Audiophiles Audio-fooled: Holy Mobile Fidelity Mo-Fi Dumpster Fire!!
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- My thoughts on the biggest audiophile drama in years!
Link to Mike's interview with the MoFi engineers- • Mobile Fidelity - Inte...
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All these years it never even occurred to me that people were buying these for the process rather than the final result. I'd always thought people were spending a bunch of money because the record just sounded that amazing.
What they know now, is that any title that’s done by Analogue Productions in the future will beat the MoFi. The Muddy Waters and SRV are examples.
@@UberPilot Do you mean the sound quality?
Excellent video. I totally get the comments regarding the mis selling by Mofi and the selective truth on their behalf however I am a massive Yes fan and I have every version of every release they ever made.
I have the Mofi One Step copy of Fragile and it sounds tremendous. It is definitely on par with my mint UK first pressing of this album.
I also read a very intelligent thought on this subject by another audiophile collector who posed the question "is it now time to come to terms with an inevitable digital step in any new audiophile vinyl process ?"...... as long as the digital file is as high res as technology allows at that time then we audiophiles will surely have to accept and embrace this. Many original master tapes are now over 50 years old and degrading fast (if not already degraded). It will have to be this or nothing surely ? ...... as long as (of course) in future the manufacturers are TOTALLY transparent on what the full process is.
If the One Step version of Fragile included a digital component then the final out come and sound from this release still blew me away. Perhaps its now time for us to accept the inevitable.
Good video. A couple issues.
1. A dsd recording is far more than capable to faithful and accurately record a master tape from the Era in question.
2. From what I've heard with my ears and from the "content providers" is that Mofis albums sound fantastic. From the silent vinyl to the recording itself...until they found out it has digital in it...now according to 45rpm and vinyl zealot Fremer, they are now terrible.
3. I love music for music. Be it Album. CD, mp3 or streaming through my phone.
These words sum it up.
The music on this compact disc was originally recorded on analog equipment. We have attempted to preserve, as closely as possible, the sound of the original recording. Because of its high resolution, however, the Compact Disc can reveal limitations of the source tape
Spin on you crazy diamonds
And this gets to the crux of the issue. Many perceive that digital is bad because of this very reason.....it reveals the shortcomings of analogue tape. Same with vinyl in masking the shortcomings of one's system.
If a DSD "Clone" copy of the master tape is made and used, I agree with you, it really doesn't make any difference in reality! A "perfect copy" of the master is like having the original except it's one that won't wear out. There's a good chance that some of the MoFi albums so many folks love and enjoy today might not even exist in the first place of it weren't for the DSD cloning in the mastering process. Something to think about. That's some of what I picked up from Mike's interview with MoFi.
"if". digital conversion is lossy - how can it not be? you are not getting a perfect copy with dsd.
@@carljung9230 Any copy is lossy including tape. DSD is the closest thing to an analog signal in the digital realm; once it captures the master tape it's a copy that can be replayed without any further loss; not true with the master tape as every play alters it -- so a DSD copy is a perfect copy.
Not only that: DSD are hardly editable. So it's pretty clear that they also converted the files to PCM for cleaning, editing, etc. and then reconverted to DSD or just cut the records from PCMs . So it became a One (Million) Step(s)
I actually have a SACD that was mastered in DSD.
@@musicman8270 Which one? And in what Audio editing software? because Sonoma and TEAC are pretty poor when compared to what Audition and the others can do to PCM. Meaning, no cleaning, no declicking, no healing, and so on
Evidence???
@@SPAZZOID100 ask Mofi lol
Bingo
Just ran across your UA-cam channel today, ended up watching every one of the videos, maybe missed a couple but I'll catch them later. Really enjoyed the point of view.
Good luck to you and the other technicians, hard to find decent repair shops, very few left. I'll keep watching and sharing.
I just know that I like to collect records and CD's and if this mess brings prices down, that would be awesome.
It's the price,the price,the price..that they charged the consumer....c'mon, it's so obvious....they lied ( or glossed over)..the process and the buyer's paid for their "sins".. I love MoFI for the most part.i have 7 albums and I dig them ..BUT....c'mon.
These 'experts' should have a wine and listening party with the wine connoisseurs who can never consistently pick their fabulous vintages once the labels are removed. They can have a grand time complimenting each other's taste.
You're 100% correct.
"audio reviewer was praising MoFi records and snubbing other records which had a digital link in them". Kind of reminds us of those wine snobs who can't identify cheap wine in a blind test.
Like a film critic that trashes modern blockbusters but loves Armageddon
Or the audiophile gear snobs who claim they can hear the difference between a $500 usb cable and a $5 USB cable
@@captainkeyboard1007 reference was to wine testing
@@williamtm1965 I am sorry I misread your comment. My comment has been replaced. Thank you for tapping or typing to me. 👍
Yall seen that video they pranked them snobs with the same wine in 4 different glasees but all, were the same cheap wine.
I would just like to see a video of a mastering engineer giving an in-depth science lesson on state-of-the-art mastering. If a DSD step is actually beneficial and not a bad thing, a science video could explain that. Mastering is a technical area a lot of collectors and audiophiles make assumptions about, but are we really very educated on it? I'm not, but would like to be.
Agree 100%
It’s not about sound quality but money. The one step for 120-150 dollars make sense if it was all analog. With the DSD transfer there is no way to justify that price and that’s where it boils down. As you said about the organic food. Anyway, they did that in purpose and knowingly.
The copy of DSOTM in the thumbnail nail was 100% analogue, they aren’t the same company now as they were then and DSD wasn’t invented until '99.
Yep. I've got a UHQR version of DSOTM that I got straight from MoFI through their "Original Masters Society" in the early 80's.
When I buy an all-analog record, I’m contributing to keeping the craftsmanship of the analog process alive. It’s like if you bought what you thought was a sweetgrass basket by a Gullah basket-weaver and then find out it was made by a machine in a Chinese factory. It’s still the same basket, and maybe the factory-made one is technically superior, but it’s not the craft you chose to support.
