Awesome Audiophile Snake Oil

Oh man, good for a much needed laugh. Audiophiles make themselves easy targets as people who worship gear and generally barely seem interested in music. But I mean, in a burning world, a little harmless schadenfreude is a balm now and then.

some people's reactions itt remind me of

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

Ha, good comparison, that.

I would love to collaborate on compiling a list of all the audiophiles who claimed they could tell the difference between analog and digital. Mostly just to have a handy list of everyone who is full of shit and to know who you can ignore completely.

You know, philosophically speaking, I think for certain ways of recording and playback:
- It's possible to identify when something was recorded with analogue equipment
- It's possible to identify when something is being played back with analogue equipment

Whether the middle portion, where, for instance, you're creating the negative version that you're going to use to stamp vinyl records, is created from a digital source, can be heard, is negligible. In a completely analogue chain, every step is lossy. Running the master tape degrades the master. Pressing vinyl off of the negative is lossy. They're all lossy in specific, analogue ways but it's all destructive.

So it comes down to whether the current technology to create a digital copy that is not at all lossy once it is in that format is effective. That analogue to digital step has gotten incrementally better over time, to the point where any further refinement is getting infinitesimally small. I'm sure the trve audiophile cult will say that the equipment needs all-gold interconnects or whatever but the machine that reads the actual tape isn't changing (as far as I'm aware) and I would bet the audiophiles would demand the reading of the tape be historically accurate to the time of the recording, too.

Maybe the digitizing step gets better after another decade and more records get stamped with nu-DSD as an interim step or whatever. A lot of these collectors are chasing the dragon here and keep buying the same album repeatedly in some quest to get the best possible version! If anything, adding another step gives them a reason to spend even more money in the future.

tl;dr just buy hot stampers

So it comes down to whether the current technology to create a digital copy that is not at all lossy once it is in that format is effective.
What the MoFi engineers were saying was that the benefits of using a digital transfer (e.g. being able to accurately calibrate the playback for each track) hugely outweight anything that could be "lost" when going to 4xDSD.

Schadenfreude indeed but...

“One of the reasons they want to excoriate MoFi is for lying,” says Howarth. “The other part that bothers them is that they’ve been listening to digital all along and they’re highly invested in believing that any digital step will destroy their experience. And they’re wrong.”

I feel a little bad for these people. They are, as mentioned, highly invested in these opinions because at the end of the day they just wanted to feel like they're experts in something. This makes them question everything and if this is what they hang their ego-hat on primarily it can be a dizzying splash of cold water.

they thought that they had heard the 99.9999999% best version of what music could possibly be.
but instead, they were only listening to the 99.999998% best. it breaks 0.00000001% of my heart

(i haven't read this thread, sorry -- i'm sure there are people out there who lost money or something, or are losing money because of the resale value, those kinds of things. my heart breaks to a greater percentage for them)

i have been following along with all of this from backstage. obviously i find it hilarious in a point-and-laugh-loudly sort of way, but i also don't want to be an asshole because people did get genuinely duped or bamboozled or whatever.

(but again: comes with the territory imo. like i said i have a few of the older mofi things, but more as a novelty than anything else. i like the emperor's new clothes aspect to the whole recent revelations because i'm a piece of shit who likes to watch other people shoot themselves in the foot.)

The reason I have a little trouble mustering a lot of sympathy for these guys is that so many of them spend so much time as gatekeeping assholes sneering at everyone that can't afford $25,000 systems.

Tiny violins (perfectly analog recordings of course) for sure but there is this weird horrible feeling when something rocks your worldview... I wonder in the past couple of weeks how many of these silly people were spotted taking long aimless walks in the park, skipping stones and reevaluating their lives and what else they might have going for them.

yeah, i mean i don't want to actually see anyone suffer or anything but if some snobby gatekeeping prick whose only knowledge of this stuff comes from forums and longform advertisements disguised as specialty mags gets a financial wedgie ... welp lol sucks to be on the other end of the lie, doesn't it? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

i guess i'm thinking of it from another angle . . . like, you just know there's a subgroup of these einsteins that looked at the whole scene as "an investment" or whatever. and —quick reminder again: i'm not a good person fyi— that genuinely makes me laugh. bob seger mofi reissues can only appreciate in value, right?

