audioexchange

Update: MOFI have quietly relabeled the production chain for many of their vinyl products (but not the one steps) see the image below:

Original Post:

Having had about 10 days to digest the Mobile Fidelity cut from digital masters shock – I thought that I would give you my own personal thoughts on the issue. Currently there are about 400 pages of sanctimonious comments on the Hoffman forums by irritated record buyers who believe that they have been suckered. There are probably another 400 blogs and youtube videos ridiculing “snobby audiophiles” for paying so much and then looking like suckers. I have looked at a couple of hilarious videos of vloggers telling “digital hating audiophiles” to “turn the bullshit” down. I don’t think that the critics quite get it. A lot of people have invested a lot of time and money into building what they thought were valuable record collections – only to discover that there were provenance issues with their property. I am going to use a couple of art world metaphors in this post – the first one worth reading is about the woman who thought she had a very valuable Marc Chagall painting. The painting may be nice to look at regardless of who painted it – but if it is a Chagall it is worth millions, if not, it is wallpaper.

I previously posted a system for determining the price of a new audiophile record. I deliberately did not price in AAA versus ADA for the simple reason that, most of the time, it is the quality of the mastering rather than the source – digital or analogue – that really matters. You can see this with Kevin Gray’s Blue Note releases – old (AAA) and new (DDA). This is not an argument of analogue versus digital – it is about cost and value.

Let me be clear – I am not an audiophile “snob” but I have bought records that I believe to have existed entirely in the analogue domain because I believe that 1. They may sound better, 2. They have long term collector value. There is a good reason why Music On Vinyl (MOV) reissues do not have the enormous resale value on Discogs that albums from Analogue Productions, Impex, Org, Mofi and others have: MOV are up front about their digital sources – and knowing this buyers also know that the company can keep pressing up digitally derived copies FOREVER. When MOFI released only 2500 copies of Abraxis One Step – the selling price skyrocketed up to almost $3000 because 1. Apparently it sounded amazing, 2. There would be no more copies pressed ever, 3. Buyers believed that it would be the ultimate reissue version. Now that we know that the record was derived from a DXD master – we also know that MOFI could potentially cut an unlimited number of acetates. In the collector realm – scarcity is everything and it trumps quality. Many of those Abraxis One Steps have never been played.

A way to look at this is from an art collector perspective. I am a big fan of Romero Britto’s artwork. I could (but can’t) buy an original painting by Britto for $45,000. That painting is the equivalent of the master tape. I can buy a serigraph of the original for about $4000 – and that will look pretty much the same, with beautiful colour and texture and a signature – that is an all analogue silkscreen-type copy. Or I could buy a poster or print for 1/10^th of that price (maybe lower) – that is an analogue reproduction of a digital photograph. It is the same picture, the poster looks the same as the original – but may lack the colour depth, the detail and the texture and emotional impact of the original and the serigraph. A photograph of the painting on the screen (like streaming) may be as enjoyable as seeing the picture in person – but it is not the same thing. Collectors – whether they are “snobby audiophiles” or not – believed that by buying MOFI products they were getting serigraphs not posters. What they were getting from MOFI were posters dressed up as serigraphs.  When I bought the One Step version of The Nightfly – I knew exactly what I was getting. When I bought Portrait in Jazz, I did not.

A couple of years ago I decided that I needed to obtain a vinyl copy of Texas Flood by Stevie Ray Vaughan (already having a copy on CD and tape). There were several options available to me. First, I could buy the original pressing for €$25 in near mint condition. Large volume early 80s records are notoriously variable in quality. Secondly I could buy a reissue: the 2010 MOV version (about €20) or the Sundazed version – both of which I discounted because of digital (former) and quality control (latter) concern. I was strongly tempted by the Analogue Productions 2 x 45LP (about $80) and was about to buy it when I spotted a copy of the One Step from the UK @£100 (pre Brexit). This is not an audiophile recording (it is actually a bunch of demos) but I was led to believe by the hype that this was the last word in vinyl reproduction and would be slightly better than the AP version. In reality this version – that retailed for $125 (the early one steps were $99) – was really not a lot different, being digitally sourced, than the MOV record. Nevertheless, it was pressed on supervinyl, in nice polys, in a big box with lots of foam and mastered by a “named engineer.” So still an audiophile product – just not of the same audiophile grade as the AP version. So, yes I was misled. Oh, and I still prefer the CD – not having to flip sides every 7 minutes.

Many of my MOFI purchases were to “have the last word” on the album: i.e. the belief that this would be the best version that I would hear (and stop that compelling quest for perfection). So I bought most of the Elvis Costello MOFIs (admittedly at a sale in Newbury Comics in Boston at very reasonable prices). I can say categorically that the MOFI version of Armed Forces is not better than my original pressed in Germany in 1979. But is is not worse. Given a choice – I would keep the MOFI. MOFI’s reissue of Almost Blue is vastly superior to the Back to Black version on UME. I absolutely do not regret buying any of these MOFI Costello recordings – they sound great – were reasonably priced ($30 I think) and are packaged beautifully.

