Also in looking into SACDs of Brothers in Arms , I found that the 2013 Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs MFSL is 55:16 in length as compared to the 2014 Japanese SHM SACD of 47:xx minutes
The sound is different on these 2 versions too.
I think more bass on the 2013 version
Did you check which songs are longer and why? it's 8 minutes more...
That's because the SHM was mastered from the LP cutting tapes. No original analog two channel mix of BiA exists. The original two channel digital mix was made from the Sony DASH multi-tracks that had just 16 bits resolution sampled at 44.1 kHz. The LP cutting tape is simply an edited version of the digital master to make the album fit on one LP, with some heavy EQ to remove very low bass frequencies, since those frequencies are difficult to press on vinyl. Why the Vertigo SHM release used this as a source is beyond me, but fortunately we have the excellent MoFi release with the full digital source to listen to instead.
I finally sat down and compared all three recent releases of the self-titled including the 2010 SHM SACD, the 2013 SHM Platinum CD, and the recent Mo-Fi. I was surprised to find that the MoFi was an improvement over all of the Japanese re-releases! Against the 2010 SACD it wasn't even close. The 2010 release has a much higher level of tape hiss and is more dynamically compressed. I am somehow convinced that this disc used a higher generation tape and not the master as the booklet claims, but that's purely a guess. Comparing against the Platinum CD was a closer comparison, but the MoFi has more detail in the high end for sure, and the bass is more defined. The clarity of the cymbals on Water of Love is unrivaled on any other release. So much clarity with no harshness of any kind. These differences didn't take much critical listening to find and would be obvious on any decent playback system. I always wrote off the self titled album as somewhat lacking in production quality and chalked it up to the era of recording, but after listening to the MoFi a few times, I have definitely changed my mind.
Overall, I have to hand it to MoFi- they have a small mastering studio in the middle of nowhere in California far removed from all of the big LA studios (and thankfully on the opposite coast from Bob Ludwig), but they have produced some of the best sounding re-issues of classic rock albums. They have proved that mastering is all in the fine details and those fine details can make a huge difference in the final sound quality.