my local record store has a running joke where they hold one of the MoFi covers behind random record sleeves so that the ORIGINAL MASTER RECORDING strip is visible

wow didn't expect them to do a Laurence Welk release, lol

my sense is that MoFi's process probably is really, really good. probably far better than the processes i've used, as an amateur photographer, to scan my film negatives and work with them in a digital space, with all the wonderful tools that that unlocks. so the real hook of this story to me is that MoFi knew they had a great digital process, but just weren't willing to own that and put it upfront in how they talked about what they did. which is shady and dishonest, and also indicates how much "analog" and "digital" are magic words for a lot of their customer base.

in hindsight i feel like they would have been wayyyyy better off if they'd acknowledged these digital intermediary steps from day one, on all the releases that they incorporated, and started warming their market up to the idea over time. invite expert audiophiles in to do blind A/B tests, all that stuff. worst case, some of their experts insist they can hear the difference, and a fissure opens up on the Steve Hoffman forum between those who accept a digital intermediary and those who don't. so what?

I have now looked at the page selling the purported one-step releases, and wow, interesting selection

meanwhile of course i'll never buy a MoFi disc because of the hideous label strip ruining the cover art, and permanently damaging the fragile listening experience. this is my audiophilia and i'm sticking to it.

I have a 70s MoFi (all analog) copy of Supertramp's Crime of the Century if anyone is interested.

the label strip really does have quite the aesthetic

doc casino otm — same shit with instruments and gear. doesn't matter that boss can put a perfect digital reproduction of a tape echo unit in a compact sized effect pedal — some goober will always seek out an original space echo and fight with it to maintain it and keep it in working order and literally inconvenience their creative process for the sake of "staying analog" or whatever.

tho definitely shady on mofi's end to not disclose the whole process because it doesn't fit with the brand/image.

also this is brilliant:

my local record store has a running joke where they hold one of the MoFi covers behind random record sleeves so that the ORIGINAL MASTER RECORDING strip is visible

wow didn't expect them to do a Laurence Welk release, lol

― mh, Monday, August 8, 2022 10:54 AM

which reminds me: do whatever the hell you want in life, just don't lose your sense of humor, for crying out loud.

value hasn't crashed, they don't plan to reduce prices down from e.g. $100 for the upcoming release of Thriller, and the guy who broke the story is seeing an uptick in his MoFi sales.

The more I read, the less I understand. When's the movie?!

OK, let me pitch you this: we create a record label for audiophiles, and our premiere product line is an all-analogue audio reproduction chain. The kicker? The first step is digitizing from a master tape

we millennials have learned how to best exist on a sense of feigned niche expertise and no gauge of quality, so why not. i'm looking to be swindled just as hard as my patrons.

i'm in.

Same - look me in the eye and then swindle me good

What is most confusing is that their releases rarely seem to be a blow-out favourite of barely any of these guys, among other versions of the same records... ever. Even the ones before they would have had the digital step. Of course the multitude of sour grapes out there at the moment might be clouding the picture.

I don't think I've ever met one of these type of guys on the internet or elsewhere

when i worked at a used record store (that had been around since late 70s/early 80s), we had a section just for mofi pressings. it wasn't very big (maybe between 12-18 inches depth of shelf space at any given time — not even a full row) but nonetheless, we had regulars who only shopped out of that section. i only found out about the hoffman forums when i started posting here and have always wondered if any of those lefsetz wannabes were one of those dudes.

(i have just assumed this whole time that at least one of them was. he was *that* type, iykwim. always time to go on break when i saw that guy walk in.)

xxxxxp When Arcade Fire released The Suburbs for CD and digital downloads, instead of mastering it from the first generation master tape (or whatever form it came in), they mastered it from the 12" lacquers made for the vinyl release, which makes absolutely no sense to me. Combined with how many vinyl releases out there sell well even when cut from redbook PCM digital files, it kind of suggests a ridiculous vinyl fetish that has nothing to do with actual quality.

hey mh, are we going to do cassette reissues that have hype stickers on them that say something along the lines of "MASTERED FROM CASSETTE MASTERS FOR SUPERIOR CASSETTE FIDELITY!!" because i think that would really build the brand.

also the actual tape is gold encrusted or something.

mofi 8 tracks, coming soon

the reel to reel scene is where the real heads are

....tapeheads anyway

that's not a bad forum that one. Learned how to fix my tapedeck up

i once went to a nyc audio store to hear michael fremer spin records on a nice system. gotta tell ya the track he played from his original pressing of "for the roses" brought tears to my eyes. anyway, the people there all seemed very nice and not huffy. not sure what's wrong, per se, about chasing better sound.