As a South Carolinian, this example hit close to home. 🤠
Good observations. Most records pressed these days probably have a digital link. The only way to avoid this if you're a purist, is to spend more money on original pressings.
Which I have a lot of MoFi releases on original copies. I know all the new releases I buy is DSD. I don’t care.
True that MOST records pressed these days are at least cut digitally (actually, almost all records of the past 20 years are recorded and mixed digitally as well) but it should be noted that anything mixed down to analog tape and mastered at Bernie Grundman Mastering, be it in the 70s or now, is cut all-analog (as I was directly told from an employee). And that's actually quite a lot of records, including tons of recent remasters. (I look for Bernie Grundman Mastering before I look for MoFi or any other audiophile name...and then it also sorta helps to know how the album was recorded, because digital has been almost as common as analog in high budget albums starting in the late 70s)
@@tturner12341 Agreed. I've repurchased my entire collection from reputable DSD sites and couldn't be happier. I have come to suspect the quality of remasters from master tapes. The degredation is beggining to become telling. Besides. through a quality DAC, well....my ears just don't care.
This (to me) proves my long held point; "golden ears" are not so golden when their assumptions and praises for some particular product, that they in MANY cases have held for years, suddenly crumble into an ash heap when they find out it's not quite what they thought. I have witnessed a "double blind" test, meaning neither the listener or the tester knew which active amp was A or B, nor could they see them. A direct to tape recording of a small classical ensemble was the source. Both amps were being fed from the same pre-amp Everything had been carefully level checked. After the test was concluded and decoded so it could be determined if a listening subject was actually listening to amp A or B, the results were what I expected. Amp A was Phase Linear. Amp B was the power amp section of a 30 watts/channel Lafayette receiver. The decoded results were 50/50. Thank you so much golden ears.
So called golden ears often reject blind tests. Well, this has been their involuntary blind test and they proved they were unable to distinguish analog from digital 😆
@@Maki-zf5wm Yes Maki, my point exactly.
@@Maki-zf5wm They actually might be able to tell. One has a huge noise floor and a little of rumble.
Theres a good video I saw about this. I think its Rick Beato. He did an A/B test with a trained musician. With just PCM and MP3s and the musician even was about 50/50 on just those.
Rick Beato is the man. Gonna go watch that.
I am a fan of whatever provides the best quality listening experience. If the use of digital media makes it better quality, then good for the listener.
The main argument here is one of cost. The customer is paying top dollar for Mofi, double or triple the cost of other releases, expecting the full effort required to make AAA records. Using digital is much more convenient and saves production costs. Using this argument alone, Mofi have been highly disingenuous.
Great video...would agree most of your points towards the end of the video. Surprisingly..if it really sounds so good....so whats the problm😁
Good points. Digital music is on different level right now.
I have asked 5 of my local store owners if anyone has been selling MoFi more than normal and all have said "no". In fact, most didn't even know of MoFi-gate.
lol, very interesting! Thanks
Exactly. If anything they’re even harder and more sought after now that more people are going back to or getting into vinyl. I wish i could find people selling their records for less than retail lol
The problem is that consumers found out after the fact..or after the purchase..they should have come clean instead of misleading consumers..
What bothers me isn't the use of DSD; it's the fact that MoFi lied to their customers for so many years by making them think that their mastering process was all analog. I never bought from them before because they didn't keep the original labels on the reissues, but now I'm glad I did.
Yeah, I think a lot of people agree with you! Thanks for watching!
The price premium is the issue
I like my mofi albums the handfull that I have. They sound good to me, i'm happy.
A better analogy than your organic food one is being a vegetarian and buying vegetarian food from a company you have trusted over the years, even though you pay a premium, because you believe in their mission statement to never have any animal products in their food. Then one day you discover everything they make has meat in it, but they didn't include it in the ingredient list. Once they are found out, they say, "We didn't say anything because we believed our products tasted better with meat, and that the customer would be better off even if they didn't know."
After seeing all these video and hearing nothing but people in the vinyl community talking about how you can hear the mo-fi difference, it just further solidified my feelings that most people I see talking about records and films online done know Jack!
I always went with what had the full soundtrack or album on vinyl and if it wasn’t available I’d go tape than cd.
Analog sound is so vital to why wax sounds so good on turntables. I have plenty of albums that aren’t from the original analog or tape masters but you can tell the difference. Digital doesn’t have the impact analog sound yields. Compare the pcm audio from a laserdisc to the Dts-hd ma from a 4K disc and than that score on vinyl is a huge difference. Digital is worse but if that’s what the original master is, especially with modern music I get it.
Main reason I buy old releases is for those pure original transfers and stuff like this further proves why it was good I looked for what I wanted. No one is making a honest living anymore and it’s because they are incentivized to lie or mislead us like this whole debacle for money.
Especially with how people buy whatever they want nowadays, it just set themselves up for this.
What also bothers me a lot, is they made limited pressings, which would have been inevitable because you can't make many stampers from the master tape with their "One step" process. Was it with the intention to make beleive that they were indeed transfering for the master tapes ? With DSD there is no such limit...It's when they annonced they would make 40 000 copies of Thriller with the One Step process, no way it could be done without a digital duplication
Personally, as a vinyl fan, I've got no problem with preserving original master tapes with high resolution digital backups. That copy will be available long after the tape has failed, will play back more consistently than successive analog plays, and if done correctly it won't have the brick-wall decimation filtering needed to capture at, say, 44.1 KHz. I don't think records need to be all analog, they just need to be done with care. But if it was my hobby was to collect pure analog recordings, then I'd be pretty mad.
💯
Oh 180 gram (remastered) vinyl is also a buying option. Maybe they cracked under the pressure?
