Awesome Audiophile Snake Oil

(those last three posts just made me crack up IRL)

huh, OK I did not know this

"Since the early 1980s, an elegant solution has been the near-frictionless air bearing linear arm that requires no tracking drive mechanism other than the record groove. This provides a similar benefit as the electronic linear tonearm without the complexity and necessity of servo-motor correction for tracking error. In this case the trade-off is the introduction of pneumatics in the form of audible pumps and tubing. A more elegant solution is the mechanically driven low-friction design, also driven by the groove. Examples include Souther Engineering (U.S.A.), Clearaudio (Germany), and Aura (Czech Republic). This design places an exceeding demand upon precision engineering due to the lack of pneumatics."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonograph#Linear_tracking

I guess that explains the 770 lbs thing

Part of that 770 pounds is that gyroscopic weight hanging from the bottom of the platter, which is supposed to help with stability.

I have a friend who has an (80s Japanese Sony?) linear tracking arm turntable and he says they are really better than a regular tone arm (no inner groove distortion), it's just that they were more expensive and finicky so they didn't really catch on.

“Aluminium, stainless steel and bullet proof wood”

Uh yeah, I mean I guess bullet damage could introduce some audible distortion in certain frequencies, don’t wanna leave that unaccounted for I suppose

*reads up on all this* The weight is clearly designed for you to push the whole thing out of a window in rage to land on the person who convinced you to buy it.

I just want to make it clear that I would never buy this turntable even if I had the money.

I guess I don't mind that it exists - it's like some exotic supercar or something.

i would just like to say that i have owned a number of technics linear tracking turntables and think very highly of them

i would like to say that i have never shot a turntable with a gun

ok maybe winged a crosley or 2 but thats it

Feeling a bit sad I sold my Technics linear tracker a few years back now - it even had individual track programming. Had a nice Pioneer one in the late 90s which unfortunately bit the dust too.

I just want to make it clear that I would never buy this turntable even if I had the money.

if I had [the] money, I probably wouldn't buy this particular turntable, but I would have many different turntables.

you never got so tired of getting up to fiddle with the record player when a side ended you started just shooting at it until it stopped? I guess outside of Texas not everyone has basket full of remote controls and guns on their coffee table

bloody hell, until this revive, i had totally forgotten re my first turntable.
a linear tracking panasonic sl-n15.
i absolutely loved that thing.

I don't get it... almost seems like a gag, where the format turns out to be vinyl (but I see it's something different):
https://www.stereogum.com/2184752/bob-dylan-t-bone-burnett-new-audio-format/news/

oh wow that looks like a lot of ions

so it's an acetate, as used for vinyl masters since the year dot, with the added bonus that you destroy it a little when you play it, and it's a one-off so there's no way back from that.

finally, a chance to hear 80-year-old Bob Dylan rerecording some of his old songs in perfect archival fidelity

Sony getting in on the snake oil:
https://www.engadget.com/sony-3700-walkman-mp3-players-200619566.html

lol, love this little stinger at the end:

Both players are mainly aimed at wealthy music fans determined to maximize audio fidelity, even if they might not hear the difference.

Audiophile portable anything isn't worth thousands of dollars of expense. More than anything, your listening environment makes the biggest impact on sound quality, and if you're listening on the go, you're probably taking a major hit that can only be mitigated by so much, especially if you're in a car, train or plane.

Yeah, I can't see them selling many of those.

https://mixmag.net/read/analogue-disc-ionic-originals-burnett-cd-vinyl-tech?fbclid=IwAR1fj__3pwPlSFkvgVRc0uMGbEViSzjrX_eUcCCnPv-x-HJ48VUNzKp8iNA

"It is archival quality. It is future proof. It is one of one."

... it is laser-targeted at separating audiophiles from their live savings, kudos.

Pretty stupid, but I think the bigger point (if not the main one Burnett's trying to make) is that they're creating a one-of-a-kind item. As he's said elsewhere, it's like the musical recording equivalent of a painting, where there's one and only one and hence incredibly valuable. Basically taking a mass produced work of art and making it singular. I can dig that idea more than the concept of creating some stupid ultra-high-quality audiophile format that happens to allow only one copy.

y'all are kinda burying the lede that one of these things already sold for 1.7 million dollars or so the other day: https://www.stereogum.com/2192458/bob-dylans-ionic-original-re-recording-of-blowin-in-the-wind-sells-for-1-7m/news/

A cross between vinyl and NFT is really a stroke of terrible marketing genius.

to be fair, unlike an NFT, this is an actual physical object

its also boooooring:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LNjEdPfj1Y

its like an NFT in the sense that the object itself is completely unremarkable aside from its rarity. if this recording had come out in 2008 on a charity album or some comp like "Music From & Inspired by The Gilmore Girls: Volume 3" no one would give a shit about it. there would at least be a rational argument for its price if there were anything unique or interesting about it - an original song, an interesting collaboration, an unheard historic recording from the vault, SOMETHING.

that makes sense! good parsing.

and yes obv this is garbage, musically/aesthetically

T-Bone still pissed CODE didn't become a thing.

