Fair enough. Is their 'problem' charging too much for their product? If so there is a big glass house around here
Do Mobile Fidelity Vinyl Re-issues Have a Digital Step in the Process?
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
- Start date
I misunderstood; I thought you meant the original commercial vinyl release was based on a digital step of some kind.
Yes, I canceled my pre-order due to: 1) the revelation about the digital source for cutting, and 2) the lack of honesty from MFSL. I put all six of my sealed UD1S LPs up for sale on eBay.
Fortunately, during the 1990s and 2000s most of the re-issues I bought were from Chesky and from Classic Records and from DCC Compact Classics. I have a lifetime inventory of original copies of many of my favorite 1980s rock and pop songs from when Tower Records was dumping all that stuff for $2 a piece.
I think that the original all analog Thriller is a not great recording (too much multi-track and processing) that sounds bright and sharp and dry. In other words, to my ears, it already sounds digital-ish. I do not believe that adding digital to that is going to help sonically for my ears and personal preferences.
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A few years ago, I had a vegan friend over for Xmas dinner who loved my roast potatoes. Unfortunately he had eaten about 6 of them before I realised and he was unaware they were cooked in goose fat. I wonder if I should tell him now? May be I'll ask MoFi.....
So in your analogy vegan is analog and animal fat is digital?
You will find most people, including me value honesty, integrity, transparency too. I am not arguing about that, I am saying it’s a storm in a teacup.
Depends on your point of view. All I care about is roast potatoes tasting good and that means with goose fat. You guys can argue over analog vs digital amongst yourselves
Fair enough. Is their 'problem' charging too much for their product? If so there is a big glass house around here
Yes, and no.
They cost too much for sure. They need to make more and lower the price some for sure. But ironically no necessarily entirely because of the price.
It's really bad for the hobby. They make us and themselves look like a bunch of fucking a-holes. They set the bar high enough that no one should want to be an audiophile.
Thanks for clearing up the misunderstanding, I thought you may be referring to the original material source vs the one we’re debating now.
I agree that the original Thriller release certainly has its own character stemming from its production (although not as strongly artificial sounding as quite a few 80s albums production which can sound very dated and artificial now). The SACD released a while back shone a light on this and made it more obvious than the LP.
I still think it works largely does a decent job of presenting MJs talent and Quincey Jones arrangements. I would like to think that the tapes can give a little more , especially if the compression is reduced and they are careful with the EQ. I’m guessing that’s why there was initially a lot of interest in this release and why they ramped up the ‘limited’ run to 40k.
The big question, putting aside the lack of honesty etc, is whether the differences between the master tape or the DSDx4 as the source of the 40 or so cutting lacquers required can be audibly distinguished.
There’s a lot of mastering guys out there who are adamant that you can’t tell the difference if you’re listening to these sources A-B. It certainly would be interesting to challenge golden eared types like Fremer et al to pick these out repeatably in double blind listening tests…
Putting my cards in the table - I don’t buy to invest or worry about future value. I buy to listen and will pay a premium for something that perhaps I can’t get from an original first pressing because maybe I can’t justify or find one in mint condition etc. Equally I won’t pay over the odds for an audiophile release if I don’t believe it’s offering enough sound quality or I prefer the original. Abraxas is a good case in point - I have an immaculate UK early first press and so didn’t feel the need to spend £125 let alone what they fetch now (again, not a flipper or investor).
So for Thriller it would have to sound quite other worldly spectacular to justify the c £180 being asked for to pre-order it over here. It would need to be one of the very best sounding slabs of vinyl to justify that kind of premium - even before you get to the controversy of how it has been produced.
MoFi have relied far too heavily on collector rush and investor greed to drive up the premiums of their products. But when you’re knocking out 40k copies then it’s very hard to see how those are ever going to be in short supply to drive up the second hand market price.
Depends on your point of view. All I care about is roast potatoes tasting good and that means with goose fat. You guys can argue over analog vs digital amongst yourselves
Not a fan a beef dripping on the roasties, Howie?
Beat It from Thriller USA First Issue
Looks like there's a digital step in here. The steep filter in the spectrum analyzer at 20kHz is a red flag, as is the clear demarcation in the spectrogram.
Quincy: "Bruce liked to record our rhythm tracks on sixteen-track tape, then go to digital to get that fat, analog rhythm sound that we all loved and called "big legs and tight skirts.”
Is it still AAA if digital processing of *some* elements were made during mixing?
Looks like there's a digital step in here. The steep filter in the spectrum analyzer at 20kHz is a red flag, as is the clear demarcation in the spectrogram.
Quincy: "Bruce liked to record our rhythm tracks on sixteen-track tape, then go to digital to get that fat, analog rhythm sound that we all loved and called "big legs and tight skirts.”
Is it still AAA if digital processing of *some* elements were made during mixing?
I just wish that now since the cat is out of the bag that they would offer the pure remastered dsd file as a digital download. Why only sell the SACD that is compressed to x64 vs x256 which is the sample rate of the 'bounced' file of the original tape. I'm sure that would sound amazing in a good digital system.