2nd hand prices have not budged yet. Doubt they will.
My only concern is the quality of the pressing when I drop it on my platter, how the sausage was made is irrelevant.
I've heard few years ago ago, that the mastering engineers in late 70's and early 80's, used 14Bit Digital Delays to know, when to add 2 second of silence between songs!
Go and 😂listen to your analog LP's now.
This is true. The only true AAA records are from like 1950's and prior. But today a small amount of mastering engineers use an analogue delay, which means most of the vinyl records are digital. LOL! Anadialogue did a video on this recently on his youtube channel.
@@380stroker I think people confuse analog sound with analog recording. Digital recording is more than capable to record characters of transistors and tubes or types' hiss (if someone is into it). Having said that 14bit digital deley is not that bad if you know what you are doing.
MoFi broke the heart. OCD Mikey hurt the butt. Dig your vid.
It sounds great, So whats the real prob? If you look, youl find hints about the digital chain on the CD version, from mofi.
I have some natural spring water from the French Alps I'd like to sell you at a premium price (it's really just my tap water)
But "it tastes great so what's the problem"?
Do you see what you're doing when you say, it sounds great so what's the problem?
You're saying you're ok with being lied to for profit
@@crazyprayingmantis5596 I dont come and slap the cxxk out of your mouth when you work?, same with mofi, and they do it well, just like the tapwater.
@@crazyprayingmantis5596 your constantly being lied or led for profit. As others have pointed out the darkside of the moon record here used as thumbnail n example have no connection to the digital process, yet it’s being used. Go figure
I still don't get the big deal. Most master have been converted to digital some time back AND they've been using digital tape recorders since the late 1970's (looks at the back of some of those Windham Hill records from the late, late 1970's). I think the whole Acoustic V's Electrical recordings argument is so tired. Once you hear your favorite recording in Dolby Atmos, you'll wonder why ANYONE is still playing vinyl records!
Just sayin'
If they mislead people they shouldn't have. But their process is totally fine with me.
One thing that has driven me mad is a Mahavishn Orchestra box set where the entire Central Park concert was remixed to MP3 and that was the purpose and wow out of a pair of speakers wow did it sound like shit.... And the whole thing with mixing to Mp3 and then taking those files and being unable to convert that amazing concert remixed to wave / CD to where you can;t even hear any separation just only on headphones... It's like this giant mess of a sound on a CD but was originally released for a MP3 market and one would think the opposite like take those 16 multitrack analog tapes and mix them correctly to a higher format but I guess they didn't see this as a CD release .. Because anyone could tell if they had decent speakers how mess of a sound it is..
I only click on this because of The Dark Side being displayed so prominently, now Im interested in listening to it. There are audible track starts and stops littered all over this album and as far as I know they can only be taken out digitally. If that is still the case and these are still present I would consider this an inferior mastering. Im gonna poke around the torrent sites, there is no way that I am going to buy this album yet again.
this "controversy" once again proves that vinyl folks are just not normal. at the end they hate the fact that they like the sound of something digital.
Im in trouble.....just turned off my HiFi.....in favor of THIS.....losing sigj2t
And I do like records, never liked CD sound. At the playback end it's the record that makes the diff., that's the sound we like.
How about MoFi 12 inch Vinyl CDs? I mean you get digital streaming degraded on a plastic disc that go snap crackle pop?
@@tiborosz1825 Most people chose between CD and records. Given those two records win. Don't even mention the horrible streaming lots of people listen too. No matter the type of digital it has to be converted from analog (what our brain processes) to digital and back. None of it is "perfect" as many claim, hey guess what for humans perfection don't exsist. So why not listen to what you feel is the best given ones budget. Spend less time arguing on boob tube and listen to the music. Really, it's the same music no matter the format.
@@tiborosz1825 My records don't snap, crackle, pop. And many people consider it an upgrade to put it on a record. I may have spoke in hast in earlier post. Even if music was held pefectly in a digital format there is something that happens to the sound when it's converted to digital then back. Something is lost. Partly because of the limited bandwidth of digital especially a cd. Even if music was held pefectly in a digital formatSounds that are outside the range of human hearing have a definate effect on the audible range. And dynamic range of recorded music makes it a mute point on the medium. All analog is just more satisfying to listen too.
@@bradt.3555 ok. Take a picture on a camera using film. Now take a pic of that with a digital camera and then út it on your monitor and snap a pic again using a film cam. What will you be looking at?
I guess vinyl has a psychological import but you are in fact listening to bits as opposed to a continuous sound and you can't tell. Btw..I own and dig vinyl too..Just love CDs as well. Abd also..not sure about the issue of IDG..I guess people with a 5k set up will have less issue..I'm not one of em.
What about that fire at the music publisher? That might have something to do with it
It would sound like that reviewer who claimed he'd hear any trace of digital in the recording, looked silly only when he was proven to be wrong and not when he was saying something so obviously silly. But who's silly after all? Someone making ridiculous claims or those who listened?
I don't want to sound smarter than I am, but MoFi was never my favorite audiophile label. That would have to be Classic Records if we go back to when I really got into audiophile remasters. I often found they sounded bloated or kinda dry, almost like... digital (even when they were not!). I stopped buying them before this came out.
I love that you said there are “vinyl purists” that are going to be quiet for a while! All the while Chad over at Acoustic Sounds has capitalized and smelled blood in the water and raised his prices! Ridiculous! Me, I’m working on getting the cleanest OG pressings I can since those haven’t been monkied with by remastering ect! I did several videos on my channel about this! I’d love it if you check them out! Great video and hopefully it makes people sit up and take notice!😅
Will do! Thanks!
I actually talked to Chad an hour ago or so. He's a really good dude.
why not just use Kevin Gray to use original master tape to create reissues.
Digital high ress can sound very good. Analog can sound more life. Very few people care and can hear these differences. So what?
