Let’s talk numbers. MoFi is releasing 40,000 copies of Thriller in 1-step. A stamper lasts between 500 and 1000 records, so MoFi has to make between 40 and 80 lacquers to fill the run.
There is NO WAY any master tape owner would let their masters be played that many times.
So MoFi has to make a second generation pressing master. They chose to use 4x DSD instead of analog tape. It’s a wise choice technically, the correct choice imo.
But their lack of transparency and actual outright lies are the most problematic thing here - not the end quality of the presssings, which are all excellent.
This is hard. Many masters have deteriorated and become unusable. Many more have been lost to fire and flood. Many of the masters used in re-issues are already second generation ‘safety’ masters. MoFi does a great job re-issuing this stuff. I just wish they didn’t lie about their ‘Original Master Recordings’, which many (most?) are not. And sometimes they have no way of knowing, either.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Time for MoFi to come clean and do what they do best - make great sounding records.
If one’s MoFi record sounded good before we heard the news then it will still sound good today. Equally, if it didn’t sound good before, well it still won’t sound good today.
Mine (well, the one I have played so far today at any rate) sound exactly the same.
It surely doesn’t matter from a does-it-sound-good point of view.
Also, for any major recording artist there are many, many Masters for any LP release. They were pressed in their millions and they were pressed world wide. Add in regional variations to play order and even to track content (just compare USA issues with UK) and it becomes impossible to single out a single “true” master.
They didn’t use a master tape. They used a digital copy of a master tape. They lied about their manufacturing process. This is a complete marketing disaster.
The problem here is not about their"sound". They simply plain vanilla lied.
As others said, Mofi products sound excellent. It is not necessary to play around with the word master tape and get caught in that stupidity.
I am a happy owner of most one-step offerings.
And people paid the high prices, probably based in part, on believing they were analog mastered in an age of digital music.
While I don’t think MoFi actually ever stated the source, they were (to say the least) disingenuous in letting people continue to believe that the master was analog.
If a mis-understanding works to one’s advantage, is it ok to let it continue?
I hope they get their marketing strategy in line with their superb products.
I would hate to see a longer term problem induced in their brand.
But then, they pi…ed off lots of people.
Therein lies the penalty of those making spurious claims about their golden ears, or those posturing that spend on equipment is everything. It’s the process and output of mastering that matters more than the format.
I have a dozen of so MoFi remasters on vinyl and they’re all very high quality reproduction (some pre-date digital, so will be analogue end-to-end). I’m not concerned by the handful dated from 2005 onwards as it isn’t like they’ve used a PCM master of CD quality. They sound very good to me and I can’t pick any issues arising. Again, mastering is everything.
My only concern is the apparent deceit. From all inputs I can find, including opinion videos that have other video or written sources quoted, it does seem that the mastering engineers are not at fault, but the marketing fluff produced by Music Direct appears to obfuscate the reality. It is very easy to infer analogue end-to-end from the inserts in the remastered covers and they do nothing to dispel that.
One of the positives around this is that profiteering is going to suffer. Those who purchased multiple copies with the intention of selling later into artificial scarcity have disadvantaged many fans who want to actually cherish and play the reissues. I shall not shed any tears for them. The corollary is that rival products such as Analogue Productions etc are probably going to inflate in value.
I guess it’s how good your front end is to you. If you spent all your money on vinyl reproduction and didn’t migrate to the dark side in the 90s then vinyl will still sound better than on an alba CD player no matter where it’s mastered from.
You are correct they still sound good and no one can really argue with that. That is why the issue that has come up is not about sound quality but business practice.
Go to a restaurant an order a fresh caught salmon dinner and it tastes fantastic even if it was actually just frozen salmon from the local supermarket. Yes the cook was good and made it taste great but you were still paying a price you felt was fair for fresh caught salmon, and you got something else.
it wins over the DVD-A… this is according to my ears and teaste of course. Did some comparisons on headphones.