7 tubes in the input and driver sockets; the new tubes have elevated the amplifier's performance to an impressive new level of fidelity. My ProJect Classic turntable is mounted with an Ortofon Quintet Bronze moving coil cartridge that tracked the Fidelity Record Pressings perfectly. Which were flawless and pristine, with razor-flat, beautifully glossy, defect-free surfaces that yielded no ticks or groove noise.
When I opened the shipping package that contained Merry Christmas, it revealed not only the two-LP 45 rpm set, but also the 33 rpm UltraDisc LP package. I truly felt I'd fallen down the proverbial rabbit hole, and getting both sets initially struck me as overkill. Playing the 45 rpm LPs portrayed this music with a level of enhanced realism and increased clarity that redefined any impressions I might have previously had of Merry Christmas. Dropping the stylus on the UltraDisc lifted my listening experience to one of next level refinement, and the One-Step pressing gets you infinitely closer to the music. Mariah Carey's voice is more fully formed before you in the center of the soundstage, and the choir that's spread across the background is even more omnipresent than on the 45's. The UltraDisc is a couple of generations closer to the master tape, and you can definitely hear increased levels of fine detail and a better representation of the recorded acoustic. Is it worth $40 more for the full-tilt audiophile experience? Absolutely!
The holidays are over, and while it's very unlikely that Merry Christmas is an album that will be in constant rotation—at least for another nine months or so—it's still a worthy addition to your record collection! Many thanks to Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, Music Direct, and especially John Wood of MoFi for making this possible. If I could only pick one, I'd definitely grab the UltraDisc, which allows you to see and hear more clearly into the recordings. Regardless, Mariah Carey's Merry Christmas on 45 rpm and 33 rpm UltraDisc LPs both come very highly recommended!
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab
All images courtesy of Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab.