I just want someone to come over and calibrate my setup because I'm sure I'm doing it wrong even on a casual level.

evan, i'll need to talk to mh about this, but i'm pretty sure our new company will be able to take of you on that.

we charge $2500/hr for the calibration. if you want banter while it's being done, that price goes up to $7000/hr. average calibration takes about five hours on a small 800 square foot common area. prices double if we are calibrating a basement.

*take GOOD CARE of you, obvs

those are introductory rates, btw. as your loyalty goes up, so does the price.

oh yeah: don't ask if you can pick the records we choose to calibrate your setup with. our techs know what they're doing.

they mastered it from the 12" lacquers made for the vinyl release, which makes absolutely no sense to me.

It doesn't make sense for a number of reasons, but mastering for vinyl means centering the bass frequencies (or so mastering engineers have told me). CDs and downloads allow for bass frequencies to be wherever in the stereo spectrum, but also allow for louder and heavier bass. So the digital version of that Arcade Fire thing is essentially a needledrop.

the reel to reel scene is where the real heads are

― maf you one two (maffew12), Monday, August 8, 2022 3:42 PM (fourteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

They're on it: https://store.acousticsounds.com/c/397/Reel_to_Reel

Perfect that sounds reasonable. Does standing with crossed arms and rattling off technical facts count as banter? Because I'm going to need to hover and establish my knowledge in order to hope to be seen as one of you. Also I can help carry equipment because I've got my setup in the basement which is down some pretty steep analog steps.

xxxxxp When Arcade Fire released The Suburbs for CD and digital downloads, instead of mastering it from the first generation master tape (or whatever form it came in), they mastered it from the 12" lacquers made for the vinyl release, which makes absolutely no sense to me. Combined with how many vinyl releases out there sell well even when cut from redbook PCM digital files, it kind of suggests a ridiculous vinyl fetish that has nothing to do with actual quality.

I've only heard of this happening with a new record (as opposed to a CD reissue of a long out-of-print relic where the master tapes have vanished but someone has a pristine vinyl copy) one other time — when Sub Pop put out Thee Headcoats' Heavens To Murgatroyd, Even! It's Thee Headcoats! (Already), the CD and cassette versions (I owned the latter) were "mastered directly from vinyl".

on that note, and to break character for a moment here— i'm a total hypocrite on all of this because i have a needle drop 320kpbs rip of my american beauty mofi pressing taking up space on my ipod, despite that i can hear the album on streaming. but i want to hear that one crackle before "box of rain" hits because it's so warm and analogue and it's ***mine*** and big sigh, i'm an idiot.

tangentially related to tarfumes/bird: i think it's only a matter of time before new albums start being marketed in different mixes/masterings. i expected neil young to do it first, actually. barn (spotify mix) and barn (vinyl mix) charting simultaneously or some bullshit. the arcade fire thing is funny. i wanna know how that actually went; like was it a conscious decision? chucklesigh

also, yes evan all of that would be considered as part of the "banter" package. under the regular package, you are not allowed to help load in or out (why d'ya think it takes so song lol). in both packages you are allowed to take notes, but you are not allowed to take any recordings —be they audio or video— and no photos whatsoever until we have left.

mastering your cd off of the lacquers is pretty funny because you would, in theory, end up with a cd that sounds exactly how the vinyl playback is supposed to sound on a reference system, right?

so if you ended up with it sounding a lot different when playing off vinyl, either you're proving that the analogue magic is happening only in playback, or the sound you like is a function of the equipment you own

tangentially related to tarfumes/bird: i think it's only a matter of time before new albums start being marketed in different mixes/masterings. i expected neil young to do it first, actually. barn (spotify mix) and barn (vinyl mix) charting simultaneously or some bullshit. the arcade fire thing is funny. i wanna know how that actually went; like was it a conscious decision? chucklesigh

For more than a decade, going back to when I actually worked for a label, I've been arguing for a return to mono specifically because of people listening on their phones. You could create a super punchy mono mix of a lot of modern metal records and I think they'd sound great on streaming services. Same for jazz.

both good points, mh + unperson. esp re: mono mixes. i like music to be clear and not often in the background, so it's easy for me to overlook the fact that most people listen to music in situations that i wouldn't consider ideal + you're right — people who know what they're mixing mono for can make a huge difference. i love a good mono mix! seems like it's mostly thought of as a "retro" thing these days, which is too bad.