You could have bought the Newport festival Stratocaster for less than that stupid vinyl NFT.

I bet it'd fetch rather more today, but sheesh!

Lot of pearl clutching in the audiophile world over the "revelation" that MFSL has been cutting a lot of titles on vinyl from DSD transfers (albeit from the first generation master), so much that this video was just released:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shg0780YgAE

I've only purchased SACD's from them anyway, which is actually my ideal format (and it's not outrageously expensive either), but I'm surprised this is news. I thought it was clear that quite a few labels didn't want their master tapes leaving their facilities, especially after the Universal fire, so making a copy was usually the only option (with a DSD transfer being the best way of doing that). The other reasons they give for doing so make sense, especially with The Pretenders.

if you look at how MFSL describes its own process, it's difficult not to conclude that they have been deliberately misleading their customers. i don't own any of their pressings, nor do i care whether any of the records in my collection are "all" or "purely" analogue. but i can see how this would be super frustrating if you were somebody for whom this was an important aspect of the hobby / listening experience.

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0192/6322/5922/files/MoFi_UD1S_Tech_Sheet_SuperVinyl_Update_1024x1024.jpg?v=1616771397

Yeah definitely. Those One-Steps cost an assload of money, so you can see how someone would be upset, but honestly, I would never pay anything near that amount for one single record.

if you look at how MFSL describes its own process, it's difficult not to conclude that they have been deliberately misleading their customers. i don't own any of their pressings, nor do i care whether any of the records in my collection are "all" or "purely" analogue. but i can see how this would be super frustrating if you were somebody for whom this was an important aspect of the hobby / listening experience.

to me this seems like the equivalent of getting mad about digital special effects in movies. if it looks good and you enjoy the overall experience, who cares if it's not a real explosion?

(that's just me tho — no shade at anyone)

haha holy shit 172 pages in less than a week on this

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/mobile-fidelity-cutting-vinyl-from-digital-since-a-long-time-ago.1150351/

because they market their products as if they are sourced without digital technology. moreover they heavily imply that this makes their pressings sound better, and indeed closer / closest to the "original." and finally they have counted on this being a meaningful distinction, and one worth paying significantly more for.

I'm pro anything that scams people who are deeply concerned about the "one-step process" tbh.

Look, they have One-Steps of Eric Clapton's Unplugged.

Jesus, I wouldn't play that shit if you paid me $100+....

There used to be a dealer that came to the local record shows who literally had six+ tables of all new MFSL/Half-Speeds/45 RPM Mastered stuff, and it was all albums like that. Can't believe the money they had to put up just to stock those things in the first place, much less how many are actually sold.

Next you're gonna tell me that "hot stampers" are 100% self-delusion based on people desperately convincing themselves that spending $500 on a Cat Stevens album was worth it...

LMAO

At prices like that, the music has to be great!

that's a wild story

some of those MoFi releases sound pretty good

my philosophy re pricey audiophile vinyl has been that for the $$$ i could almost certainly pick up a really nice copy of an OG release, and doing that feels like i am more properly honouring whatever dumb urge has me still buying records in 2022

(i don’t really give a toss about source as long as it sounds good, but i do automatically assume that all contemporary reissues are sourced from digital unless explicitly stated otherwise)

I once had a friend with an incredible audiophile system, one of the best I've ever listened to

he had this Mofi version of Bringing It All Back Home, a record I am quite familiar with
https://www.discogs.com/release/9486656-Bob-Dylan-Bringing-It-All-Back-Home
and I swear I was hearing things I had never heard before when he put it on

but I was also stoned at the time so not really a scientific observation

That moment when you can hear the engineer all the way in the control room coughing after lighting the wrong end of the cigarette - that was special. That’s what makes it worth $157.

man these hi-fi people are delusional (big shock I know) about how the world works

afaik there are almost no examples of AAA vinyl in recent years aside from a 7" I did that was cut directly from tape & probably some Jack White stuff because that dude is hardcore about that kinda thing