MoFi controversy

@sokogear. Yup, I have quite a few Speakers Corner LP's, both Classical and Pop. SC is my second favorite reissue label.

The 1-Step of Tapestry is not one of my best sounding LP’s (the original recording precludes such a possibility), but it is a vast improvement on the original Ode Records LP, as well a moderate one on the 1-LP 33-1/3 MoFi pressing of the album (I have both). Anyone who wants to settle for an Ode pressing of this wonderful album, be my guest.

Could Analogue Productions have made a better sounding LP using the analog multi-track 2" tapes as their lacquer-cutting source? We’ll most likely never know.

Exactly, @daveyf. It’s fine that MoFi decided they prefer DSD to analog, but they then shouldn’t have continued to claim they were cutting their LP’s from analog master tapes. That was, of course, a deliberate, intentional lie.

And by the way, Analogue Productions IS cutting from analog masters, and their LP’s in many cases sound better than MoFi’s (it is not hyperbole to say that the AP LP of Cat Stevens’ Tea For The Tillerman destroys the MoFi. It is also better than the original on UK Island. I've owned all three, now having only the AP.) . Same with a number of other audiophile reissue labels, including Speakers Corner, Intervention, and Craft.

@rauliruegas: Yes, direct-to-disc LP's (for you youngins, no tape recorder of any kind is employed, analogue or digital. The output of the microphone mixing console goes straight to the lathe cutting the lacquer) remain the by-a-wide-margin most-alive sounding musical format I've heard. But very few musicians and singers are capable of making records that way.

@daveyf: I too have the old MoFi Folk Singer, and have never felt the need to own another version. But Analogue Productions has a 1-LP/33-1/3 RPM version of the album, as well as a 2-LP/45 RPM, and I’ll bet they’re the best of them all. $40 and $60, respectively.

The AP UHQR version of Kind Of Blue certainly improves on the MoFi version. The AP LP was made from the metal works Bernie Grundman made for Classic Records back in '97. He took possession of the 1/2" 3-track analog master tape from Sony (Sony was doing that at the time, at least for Grundman, whose facility, like the Sony offices, was located in NYC), mixing the 3 tracks to 2 live as he fed the output of his 3-track playback machine directly into his lacquer cutter! No tape copying done, either analog or digital!! 

I have long known MoFi wasn’t cutting their lacquers from "the" original master (which "original" master? The 1/4" or 1/2" two or three track tape---commonly used in the late-50’s and early-60’s, or the 2-track "master" mixed from those 3-tacks? Or the 1" four and then eight tracks used from the mid-to-late 60’s? Or the 2-track master mix made from the multi-track? Or the 2" 16 or 24 tracks from the late-60’s onward, or the master mix made from those multi-tracks?). No label (especially Sony) is going to let their master tapes out of their sight. Those tapes are worth a fortune! ALL reissues are made from a copy tape (with one notable exception---see below), in the record biz known as the production master (or safety copy).

That is why first Classic Records and then Analogue Productions long ago took over leadership in the LP reissue field. Bernie Grundman cut his Kind Of Blue lacquer from the actual 1/2" 3-track master, run directly into his cutting lathe. Not after making a 2-track final mix tape (analogue or digital) and using it as the cutting lather source, but directly from the playback machine’s circuitry into the lathe! While preparing for the mastering of KOB, Grundman discovered the original LP (and also subsequent reissues) had one LP side cut with the master tape running at the wrong speed! Turns out the 3-track machine used on one day of the album’s recording was running either slightly too fast or slow (I forget which), and the lacquer cut in the original mastering job played back off-pitch and tempo! Grundman of course corrected it, and Sony has used speed-corrected masters since.

Grundman cut the lacquer for Classic Records, from which the metal father was made. More recently Analogue Productions used that same metal part to press their reissue of Kind Of Blue. After the passing of infamous mastering engineer Doug Sax, AP’s Chad Kassem bought the mastering chain long used by Sheffield Labs for their world class work.

MoFi’s reissue of The Beach Boys’ Surfer Girl album was good, Analogue Productions version is INSANELY great! Michael Ludwig (45 RPM Audiophile on You Tube) declared the AP pressing of Surfer Girl one of the 10 greatest sounding LP’s of all time. Fremer has in in his Top 100.

Also doing great work is Speakers Corner in Germany (their LP’s pressed at Pallas, perhaps the best pressing plant in the world), and Intervention Records in Washington State. Both go to great lengths to make 100% analogue-sourced and pressed LP’s, while MoFi for over twenty years deliberately hid the fact that they were mastering from digital copies of the analogue masters, knowing full well an LP mastered from a digital copy would not sell as well as one mastered from what they claimed were analogue master tapes, an outright lie.