My guess is that they would be concerned about all the issues with piracy etc. Even if they supplied it in a nice box with a usb stick inside with all the cover artwork at the same price as the vinyl, people will doubtless start copying / sharing each other’s digital files.
I get it but do you think that it is not happening with the SACD rips? You can find downloads very easily and get iso files which get extracted bit for bit to dsf files no problem.
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Yes I am sure it is also happening with SACD rips. There might be sensitivity from the master tape owner for releasing quad dsd native digital files too.
Here at 0:37 is my quick (44 seconds) take on this Mobile Fidelity matter:
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Transparency Alert: I am a Senior Reviewer and International Correspondent for Dagogo (dagogo.com) and after slogging through far too many longer than necessary YouTube videos on the subject and countless posts in Facebook Groups and online forums basing their claims on speculation, conjecture and assumptions, I wrote directly to MoFi HQ, specifically Syd Schwartz the NEW head of Marketing and Communications for both MoFi and its parent company Music Direct. I want the three gentlemen in the video to respond and Jim Davis, the President of Music Direct, to answer the questions I have put forth.
As there were a plethora of questions to ask and so many avenues to explore, it was with Ron Resnick's assistance, that I managed to pare down the questions. They needed to be few in number and painstakingly direct as attempts to get straight answers have been met with much dithering (no pun intended). The questions were emailed to Syd on Saturday evening, July 22nd. Patience is not one of my virtues, but I can try my best and hope to receive a response of some kind sooner than later.
My reason for having Jim Davis also take part is that there have now been posts across the metaverse touching not only on a boycott of MoFi but of Music Direct, its parent company. The latter might very well prod the powers that be at Music Direct to jump into the fray. I would have said 'get ahead of this matter" but the manner in which MoFi, to date, has responded, most notably the follow-up YouTube video has done nothing to clarify matters and made things even worse by opening the door to even more lines of questioning, doubts and confusion. Why they chose YouTube as their initial medium to respond to claims remains a mystery.
In my email, I even reserved the right to follow up with more questions to them, if in their response they dither as well. And as soon as I receive direct responses without equivocation to my questions, I shall immediately publish them along with an analysis. #staytuned
Honestly, I don't know to what extent MoFi and Music Direct fully comprehend the extent to which their integrity is being put into question and the effect this may have not only on their future sales of recordings and gear but what they may have done to other 'audiophile' record labels. We've already seen videos from one counterpart having to explain itself, its ethos and its workflow.
To be fair, I would like very much to give MoFi the benefit of the doubt, but with each passing day, they make it harder and harder so to do.
As there were a plethora of questions to ask and so many avenues to explore, it was with Ron Resnick's assistance, that I managed to pare down the questions. They needed to be few in number and painstakingly direct as attempts to get straight answers have been met with much dithering (no pun intended). The questions were emailed to Syd on Saturday evening, July 22nd. Patience is not one of my virtues, but I can try my best and hope to receive a response of some kind sooner than later.
My reason for having Jim Davis also take part is that there have now been posts across the metaverse touching not only on a boycott of MoFi but of Music Direct, its parent company. The latter might very well prod the powers that be at Music Direct to jump into the fray. I would have said 'get ahead of this matter" but the manner in which MoFi, to date, has responded, most notably the follow-up YouTube video has done nothing to clarify matters and made things even worse by opening the door to even more lines of questioning, doubts and confusion. Why they chose YouTube as their initial medium to respond to claims remains a mystery.
In my email, I even reserved the right to follow up with more questions to them, if in their response they dither as well. And as soon as I receive direct responses without equivocation to my questions, I shall immediately publish them along with an analysis. #staytuned
Honestly, I don't know to what extent MoFi and Music Direct fully comprehend the extent to which their integrity is being put into question and the effect this may have not only on their future sales of recordings and gear but what they may have done to other 'audiophile' record labels. We've already seen videos from one counterpart having to explain itself, its ethos and its workflow.
To be fair, I would like very much to give MoFi the benefit of the doubt, but with each passing day, they make it harder and harder so to do.
How can you be so sure? I wrote my concerns about ERC on another thread.
Superiority Of Electric Recording Company Releases
For the last couple of years everything Electric Recording Company released is sold out before hitting the shelves. I highly suspect superiority of London based ERC releases compared to Analogue Productions, ORG, Music Matters etc in terms of sound quality. I compared two ERC titles with OJC...
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Dear @rDin,
it’s really hard to tell whether it’s digital or analog only by looking at fft spectogram of izotope rx audio editor. Unfortunately it doesn’t prove the source is digital. There are analog filters to roll of high end. Maybe they want to ease the cutting and used an analog brick wall filter at 20kHz.
Bruce Swedien says he used two 24 track tape recorders synchronized for recording thriller. He explaines the recording process in detail but he doesn’t mention any digital process. But we can never know.
I’m using izotope rx editor for audio restoration besides other programs and mainly restoring music from vinyl. I’m using vinyl as a source if master tape no longer exists. I also master music in order to be released on vinyl both sourced from vinyl and digital recordings.
Maybe you’re right, maybe thriller has a digital process in recording but please take my word. It’s hard to come to a conclusion only by looking at fft spectogram.
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