Perfect that sounds reasonable.

― Evan, Monday, August 8, 2022 1:00 PM

we recommend calibration bi-weekly.

Same - look me in the eye and then swindle me good

― Bruce Stingbean (Karl Malone), Monday, August 8, 2022 12:09 PM

talking heads — "once in a lifetime (same as it ever was mix)"

out now on mofi, mastered for vinyl from the original cassingle.

*immediately buys for $300*

Back in the late 1990s / early 2000s, when software synthesisers became a thing, it struck me that it was suddenly possible to render audio so that it was one hundred per cent exactly the same as the original source. If you were an electronic musician using software synthesisers there was no longer a need to plug a synth into a mixing desk or amplifier and record the results, you could just render the sounds to disk without ever playing anything through a speaker.

I remember wondering if any of the glitch/clicks-and-cuts CDs of the early 2000s had been made like that. Because if they were, they were definitive, in the sense that they were software-generated waveforms rendered from Supercollider or Cooledit (or whatever) directly to a lossless 16-bit / 44khz .wav file and then burned to a CD without ever going through an analogue stage. My hunch is that someone must have done something like that in the 1970s at IRCAM or somewhere with an IBM mainframe, but it was probably lost to time. In my experience early electronic music only exists in contemporary audio recordings of sounds coming from speakers recorded back in the 1970s, because the old minicomputers they used have long been decommissioned and the data tapes lost.

For example I've always wondered if this kind of thing ever had an analogue stage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zww4SmreDSs

That album was released on vinyl, but I'm not convinced that was the best way to listen to it. Because a lot of the instruments are tiny tiny clicks it sounds rubbish with compression and it's not much fun on headphones because there's no reverb. Perhaps reverb was too computationally intensive. It struck me at the time that if your goal was 100% definitive audio with zero background noise - not just low background noise, but none at all beyond that inherent in the medium - software rendering was the future.

And that fans of Crosby, Stills, and Nash were not the future, because Crosby, Stills, and Nash had an analogue component. They were analogue components themselves. And Neil Young. He is an analogue component. The presence of an analogue component is not compatible with definitive audio reproduction. I suppose a lot of vinyl enthusiasts argue that their fetish isn't about absolute technical perfection, but the sound of vinyl, but they tend to flip-flop. One moment it's all about the technical inferiority of CD's error-correction and interpolation, the next it's all about the warm 3D sound of vinyl, despite the fact that your hearing deteriorates as you get older, so none of the people who can afford high-end audio gear can appreciate it. The sounds exist only in their heads, because their hearing is gone.

Also, in the 1980s and 1990s there was a possibility that music in the future wouldn't be shared as audio recordings, it would be shared as MIDI files - some karaoke bars in Japan used MIDI playback sample modules instead of audio CDs - which again should have bypassed the limits of audio recording. The theory being that playing back a MIDI file with a suitably equipped sample module would be like listening to a live band performance. For a long time video game soundtracks were like that. They weren't audio recordings, they were performed live by the sound chip's synth engine, or latterly by the sound chip's sample playback engine.

For this and many other reasons I am uninterested in definitive audio reproduction because travel between the theoretical world of numbers and the dream world of men and women and wobbling air is lossy. I'm going to write something something MOFI. Let's write something about MOFI. Let's share my MOFI anecdote. The one and only MOFI recording I had was Equinoxe, by Jean-Michel Jarre, and then only because it was cheaper than a brand-new copy of the album. I got it second-hand. I remember that the CD tray had a little pop-out arm. What did it sound like? I can't remember. I do remember giving up on Not With a Bang, and to this day I can't remember how that show ends. It had Josie Lawrence. Something about a plague. No sex. Hence the name.

What was that other show? The music was by Damon Albarn. It had Phil... the Britpop man. On a farm. Sunnyside Farm, that was it. Wikipedia dismisses it in just one paragraph, despite the fact that it was peak 1997:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunnyside_Farm