Washington Post article on MoFi vs. Fremer vs. Esposito


Here's a link to a Washington Post article on the recent dustup with MoFi. The comments section (including posts by Michael Fremer) are interesting.

Disclaimer: This is a "public service announcement, a point Im adding since some forum members complained the last article I referenced here was "paywall protected", I'll note that, for those who are non-subscribers, free access to limited numbers of articles is available by registering (trade-off: The Post will deluge you with subscription offers)

kacomess

oliver_reid

All recordings are quantized. With ‘analog’ tape the signal is generated from a stream of magnetic particles which are which are either magnetized, or not ( i.e. 10 or 0) ... the recording itself is NOT a pure analog image of the original signal ..

This is simply not true. The magnetic particles are always magnetized because the tape is biased by an AC signal. Regardless, the recording is an analog image of the original signal and, once upon on a time, you could even buy a solution to apply to the tape that would visually reveal the analog signal, just like the squiggles on an LP.

I feel like this topic boils down to what the customer was intending to pay for.

It seems that the people that are upset with MoFi are disappointed that the vinyl that they paid for wasn't the result of wholly analog processes.  In my mind, there's two primary reasons for this.  First, they are willing to pay more for an all analog recording than they are for one that includes anything digital.  There's value for them in maintaining the old school process.  Second, they have a believe that  all analog recordings sound better.

What's puzzling to me is that it seems like a lot of people considered the MoFi recordings to be to notch before they were aware of the process used to produce them.  I recognize that there's some intrinsic value in owning an original recording as it's a collectors items that cannot be duplicated.  I don't think that reproductions have any intrinsic sentimental value and the sound quality is the only thing for which they should be judged.  It seems like the sound quality of the MoFi recordings should be the catalyst for opening minds to what is possible.

Audiophiles are funny creatures and I'm sure that there are some that will now be able to hear digital artifacts in the MoFi recordings now that they know that they are not all analog.

A song comes to mind:

There may be something there that wasn't there before
You know perhaps there's something there that wasn't there before
There may be something there that wasn't there before

The guy who wrote the article for the Washington Post has since been interviewed by Michael 45RPM on YouTube, and is available for viewing on his channel fyi. 

What concerns me most if that some members dont seem to think MoFi did anything wrong. Or at the very least, the sin was minor and really not really worth mentioning. 

I have found that usually the MoFi remasters arent the best pressings available. All MoFi I own were made prior to the "new" process.