How can you have missed it anyway -I knew this in 2016 and last time i bought MFSL were the uqc(whatever) limet vnyl of Beatles sgt Pepper sometime around late 1980 early 1990 from them . I dont belive you can be this unknowing in usa...
Do we really need something "audiophile" - what's wrong with the artistic (from all involved) "statements" from the original release if it's a really good original pressing. I don't buy the term "better" - but maybe just a little different. The choices being made during the mixingdown-prosess of a song is 10000-times more important - based on the "compromises" you have to do when mixing it all down to just stereo. If you have a good chain from there to the finished product - then, in my opinion, no problems at all.
If it sounds good I really don't care much. MoFi should mark albums accordingly and move on.
The whole issue is not about quality, although a sooped up bass using DSD is not the way to go, but about economics. MoFi made a lot of money under false pretence. A pure analogue chain would mean that quality of the master tape will deteriorate and therefore good pressings would become scarce in the long term. A scarce product is worth more thean an unlimitly reproduced product. A cap of 40.000 is not guaranteed when you know that the master is DSD. It may be realistic to expect a cap of 40.000 when the analogue master is limited in use. A real analogue record may therefore be worth $125. A DSD mastered record definetly not. That would be worth around $40-50 top.
Ain’t gonna happen.
If it sounds good it sounds good however they did it. They should have told the customer what they are buying. Especially at these prices. But I am like Mike if it sounds good no problem then.
Well I've got the original Mona Lisa you might be interested in I'm asking a premium price for it of course.
(It's really just a high quality print)
But hey, it looks great so what's the problem?
@@crazyprayingmantis5596 false equivalency.
Anyone going to buy their MJ Thriller? I’m not. I have my original copy. Plus a few other releases of Thriller. Like the 30th Anniversary edition.
The reason no one wants thriller is because it’s incredibly oversaturated as an album n even growing up a Michael Jackson fan i don’t really want any of his music anymore
Well, it matters not to me. I buy original (used or NOS) classic rock albums. I don't like digital. But I also don't like cheep plastic made in China used to make or mass produce music on flimsy, time-degrading disk. Digital may be better than our ears can distinguish. But analog is still superior. Just like with movies where a bunch of still images are arraigned to fool the brain. While real motion is analog in nature.
I agree. Best to get a used original - pre digital. I just think some "purists" or "audiophiles" take it too far and too seriously. It's just music, not rocket science.
@@skylabsaudio interesting comparison! Ironically, as I understand, many of the innovations in DSP design (algorithms, filter design, converters, etc.) were developed as part of the space program (for communications, navigation, control and sensors/video processing) in the 60’s, 70’s. …so yeah, the modern recordings we listen to are “rocket science” :-)
@@kemosabe551 you Are exactly correct NASA developed digital timing for its exactness needed for their projects everything else is a product of that technology...FYI There is more tech in your phone then what was in the Apollo space program
Well analog isn’t coming back N used analog will stop existing so you can kick n scream but it’s inevitable
@@jissanhuq3792 Yeah, i would agree, and I would go further to say that if the sound engineers/mixers had modern digital technology back then, they would have used it on the original pressings. I have not followed this issue very closely, and as an EE/DSP engineer myself, I’m actually surprised there exists this purist 1-step analog audiophile community at all. It makes no sense. I just assumed that audiophiles would want to use modern technology to go back and clean up/enhance/equalize, etc., the original masters tapes, and produce a modern mastered/mixed version for today’s HiFi equipment.
The point that pisses me off they asked for analog triple AAA prices while using 64 bit digital get out of here will never buy any of there stuff on principle.
“Their”
Spell ass-u-me. The one step to me was more about the way they pressed the record, that's what you are paying for, granted I would never pay that for a record. I enjoy the "music" more than the sound. It's nice to have better pressings but it's 2022. Yea MoFi wasn't up front but they are not required to divulge their process. A record has to get eq'ing on mastering and play back and the possibility of every RIAA circuit being identical is impossible so records add "color". At the front of the process a tape or a DSD makes no diff. NOBODY's hearing can tell! The technical qualities are far above human hearing, anything to the contrary is placebo. And I have watched the Bernie Grundman stuff. He never claimed to hear a diff. between tape and DSD, much less by the time it got pressed. People should not assume stuff or don't get mad when you were wrong. Again MoFi should have been much more transparent but maybe they didn't think it was that important if they believed it was a better product.
I don't know if you are old enough to remember the Columbia Record Club. but to suck you in to purchasing an album a month, they would offer like 11 albums for a buck ninety nine, then you were stuck in a year contract. That wasn't the bad part. The worst of it was the cheap vinyl and pressing they used to make those albums for Columbia House. They were junk. Maybe 20 plays and they were shot. And even the first plays, they sounded like crap.
@@texasbassranger I started listening to music before there were 4 track tapes, no FM radio, AM only. I remember the Columbia House record club of the month. Also back then a lot of the equipment they were played on was not kind to records. I myself never bought any of that stuff. Over the years I have accumulated lots of stuff. Remember Longines record compilations? It was a way to get collections of different pieces of music without buying a record just for 1 song. Some of the pressings were bad some not so bad, but if your getting it for the music so what if it's not the best. As I said I started listening by carrying an AM radio up to my ear walking home from school.
I dig-it!
It just made a lot of analogue evangelists look like they don't know what they're talking about. Proof is in the one-step pudding. That doesn't excuse MoFi for misleading, but I sort of understand that the evangelism would've made the truth unmarketable.
My Pure Vegan Hot Dog's are Full of Pig Assh$%les !!??
Hahaha.. what a mess.
But the reality is folks... in the end... Do the Records sound good ?
Do you like the sound ?
That's all I want, good sounding pressings.
MOFI should has come clean sooner, but i don't care about the sources.
Cheers.
Give people their money back for return or if they like it keep the lp. And move on.