Conversely, I bought a bunch of the Bob Dylan Sundazed albums – and I thought that they sounded good but not great (not as good as the SACDs) in the 00s. I bought one or two from MOV – which I thought sounded pretty good. Then I saw the MOFI version of “Blood on the Tracks” in a record shop (33rpm) for a reasonable price – and thought it sounded ok – but not stellar. Subsequently I bought most of the Dylan classics on MOFI (2 x 45rpm) and they were good but not amazing sounding. If you look at Discogs – The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (I have #217 of I don’t know how many) – the median selling price is $170. It was sold, Mint, a couple of months ago (#1940) for €300. Nobody is paying that kind of money for an SACD pressed onto vinyl (this was a 2018 release). You can buy the MOFI SACD for €25 today. I haven’t heard it, but I cannot imagine that it is any better than the 2003 Columbia SACD or the Mono CD box set version or myriad other CD reissues – all of which sound pretty good.

For what it is worth, I have several versions of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew – CD, superdeluxe CD, CD box set, HiRes Audio etc. I bought a MOV version of this album in 2010 – and frankly it was disappointing. I ordered the MOFI version, on release in 2014 (eventually receiving #7451!) – and it is several levels of audio quality better than the MOV (apparently the original vinyl release sounded horrible). They may both be derived from digital files – but the MOFI version is stunningly good and I don’t care about the provenance. I have a number of the MOFI Miles Davis records – unimpressed by Kind of Blue – but Milestones and In a Silent Way sound fabulous (and I have several digital and vinyl versions of both).

I have heard stories of customers bringing cartloads of MOFI albums back to record shops (see video below) – but I must confess that, having gone through my collection, I wouldn’t give any of them back. I particularly like The Cars, Santana III (both silver label), Tapestry and the Weezer reissues. None of these set me back big money (and none was in the same price range as some of the current Acoustic Sounds jazz reissues).

I think, when the dust settles, many people will be like me – yeah I rather like most of my MOFI albums – few of them sounded astonishingly good, but they were thoughtfully packaged and presented and, in the majority of cases, sound as good as the original pressings and CDs. Probably more than a few of the “Original Master Recordings” in the 33rpm and 2 x 45rpm catalogue are actually AAA (from second generation tape – we don’t know because they have not told us). However, there is no doubt that they have a problem with the highly expensive One Steps. The company seems to have a whole bunch of these ready to go (I see 25 “coming soon” on their website) – in particular the 40,000 copies of “Thriller.” I am not sure that, given the reputational damage that their deceit – and they did deceive us (I don’t care what bullshit semantics detractors of audiophiles claim – record collectors believed that the One Steps were AAA and no effort was made to dispel that myth) – that MOFI can continue to justify the price tag of these products (given that they saw a 25% price inflation despite greater numbers pressed after the first few titles). The $30 for the SACDs seems quite reasonable, nonetheless.

My final thought on MOFI – despite the almost puff piece interview with Mike Esposito and the Engineers (remember they evaded most of the questions) – the company – have not made an official comment, not apologized – not really done anything. I also note that the industry supported blogs such as AnalogPlanet, Stereophile, The Absolute Sound and other magazines – have so far published NOTHING on this subject – which concerns me about editorial control (would Fremer have published the scathing comments from his youtube channel if he was still working for Stereophile?). This has been a big eye opener for me, and does demonstrate the democratizing power of the internet.

One other aside: Analogue Productions are repressing the Complete Bill Evans Riversides (2 x 45rpm) – 11 albums 22 vinyl LPs. Last time this collection was reissued (it has been reissued twice before) it cost $599 – or about $25 per record – so each album cost $50 – not really expensive at the time for 2 x 45rpm (usually these retailed at about $80). I procastinated about such a big investment – and am not crazy about these 2 x 45rpm reissues (they ruin the flow of the record). Unfortunately, by the time I decided to take the plunge – they were all gone. The median selling price of this box on Discogs is $1000. Acoustic Sounds are now taking pre-orders for a new set for – guess what – $1000 (a 66% increase in price). “Limited to 3000” – even though the metalwork could press up an unlimited number. It is still probably a good investment – if you have a spare grand lying around (I don’t) – it is one of the great box sets. For the same price, at the Acoustic Sounds store, you can buy a MOFI one step copy of “Sunday at the Village Vanguard”(I wonder if the asking price for these rare pressings will fall?). So – is this where we are going – price inflation on AAA. It seems to me that the price of all records has gone up 30% (and with some new releases priced at over €40 – a lot more) since 2017 with no obvious improvement in quality (and no free CD and still only MP3 download codes). Will the bubble will burst?

Concord need to do a Bill Evans Riverside reissue series – get Kevin Gray, Bernie Grundman or Chris Bellman to cut the records at 33rpm and be done with it.

I am currently listening to a guaranteed AAA 1970 Japanese repress of Waltz for Debby – and, I really don’t think it could be improved on (aside from the dodgy cover) – and, you know what, I think that the CD (and the SACD) sound just as good, without the snap crackle and pop.

~ by Pat Neligan on July 26, 2022.

Posted in Digital Music, Retromania, Vinyl
Tags: Audiophile, Audiophile Vinyl, DSD, mobile fidelity digital scandal, MoFi, mofi digital, one step digital, one step dsd, sacd, vinyl reissues