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Mobile Fidelity, ‘One Step’ etc

Not knowing until recently about the connection between MoFi and Mystic Moods, I perked up when I ran across this in a thrift store yesterday:

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A mid-70s Mystic Moods release from "Mobile Fidelity of Nevada Productions" – some sort of weird transitional MoFi entity?

Anyway, just thought it was interesting. The music itself is weird and kitschy, but the sound is pretty good.
Is that CD oval-shaped or have you messed with the image proportions?!
 
Great video. I suspect that most of us can agree that the special magic sauce mentioned must simply be some form of even harmonic distortion - being tape saturation or even the vinyl material vibrating?
 
Great video. I suspect that most of us can agree that the special magic sauce mentioned must simply be some form of even harmonic distortion - being tape saturation or even the vinyl material vibrating?

A convolution of a few things I imagine, the compression and behaviour of the cutting system, the response of the playback system etc on the physics side but also the 'forced experience' of vinyl playback sets you in a different frame of mind, the sleeve and artwork and the process of setting it up to play - the mind does funny things to us.
 
Conclusion - modern digital recording technology, when employed with care, is transparent and undetectable. Do we need any further evidence other than this debacle?

I stopped buying Mofi pressings after 1999, the newer Music Direct pressings always sounded off to me so not everyone reaches your same "conclusion"..
 
Conclusion - modern digital recording technology, when employed with care, is transparent and undetectable. Do we need any further evidence other than this debacle?

The problem is how often it's employed carelessly.

We live in a world where frequently an LP can have greater dynamic range than the CD release of the same title. It should not be thus, but it often is. Digital media are not being used to their full advantage.
 
I stopped buying Mofi pressings after 1999, the newer Music Direct pressings always sounded off to me so not everyone reaches your same "conclusion"..

I auditioned several MoFi titles in the mid 80s - and rejected them, I thought original pressings sounded preferable, more dynamic. I haven't heard many since, except for my wife's copy of Allman Brothers Live, which sounds excellent.

My "conclusion" was tongue in cheek, but I think you have to agree that it has been one hell of a field study to determine whether people can detect a digital link in their favourite analogue medium. I'd like to see how many reviewers and influencers have criticised any MoFi LPs for sounding digital before this storm broke. I also think many people are feeling burnt by the entire episode not only because they have been deceived, but mainly because they haven't detected the digital mastering. This is the tip of an iceberg.
 
The problem is how often it's employed carelessly. We live in a world where frequently an LP can have greater dynamic range than the CD release of the same title. It should not be thus, but it often is. Digital media are not being used to their full advantage.

Couldn't agree more with you. I was actually impressed with the care taken by the MoFi engineering team to master as close to source as possible, giving their valid technical reasons as to why they don't copy tape to tape and prefer tape to 4XDSD, taking into consideration the bias alignment etc of each individual song on the master tape. Tape to tape wouldn't allow for this in most instances from what they were saying. Miles Showell at Abbey Road gave a similar explanation for his use of mastering from tape to digital (citing the mastering of the Queen albums as an example).
 
Couldn't agree more with you. I was actually impressed with the care taken by the MoFi engineering team to master as close to source as possible, giving their valid technical reasons as to why they don't copy tape to tape and prefer tape to 4XDSD, taking into consideration the bias alignment etc of each individual song on the master tape. Tape to tape wouldn't allow for this in most instances from what they were saying. Miles Showell at Abbey Road gave a similar explanation for his use of mastering from tape to digital (citing the mastering of the Queen albums as an example).

I think it's pure spin to portray this episode as a vindication for digital. Seems to me the DSD sources were used mostly for the sake of convenience or for legal reasons, not because it's the path to the best possible LP release.

Once a recording project goes to the digital step, in my view it should stay digital all the way to the playback medium.
 
I auditioned several MoFi titles in the mid 80s - and rejected them, I thought original pressings sounded preferable, more dynamic. I haven't heard many since, except for my wife's copy of Allman Brothers Live, which sounds excellent.

My "conclusion" was tongue in cheek, but I think you have to agree that it has been one hell of a field study to determine whether people can detect a digital link in their favourite analogue medium. I'd like to see how many reviewers and influencers have criticised any MoFi LPs for sounding digital before this storm broke. I also think many people are feeling burnt by the entire episode not only because they have been deceived, but mainly because they haven't detected the digital mastering. This is the tip of an iceberg.

I agree, in most cases it's tough to beat original pressings..
 
I've enjoyed getting back off hols and watching the Mike Esposito, Michael Fremer and latterly the Chad Kassem mediated three ways. Mostly constructive, my favourite bit is definitely Chad Kassem taking the bull by the horns and pushing his new products. He smells blood and is rightly heading for the jugular.
 

That's a very interesting article for sure. Indeed, one of the really interesting things from it is the fact that John Wood, the guy who invited Episito to come for a tour, didn't exactly have clearance to go ahead and do that. If Jim Davis, the owner, had been consulted on that beforehand then I guess we might well have had another stage-managed response, with Mobile Fidelity perhaps inviting someone like Michael Fremer to pop in for a friendly chat instead. Had that happened, I doubt we would have gotten that somewhat spontaneous but most revealing interview with the engineers (and thankfully, or thanks to chance, rather Jim Davis couldn't be there in person for Espinito's visit due to travel issues so he didn't get to manage Espinito's visit once that wheel had been set in motion).

It just goes to show, that doing the wrong thing by not following protocol is sometimes the right thing to do... for a greater good!
 
A very good and balanced article IMO. Again I have nothing but respect for the way In groove Mike and Michael 45 handled this one. Mo-Fi clearly mislead their customers and I have lost a huge amount of respect for Michael Fremer. Wrong side of every argument and remarkably offensively so.
 


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