There's absolutely no point in listening to a vinyl record that's not all analog, unless you're doing it for the nostalgia of "playing a record". I told my friend that there's no point in buying an LP unless it's all analog. You might as well listen to a CD or a digital file and have much better sound quality because you eliminate the physical aspect of a stylus in a groove, and all the shortcomings. I have a lot of albums, but most of them were made prior to the digital process. Do I have any albums that sound good that were made with a digital link in the chain? Probably. They (Mo-Fi) should have just been honest about their technical process. Case in Point: when CDs are made, they indicate right on the jacket what the process was such as AAD, ADD, or DDD. You surely did not see the sales of CDs take a nose dive because this information of the process was shown. Why didn't Mo-Fi just do the same?? Did they really think that nobody would find out?? Well, I don't own any Mo-Fi albums, and now I'll never purchase one. They misled everyone into thinking they were selling a diamond, when they were, in fact, pushing cubic zirconia.
"There's absolutely no point in listening to a vinyl record that's not all analog ... You might as well listen to a CD or a digital file and have much better sound quality because you eliminate the physical aspect of a stylus in a groove, and all the shortcomings."
I don't think everybody feels the same way about that. I've often seen people claim they liked the vinyl version of a certain digitally recorded album better. (For instance 'Brothers in arms - Dire Straits") The reason why this is the case, I think has to do with all the steps that are needed to create and playback the vinyl, which all color the sound. This doesn't always have to be perceived as a negative thing, though. When listening to music, the human ear doesn't measure things like; harmonic distortion, S/N ratio, Wow and flutter, etc. We just listen to how it sounds and subjectively feel one thing sounds nicer than the other. Sound technically digital playback has always been 'better' than analog vinyl playback. It has no Wow and flutter, much higher dynamic range and channel separation, better low frequency response, more linear frequency response, almost no harmonic distortion, etc. Yet many people prefer the sound of the 'inferior' analog tape and vinyl playback.
The problem with the MoFi case however, doesn't have to do with how their records sound. It's all about not selling what people were made to believe they are selling. The price premium for the direct from analog master would be justified, but this doesn't apply in the same way to a cut from a DSD file. That's what the whole thing is about. Not if 'digital' alters the sound of the records or not, or if making vinyl from a digital source makes any sense to begin with.
@@MacXpert74 I agree with you. I enjoy vinyl on a number of different turntables. My old Garrard Type A turntables still blow people away when we listen to them. Very engaging sound. Of course those old ones don't have the detail that a lighter tracking turntable/cartridge has, but they sound nice. The deception that was done in this case will really turn people off and some will never look back to buy again. I'd be very upset if I spent all that money because I thought I was getting all analog. These days I still enjoy listening to CDs too. Anything higher res than a CD, I'm not sure I'd be able to notice a difference anyway.
They really need to come up with something to keep their customers.
@@anthonyhfe6450 Yes, they've really hurt their business by being misleading about the process. It's not just that they didn't tell people about the digital link in the chain, but more that they really made it seem like they cut the lacquers directly from the mastertape output. Also their claim that copying the master to another analog tape would give an inferior product, is misleading, as this was never mentioned as a step in their original marketing. From their marketing it was always understood that it was a direct cut from the master tape, not from a copy from that mastertape (be it analog or digital).
I think they will now have a hard time regaining customer trust. They at least need to be completely open how every release is done, and maybe drop the prices to a more reasonable level, for everything that isn't a real analog cut.
And I still listen to my 128k mp3s. They still sound good to me. 😆
So much for the audiophile snobs 🤣 Proves without a doubt they can't tell analog from digital. MOFI never states ALL ANALOG on the label does it.. MOFI sounds pretty damn good. 👍
It's easy to tell digital vs analog; however, if it has been bounced too tape then it would be harder. These are master tapes and the DSD256 recordings will sound like the master tapes (i.e. analog). Tape colors the audio - which most people like, myself included. I'm on the hunt for pure DSD recording that are never converted to PCM - there are a few labels that do pure DSD recordings.
Audiophiles were loving it until they found out... I guess their ear for sound wasn't as fine tuned as the were bragging on it to be... lol lol lol Don't get me wrong, I claim to be an audiophile, but that term is subjective and is used so flippantly these days.
💯
I used to consider myself an audiophile...that is until I met some. I want no part of that frickin' food fight.
Vinyl records are already low resolution formats, so it's real funny to hear people angry about the perceived quality of something that is already at a low bar.
Vinyl was replaced for numerous reasons.
I disagree with your statement. Vinyl IS NOT LOW RESOLUTION!!! You probably don't have a good playback system for Vinyl. Sir....you have a lot to learn about Vinyl and the analog world!!!!
You have alot to learn about Vinyl and the analog world. We live in a analog world with our ears.....stupid!!!!!
@@lox_5017 Vinyl is a sub-par format. Alone the fact you have to use crazy amounts of equalization (RIAA) for it to be decent says a lot. It messes with the phase relationships and imaging. Unless you use a linear-phase EQ, but that has other worse side-effects such as pre-ringing at low frequencies. True audiophiles use at least 1/2" tape at 30 ips. The only reason why tape didn't become a consumer-format was price. And here we are today with so-called audiophiles who praise this car-crash of a format. It sounds horrible. What you call 'warmth' is what I call distortion - because it is.
Vinyl is very strong right now. It ain’t been replaced by anything.
@@jakobole it is selling extremely well.
Pure analog. Golden ears. Paying exorbitant prices. Audio analog suckers youve been duped. Egg on everyones face.
Surprise, they could not hear a "digital link in the chain". If the music sounds good to you, that is all that matters.
I thought it was l about the music. Then it was all about the sound. Now it's all about the process. Why? Because analog is their religion and they've been humiliated.
The people that were really hurt are the speculators and flippers...that's a good thing.
