steve hoffman forums, C or D?

Say what you will about the Hoffman Forums, but The Grateful Thread is the best place on the internet to discuss the Dead if you're into that kind of thing. Just a bunch of chill, good-natured Deadheads of all ages nerding out about their favorite shows and jams. 5,385 pages and counting lol

ha funny enough I’m listening to the new vinyl remaster of discreet music and it’s sounding good to me! Not that there’s an insane amount of detail there lol

it’s cool cuz you can play it at 45 and double the album length.. I have reflection on 45 double vinyl too it’s all good

Oh yeah, I settled on avoiding the 2x45 releases. I’m not thrilled about the idea of getting up every ten minutes to flip a record in the middle of an original LP side. Going to check for pressing errors but it seems like the single 33 versions are ok, and I only ever picked up the first four albums on CD.

it can be hard trying to get a consensus on the SH forums. also, the fussiness over pressings, like on discogs, makes it bloody hard to gauge sometimes.

I have 3 of the 4 vocal albums. Tiger Mountain sounds great, Before & After Science is crisp but I think its mastered a little hot. though its better than my original copy.

Tiger Mountain is the one that caused the most fuss over there, with some v angry debate over whether minor audio dropouts on the 2x45 were from individual bad pressings or tape degradation on the original master

because if there's one thing to be fired up about, it's that am i right.

oh wait. I have the Astralwerks single LP versions. I forgot they made 2x45 versions

I like it when guys on sh forums post pics of the 9 diff pressings they have of the same album.

sometimes i want to register just to reply "weird flex, but okay" on those kinds of posts.

Even better is when those dudes (they are always dudes) tell someone else they can't possibly comment on an album because they haven't heard every possible pressing.

see now, a man knowing when to shut up is actually a very refreshing thing.

tbh I find that level of fussiness useful sometimes - idk if I could stand to have actual discussions on those boards (outside of a few decent artist-specific threads) but when they talk about a certain cartridge or cleaning product that they like, you damn well know it's a good one

sometimes i want to register just to reply "weird flex, but okay"

lol, very relatable post.

yeah it's super frustrating when those guys say they have 16 versions of every gentle giant album, but then there's one who says "i have 16 pressings of every gentle giant album, and here are the best ones." that's useful. i remember reading an r. metzer review of ornette coleman's "of human feelings," which went something like "i own 36 ornette coleman albums and this one sucks!"

As a fan of message board drama and especially record punisher punishment, I BEG those of you that follow the Hoffman Forums to please alert this thread whenever there is a fuss of note over there! If there's a fight about Steven Wilson Relayer vs the OG pressing on page 698 of the YES thread, I want to know about it!

tbh I find that level of fussiness useful sometimes

That's for sure. It's basically the only resource I have. Like if I'm digging into the back catalog of someone who's been reissued many, many times, the first question I have is, which ones should I buy? (i.e. I only want to buy this shit ONCE.) There is no sane person in my life who could answer that question, much less be remotely interested in finding out the answer - I'm certain the only response that would come to mind is "Why don't you look it up on Amazon? Don't they have that?"

kurt schwitterz otm, we need more drama reports itt, thank you to all posters for your previous efforts in this regard

second.

The hands-down best thing I ever saw on the Hoffman forums was a post that went into great detail about the mics and positioning thereof, tape machine, desk, and engineers for Live At Leeds (and Live At Hull)). For decades I assumed Glyn Johns was the engineer, since it’s the best Keith Moon’s kit had ever been miked. It wasn’t Johns, and I can’t remember the engineer’s name, but he used a total of four mics for the drums: one on each bass drum, and two overheads. That’s it. And while those forums aren’t exactly brimming with posts like that, it’s worth scanning through the endless “my Dave’s Picks hasn’t shipped yet!” posts to get to them.

In fairness a lot of guys over there do know their stuff.

Its just when I was looking for tips on which pressing of sticky fingers to buy I got lost in all the comparisons, and then my brain went numb as a discussion went from comparing 2015 vinyl to 2020 vinyl ams then comparisons of the same edition when it was part of a box set, and then some forensic tracing of which masters were being used when and where. In the end I decided not to bother and that I would just keep my old knackered copy.

Being generous the OP could do with a tl;dr (unless you actually read the title) but this thread about Goldie's Timeless with various non sequitur posts about acknowledged d&b dons Tom Petty, Donald Fagen and of course The Beatles made me laugh.

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/timeless-aged-well-its-a-classic-album.966096/

also lolled

I thought maybe the Bruce Hornsby guy was in on the joke, but then I remembered what forum I was reading.

They’re into posting the cover art every time they mention an album, huh

I don't approve digging into the records that are broader and more complicated than life itself

dying

"I approve digging into the records that are broader and more complicated than life itself...some of the most unlistenable stuff ive ever heard, definitely needs its own thread"

new ILM description?

Did Stereocentral vanish for good?

This?

https://stereocentral.freeforums.net/

Oh! Thank you. It had shit down for maintenance, I had thought. Maybe the web address changed as well. I’m very grateful

I stumbled on the old forum several years ago and was surprised to find a gold mine of posts from Shawn Britton and Rob LoVerde from Mobile Fidelity. I guess something happened with the old forum, because all of those posts seem to be lost forever. A real shame, they had some amazing info.

The new MFSL interview zings Steve Hoffman at 34:30 without using his name

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

is this Youtuber for real with his "BREAKING NEWS" hysterics less than a week ago about Mobile Fidelity not being fully analog and now putting out a sit down interview with them about it?

I don't care about this stuff, don't own any of their expensive product, but it's pretty funny.

I mean, it has the H0ffmanites all up in a tizzy with many saying they will never buy from MoFi again so.... it's something, I guess.

haha ok i will enjoy on my next visit to the forums

I didn't see his previous video - I generally don't watch one-man rant videos, ever - but I tuned in for this one simply because it was more like a group interview with people who know what they're talking about firsthand, it did indeed have some good info.

small self-confidence boost: i don't know what any of those dudes are talking about.

I checked the forums; the thread about this is at 170 pages. This post on the first page is kind of perfect:

It’s impossible that they are digital because so many people on here can ‘sense the naturalness’ of analog over the ‘harsh superficial glare’ of digital. So they would have known already and told us.

LMAO

oh wait i might've paid an extra dollar for the fully analog Loveless. I'm a hypocrite

not going to deny it, i love the charity shop thread that i hang out on ..

lol Tarfumes, amazing find

those quotes might be a hint.

It’s impossible that they are digital because so many people on here can ‘sense the naturalness’ of analog over the ‘harsh superficial glare’ of digital. So they would have known already and told us.

i laughed too but geez those mofi guys are sampling at 4xDSD which is roughly 11,000,000 samples per second. that's got to be more or less transparent to anybody's ears.

never, the digital glare is caused by the shininess of 0s and 1s, you can never get rid of it, unless you use this power cable studded with crystals

Sounds like a secret society with a guru figure, with rituals done at home where they all connect together through their magic machinery, preserving a lost art known only to a few chosen (male) ones
Begging for an anthropological study.

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

JFC, the median price for that on Discogs is $110 with one purchase going as high as $225.

For years, a brand-new copy of Mofi's SACD was typically sold direct from Mofi or Music Direct for $15-20 - it may still be available for $15-20 at any retailers who still have stock. And both the SACD and the vinyl were likely mastered from the same DSD transfers of the original mono master tape. (FWIW, the stereo version they put out is a digital remix, not worth it.)

I've got one myself, it's a definitely an upgrade, but no one in their right mind should dump an extra $100+ into the toilet just to have it carved into two slabs of vinyl.

*it's definitely