JediJoker
2K Club - QQ Super Nova
The engineers absolutely did in that interview with the Arizona vinyl guy.
Mobile Fidelity - the digital step in MFSL vinyl debacle
- Thread starter windhoek
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“More workflow flexibility”…
Again, if it was truly done for quality improvement reasons, MFSL would have made the case why and how. Not only didn’t they, they still haven’t.
If their reason is 'to make far more copies' (I presume you mean copes of LPs?) why exactly is it bad for them to use a digital master in their workflow? And how exactly is that at odds with wanting to maintain highest quality?
jimfisheye
2K Club - QQ Super Nova
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Considering physical reality of the analog tape and 50 give or take years later you can't just be spinning those tapes left and right. I'd think had to make HD copies solely for that reason. I thought some of these tapes needed to be baked and then - alright, this is the last transfer!
Probably all of the above that's been mentioned from future reruns to quality control. And it probably honestly led to a better analog product in the end. It's just that they spent so much time suggesting digital was inferior that it was too late to admit that part was marketing bs. And that's unfortunate because intentions or results aside, that ended up being what is technically known as lying.
Could you imagine if these guys would have transitioned to looking for the original digital mix masters? Call out and cut through all the crude mastering of the modern age and volume wars. I'm sure there are legal reasons that make that impossible but it would have been welcome.
Probably all of the above that's been mentioned from future reruns to quality control. And it probably honestly led to a better analog product in the end. It's just that they spent so much time suggesting digital was inferior that it was too late to admit that part was marketing bs. And that's unfortunate because intentions or results aside, that ended up being what is technically known as lying.
Could you imagine if these guys would have transitioned to looking for the original digital mix masters? Call out and cut through all the crude mastering of the modern age and volume wars. I'm sure there are legal reasons that make that impossible but it would have been welcome.
This^^^
I clearly remember everyone being thrilled 30-40 years ago that all those old “original master” tapes were being converted to digital so they could be preserved forever. Now people are upset that MoFi isn’t still abusing those 50-60 year old tapes?
Because Perfect Sound Forever…was neither Perfect nor Forever perhaps?This^^^
I clearly remember everyone being thrilled 30-40 years ago that all those old “original master” tapes were being converted to digital so they could be preserved forever. Now people are upset that MoFi isn’t still abusing those 50-60 year old tapes?
Because they’re charging premium and super-premium process for a semi-premium process. Which is fine - as long as we’re told this and can make an informed value decision. If people want to pay $125 for a record and they know it was cut in much the same way many $30-$50 records are cut, that’s their choice.
Again, they didn’t obfuscate on this by accident and because they really think it makes a better record. They obfuscated because they can get access to recordings other more “transparent” labels can’t and then they can press more of those records at a lower cost - and they knew many would balk at paying super premium prices if they were aware the playing field wasn’t level and of how the sausage was actually being made.
Increasing economies of scale at the expense of quality is not new in the music or audio industry. What’s different in this case is by intentionally omitting any explicit announcement of the change, MFSL was implying it was still employing it’s traditional process for for cutting records.
I stopped watching when they started rationalizing the benefit of converting What’s Going On to DSD because each song had different calibration. Sorry, but that’s total BS.
and 50-60 year old analog tapes ARE?
Especially if the purpose is to run them through the ringer again for a limited edition release of a couple-thousand copies?
...Too fragile to be used, even on a limited basis...
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I can’t believe no one has watched/commented on this video from yesterday. For the most part, I found it quite good with answers to plenty of questions.
Using a lossless and easy to replicate process -- thus preserving consistent quality -- is 'semi-premium' only in vinylphile la la land.
But I have always agreed that Mofi knew the technically indefensible superstitions of the audience it was dealing with. And should have anticipated the blowback.
Was the 'perfect sound forever' marketing more absurd than the florid marketing claims of 'premium' vinyl are today?
Digital tech does at least offer more 'perfect sound' than vinyl, if by that you mean measurable fidelity to an analog master tape (the sort of sources Mofi traffics in).
Whether that's achieved in practice, is of course a matter of application.
For that particular album, or in general? Isn't a 'premium' approach one that strives to achieve best setup for each master tape of an album?
I agree that archiving a master reel to reel at 24/192 and above is fine.
For many years now, I've been recording my LPs at 24/96 WAV and the resulting sound is an extremely close facsimile of the LP. Of course, when I upgrade the cartridge, preamp or any other parts of the turntable and AD/DAC it sort of makes the recordings moot because I use the recordings for convenience, not archival.
Now, a tape doesn't have the distortions that we so love in an LP, so it is capable of a much accurate sound. So, a very high bit rate recording is fine for archival... and likely much safer.
It's not like we're back to the bad old days of the very early 80s when DG was releasing those horrendous sounding CDs processed in DDD.
Claiming a conversion to digital - and then back to analog - isn’t a semi-premium process for producing vinyl is digital la la land rationalizing.
Digital tech - in and of itself - offers some benefits and some drawbacks compared to analog. Both in theory and in practice. It’s not perfect.
The point is that others have cut excellent (and pretty arguably better) versions of What’s Going On without having to resort to digitizing. To claim it improved cutting of that LP is utter nonsense.
It’s more obfuscation for the primary reason they‘re using a digital copy…it’s better for the bottom line.
Sure, trying to achieve the best setup for each master tape is the goal. But claiming that converting to digital now unconditionally achieves that is just BS.
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No, they’re not perfect. But they’re the most perfect version of those recordings.
Many old tapes are still in fine shape. Running them through the “ringer” to press a few thousand copies to meet a few thousand copies of demand isn’t going to hurt anything. But of course many tapes are not for a variety of reasons. I’m not saying there aren’t rational and logical reasons for sometimes converting a tape to digital to cut to vinyl.
But by and large that’s not why MFSL is doing it. They’re doing because it’s better for their bottom line...which is fine as long as they’re up front about it. However they haven’t been - and I predict they’ll come up with some more marketing BS to try to continue averting people’s eyes away from the fact they’re charging $125 for something little different from a whole bunch of $40 records.
https://tams.informatik.uni-hamburg...beitung/high-quality-audio-coding.pdf#page=19^^^
[PCM]...audible transparency...58kHz sampling rate...20-bit representation...
IMHO, MoFi should calculate the error in their DSD storage systems for vinyl mastering and make a statement such that the error is 5 times (or 10 times or whatever) below what the human ear can detect, indicating it isn't a major contributor to noise/distortion.
Kirk Bayne
[PCM]...audible transparency...58kHz sampling rate...20-bit representation...
IMHO, MoFi should calculate the error in their DSD storage systems for vinyl mastering and make a statement such that the error is 5 times (or 10 times or whatever) below what the human ear can detect, indicating it isn't a major contributor to noise/distortion.
Kirk Bayne
I wouldn’t be surprised if they do - even though it’s just one largely meaningless data point.
And yet guys like Bernie Grundman (and many other mastering engineers) say your ears are the ultimate test - not measurements - and they hear something is lost in the digital conversion step(s).
There’s an old adage, if you ears aren’t hearing what the measurements say you should be hearing, you’re measuring the wrong thing.
You can still make a very good record using digital sources. There are lots of really good $30 records from digital sources. But MFSL isn’t doing this because it makes a better record. And they didn’t quiet about it because it makes a better record. They’re doing it - and kept quiet about it - because they can make more money using a digital source.