Or the fake audiophiles that could always hear the difference which is why they choose no-fi 😂
And folks who paid a real premium for a bill of goods they never got
I have many MFSL from the 70's they sound great, I don't care if they use digital to record the newer ones also sound great that is all that counts.
As someone who mixes music, and deals with analog tape daily with conversion, I can see why the DSD step was added. Analog tape deteriorates, a DSD copy of the master is best possible resolution “save” of a master in time before deteriorating more.
Most music recorded after 1983 has some sort of PCM stage in it and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was tape noise reduction done in PCM before “up sampling” to DSD. End of story, it’s the mastering engineers ears that count and what people are really responding to positively or negatively when they listen to a piece of music on any format
Yes. Agree 💯
The Plangent Process is discussed in this video. Errol Garner’s masters were rescued using the method. ua-cam.com/video/Owil9hHJbhA/v-deo.html
Music to my ears. I've been using cassette tapes for a long time and still do ( UA-cam tapes well). The one thing I learned a long time ago is that CDs made a far better recoding than a vinyl album. I was able to get the full dynamic range out of the tape that way ...providing CD was mastered well. Adding the noise and distortion from the vinyl to the tape was the biggest draw back for a cassette. So it makes perfect sense to use a digital copy of a master tape as opposed to making another tape copy of the master , your point about how tapes degrade over time is certainly true and I hope that digital copies were made a long time ago. I like my old albums and I like my cassettes , but the noise and distortion is certainly present and undeniable. So I would only have hoped that the sorce for these vinyl records were passed along as digital and the original master tapes remain in the vault. The whole idea that these tapes were being pulled out of vaults and being physically handled to transfer to another tape is pretty nieve .
Good review. Sums it up nicely.
I have two question:
(1) Hey MoFi fans -- Do you actually compare your MoFi "all-analog" LP to "regular" LPs of the same performance, and can you tell the diff? Do you do BDX?
(2) Hey MoFi -- are you going to release a list of all those records which were "tainted" by the DSD step?
The lesson for me -- I love my DSD even more. (1) Pure DSD files from Blue Coast Records., nativeDSD, Octave Records, 2L, etc. (2) Or playing the DSD layer off SACDs. My digital playback system sounds as good as any TT setup I have heard. You need good equipment -- streamer/player, SACD player, DAC.
As an audio engineer, it’s been an interesting development to me. Most “audiophiles” listen to music from the late 1950’s-1985 or so, which makes sense because those were the days in which all recording & musical equipment was analog. However, by the early 80’s most recording studios had begun to employ at least some equipment using digital technologies (reverb units & time-based effects, synths, etc). By the late 80’s the ADAT had infiltrated soooo many studios as a recording medium, either as the only recording device, or tape machines were often bounced to ADAT for mixing because it was viewed as a more stable (ie: less flammable and brittle) historical medium.
So while I’ve always been intrigued by the more streamlined manufacturing processes of the MoFi products (removing extra production steps) I’ve never personally bought into the idea of an all-analog process is inherently superior. I also suspect that in the near future companies like MoFi would have an increasingly difficult time sourcing music that is of interest to a broad enough consumer base that was made exclusively using analog equipment.
Great points! Thanks for sharing. I am not sure if digital audio has killed the majority of modern recordings. Or if "cut and paste" via Protools, Autotune and Beat Detective are more to blame for removing the "good flaws" from music.
THE ISSUE IS NOT QUALITY BUT ETHICS!! MOFI should have included the digital step on their advertisings, and must include now! If not they are misleading their costumers!!
If they put in the work and said "hey guys, we need to take a digital step here because of this and that with the master", I think most people would be fine and even excited. Most people haven't heard DSD (though didn't they say DXD in the interview, but states DSD on the webpage?). I would have still bought some MOFIs if I knew, but not all. A lot of people buy because Mofi was a "trusted" brand. For me Mofis are hit and miss, some are great and some not so great but usually not as good as Analogue Production. I tried pure digital for years, but for me a lot of it never sounded right. Maybe time to invest in DSD?
Agree! A little transparency would have gone a long way. Will be interesting to see if they can get their reputation back.
I would actually be interested in the whole Tape > DSD > Vinyl, product. If it were a separate product. There could be a new category of vinyl, 'Digi-Vinyl', AnalogueVinyl and original vinyl. Would be an interesting challenge - how to get the best sound.. But they've shot themselves in the foot.
Agreed. I too am one Mofi consumer that has not been totally happy with all my Mofi pressings. Some are great and some don’t sound good at all. It is very disappointing. I can honestly say every single AP pressing I have is an absolute killer sounding record. I am not as big of a collector as I am sure most of you are, but I bet I have about 2 dozen Mofi and about the same from AP. I am hitting 100% satisfaction rate with AP and about 50% with Mofi. With those percentages, it is hard to convince me that digital is where it is at? Having said that a a lot has to do with who is doing the mastering. AP uses the Masters of the art, Bernie Grundman, Kevin Grey just to name a few. Maybe Mofi can get some of these guys to come back and put their golden touch on some of these killer titles?
You can invest in DSD, but you’re not going to get recordings in 4x DSD they use to create the lacquer, nor will you have a DAC that matches the quality of MoFi’s when they cut the lacquer. A rather modest vinyl setup with vintage equipment might give you a better experience than playing back digital through your own digital setup. At least that’s been my experience.
I switched to DSD256 files only along with a Dragonfly RED DAC and have enjoyed the sound quite a bit. It's the best I ever heard a digital file sound like "analog" than any PCM file like Flac or WAV files.
Their edition of Dark Side Of The Moon came out in the early 80's, and it was all analogue, just like every record back in the day.
also, MoFi recorded over the ORIGINAL with their NEW Master. Much to their surprise, Pink Floyd liked it better because the MoFi engineer at the time was able to remove the clicks that had been there previously that Parsons couldn't get rid of do to technology limitations. Little bit of history.
I'd tread carefully with that statment.
They lied for profit, it's that simple.
But some people say "it doesn't matter, as long as it sounds good"
Some people are ok with being lied to and ripped off it seems.
To those of you who say it doesn't matter, I've got some premium bottled water to sell you.
It still tastes good, so "it doesn't matter" that you'll be paying a premium price for my tap water right?
I think those people are usually talking about the digital step and not the price.
@@Beeraltar
Yes the digital step doesn't matter as long as they're letting everyone know about it, but I'm talking about the people who think it doesn't matter as long as the end result sounds good
they didn't use digital because it was cheaper or easier. they used it because it was better and more transparent as a transfer medium from the source tapes. they "ripped you off" by giving you a better product.
@@dkeener13
So why did they try to hide that they were using it?
I have no issue with them using it and i don't really care about their reasons for using it.
But I care about them lying about using it
@@crazyprayingmantis5596 on the marketing end I think it's reasonable to say they lied by omission. they let the voodoo practitioners run with the idea that their product was undefiled analog. They also knew a large segment of their target audience are the easiest marks on the planet, happily spending thousands on power cables, interconnects, etc., so of course they want in on the game. A hundred bucks for an LP that actually sounds phenomenal is a tiny infraction compared to what these people get hoodwinked for on a daily basis. Mofi sells a $400 LP paperweight on their site. Which seems crazy, except other "high end" companies sell ones that cost thousands. Don't hate the playa hate the game.
Hello... Where are the audiophiles' golden ears? I just bought two records from MoFi one or two years ago and I realized that sounds like my SACDs version, so I didn't buy any MoFi anymore. MoFi records comparing with my old records MoFi sounds kind of bright, like digital... I think audiophiles' ears fool them too...
If they're going to make a DSD copy, why buy a vinyl pressing of it? I'd rather just buy the DSD!
It sounds better 😀
Mofi Gate is the best DSD promation campaign😅 ever for a digital audio format (thanks to Mofi). So much fun also to watch historical shootout videos like eg Mofi vinyl records (supposedly analog resourced then) against Music on vinyl records (digitally resourced) with the result (haha) „Mofi is much better because it is analog“. I also think that all reissue labels need way more transparency considering their hype sticker information such as „recorded from analog tape“.
Hardly ANY say “cut from the original tape” for a reason. It ain’t done that way anymore.
There are 2 issues here. 1. the real or perceived fidelity issues. 2. the deception. The organic food analogy is perfect. Some people may think organic tastes better. It's subjective. But to be sold organic that is NOT is a big problem.
once you are in the digital domain, just release the album as a file. what is the point of pressing digital into vinyl??
Vinyl has a lot of things to offer other than sound. Personally, I don't buy vinyl because I think it sounds better. I do think it sounds different, but I do not think I can tell if it came from a quality digital source or analog, so it changes nothing for me.
The industry should get back to selling SACDs or DSD downloads...or DSD streaming (if that's a thing). I'd much rather hear a straight DSD file or an SACD than a dirty, filtered copy of it on vinyl. I personally pretty much only buy records pressed in the 70s and before or records cut by Bernie Grundman/Chris Bellman...or maybe some records where the labeling is very clear about an AAA chain, like the Abbey Road-mastered Beatles in Mono releases. I rarely buy anything with vague descriptions -- "Mastered from the original analog tapes" means jack shit to anyone who has any knowledge of recording. To me that always most likely meant, "copied from the original mix reels to 24/96 digital or DSD and then mastered onto a computer for editing and disc cutting." ...so I'm not terribly upset about this news because I only blew $ on one recent MoFi release -- the 2012 Cyndi Lauper "She's So Unusual" reissue...which I listened to once and felt it didnt sound any better than the original pressing.
The good thing about this "crisis" is that audiophile snobs are gonna mellow out some, ALL record companies (not just MoFi) are going to have to label their vinyl mastering info more clearly from now on, and hopefully the big majors will start taking a little more care and consideration with the whole "all-analog" thing while they're pushing shit tons of digitally recorded AND digitally cut Adele records at Wal-Mart.
It was really tragic that SACD never caught on. Sony/Phillips put so much effort into selling CDs as "perfect sound forever" that the electronics industry couldn't get the message across to consumers that there were formats newly available that were obviously so much better.
In the old days Telarc recorded and mastered in their digital system and then pressed vinyl. It was a good thing.
Then came the CD, so Telarc and others had a jump in producing new and re-released music on CD, and that was an even better thing in my opinion. I still have both forms from those early days of my life.
Today I find vinyl way too costly no matter how the mastering was done. And the random quality of pressings is frustrating. So I've decided that it's better to invest in quality CD playback equipment. There's lots of good used sound systems needing a new home when their older owners pass on. Half of my rig is from such sources and soon enough my day will come too.
Telarc had some great engineers there...
I think your "two groups" are accurate, but I would cast them a little differently.
1) consumers. I would say speculators. the people who pay $3K for Abraxas and wouldn't dare drack a rock through it more than once or twice just to say they did. the people who buy all these 1-steps before they come out with the intention of selling them later when the price rises. that's who is hurt by this. people who bought them to enjoy (consume) them don't enjoy them any less.
2) writers. I would say BS artists. people who made snake oil claims about analog and digital and have been exposed as frauds. if these folks are upset it's a good thing IMO.
I gave up on vinyl in '83 and have never looked back with any regret. I have 40 year old CD's that have thousands of plays over the years and still sound as good as they did in 83. I bought over 300 CD's over the last 3 years because people were just dumping their entire CD library to buy vinyl that is digitally sourced. 😂
Great analysis. However, music companies are compressing the sh*t out of most digital archives (probably to save $$$$ on storage costs). Listen to most CDs/'Best Of...' albums today and then listen to a 1985-1990 original! Night and day difference.
Simply listen to an original 1967 recording of a Doors album..... you will not hear better TODAY!
I have just got the Japanese import CD of The Who's 'Who's Next/Lifehouse' mixed by Glyn Johns. The 1971 demo track of 'Mary' is sublime!!!
Got a couple of Santana best of instrumental releases. Can't believe he let them be released the sound quality is so bad.
If they would have said at the start that using dsd files mastered from the master tapes to preserve the tapes for the future preservation would have been accepted by the customers
The joke here is no matter what, all re-released versions probably come from the same source, those original master recordings, the only difference is there remastered by someone for a specific media platform, CD DVD Vinyl. If you take a DSD copy from a tape machine it should be 100% accurate, however if you copy from tape machine to tape machine you are adding in potentially extra colouring from the second machine so its again potentially NOT 100% accurate. Mofi take a copy and apply mastering so as to take full advantage of their higher grade plastic vinyl over mainstream labels who potentially use cheaper thinner vinyl. SO when anyone claims one record sound better than another its all down to two things, the quality of the pressing and the mastering. The source they are using is almost certainly in all cases, the same.
Just come out and say it, I believe the reviewer you are speaking of is Michael Fremer, who left Stereophile magazine and is now at the Absolute Sound magazine. Mike from the ingroove did a good job and Fremer was pissed that he wasn't asked because he would have asked harder questions.
Mike from 45rpm asked this question first and it was regarding the Michael Jackson Thriller, 40,000 copies. Mofi would have gotten away with this if they had kept the number down to 3000-5000 copies.
Mike from the ingroove picked up on this after Mike 45rpm asked the question. Mike 45rpm is actually hurt by this because he made recommendations based off a lie and he is changing his practices to now buy originals to compare the remaster too. I have always been a believer in originals first.
I have Mofi records, but I have only one that I paid full price for and that was the Miles Davis Kind of Blue. I did pay full price for the Miles Davis Kind of Blue-UHQR, the Craft Recording of a Miles Davis Record and there is one more UHQR that I own, that I can't remember right now.
I would say, I own 10 one-steps that I bought used, non over 90.00 and one mint minus for $30.00 and other regular Mofi pre one steps, about twenty that I might have paid between 15.00-40.00 used prices and some Mofi cds and hybrid cds.
Will I sale my Mofi collection, no, but I do understand why people are pissed and you are right, they look stupid now and Mofi was deceptive and credibilities have been damaged.
If you are a true audiophile, it's not about a format, it is about the music, the equipment and format that you own is just a means of getting you there.
I love all of the formats, cds, streaming, reel to reel, cassette tape and vinyl. I own them all and there are some recordings on all of the formats that sound good and some that sound like crap.
The Kevin Gray version of Marvin Gaye record is better sounding than the Mofi One-step and now I know why, maybe. I have noticed this with other One-Steps. Mofi better get ahead of this or it will get ahead of them.
My Santana Abraxxas that I bought is a hybrid sacd/cd, for $30.00, because there is no way that I would have ever spent 2,000 dollars on that record or any other recording especially with what we know now.
People forget or don't know about flac I mean high grade digital if it sounds great like you said what's wrong, I used for music sampling youyube2mp3 just cuz of a shitty texture it gets its an aesthetic use but a lot of the time not the average music listener would even know Bout any of this cuz they just think oh if its got a brand name and sound "OK" its all they need "Example would be beats by dre headphone, a lot of praise cuz they "sound good"but the average listener wouldn't look into the graphs and see they arnt flat sou ding they have boosts like eqing music in their chips so they arnt nature, like digital its not the best like analog or flat headphones to get the real sound but people just like what they like,and don't care about bro in depth which is sad but you hit it on the nail, when you said everyone thinks digital means MP3 but you know ignorance us bliss, Most won't look up and research I mean personal I'm just mad at mofi for lying that's all i ain't a that deep into vynl but I know a lot about music and hate when people can't take an extra 10mins looking up extra stuff like I said there's mp3/wav/M4a/flac but wouldnt know that cuz they only think marketing and face value
It doesn’t matter because of the limitations of analog equipment regardless of how much they cost. There is a lot of BS in the Audiophile equipment market and some people have been sucked into it for too long. This nonsense of charging thousands for conventional technology with fancy names and faceplates is a joke. Most reviewers are a joke with their platinum ears!!
I don't really care. Mainly because I don't spend any time trying to convince anyone of analog's superiority. In my opinion, the main thing analog has going for it is that it's how we hear, literally. Given the advances in digital's ability to duplicate sound, it stands to reason that a digital copy of a master tape will sound better than the original tape ten years from now after repeated plays of the tape. I have a respectable collection of MFSL vinyl that is going nowhere until I'm long gone. Much ado about nothin, in my opinion.
Yeah what a mess lol. I dont care about vinyl and definitely i dont care about overpriced digital vinyl
Hey..anyone used a MoFi record and converted to digital ftom vinyl?🤣🤣🤣🤣👍
I know what you’ve got behind your back. Records…more new all-analogue records…
Like you, I'm not an analog purist nor am I an audiophile. I'm a music fan and collector. I appreciate when a record sounds good to my ears and that's my bottom line. Of course I understand the shady aspects of what MoFi did and the uproar over that is justifiable. However, it doesn't change the fact that many of their releases have drawn high praise because of the sound quality. Will this situation result in prices of MoFi vinyl being lowered somewhat? It would be nice but I doubt it. Now that the cat's out of the bag, we all have the choice to buy or not.
I haven't bought a Mo-Fi recording in around 3 decades. I don't know if they used any digital in the process. Even then some were dreamy while others were not to my liking. With the tapes they age slowly at first. but after 20 years they go downhill quickly. Just listen to what sounds best to you no matter who puts them out.
Bring on the used MoFi copies......I'll buy a few for the low low 🤣
Lolol yeah not happening. In the rare instance the 10 people who would care so much do that, they’d be gone in milliseconds
It won’t change the pricing. The older MoFi releases are not digital, still very pricey