Awesome Audiophile Snake Oil

*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

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.

Tangential, but this reminded me of an interview with Rudy Van Gelder around the ‘00s or so. He was asked what the noise floor was in his legendary studio. He said, “Um…I dunno, I think it’s…linoleum?”

House of Marley

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https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-uod0rcncsw/images/stencil/700x700/products/130/2833/Marley_GetTogetherMini_SB_1__45219.1625191251.jpg?c=1

god I love that SND record

House of Marley

― (grim) pump track (wales) (map), Monday, August 8, 2022 3:11 PM

CURRENTLY PLANTING TREES IN: AMAZON RAINFOREST

Andrew Jones designed the amazing value Elac speakers I've got in my living room right now and is supposedly working on speakers for MoFi as part of some sort of effort to produce a "complete Mofi system" where you can listen to Mofi records on a Mofi turntable plugged into a Mofi amp that outputs to Mofi speakers.

https://www.ecoustics.com/news/andrew-jones-mofi/

Because I'm a massive nerd I listened to a podcast episode with him where he basically said he was sick of working on budget models while the German team at Elac got to design the high-end stuff so he jumped ship.

hey that doesn't sound like snake oil to me, I call foul!

Tracer do u mean these?
https://www.elac.com/series/debut-2-0/

I had a pair of the Elac Uni-Fi floorstanding speakers that he designed (I think). Dopesmoker sounded incredible on them.

Those are the ones sleeve! The small 5.25" bookshelf speakers.

absolutely dying at the fact that mofi has quietly updated the diagram someone posted upthread.

old version:
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0192/6322/5922/files/MoFi_UD1S_Tech_Sheet_SuperVinyl_Update_1024x1024.jpg

new version:
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0192/6322/5922/collections/MoFi_UD1S_Tech_Sheet_DSD_R1_800x800.jpg

big time cool hand luke KICK A BUCK energy love it

_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.

love that the diagram mod tries to weasel out of DSD being a stage the process passes *through*, looks like it's just a safety copy being made while the pure analog chain goes past.

DSD is really good. I doubt there would be much (if any) difference between a record made from a DSD file and a record made from the original.

If it still (theoretically) makes a difference to eliminate all those extra “steps” shown in the bottom part of the diagram, shouldn’t their customers still be happy to buy the “one-step” records? Or was it all (or 90% of it) really about the myth of pure analog to these guys?

i imagine all these audiophiles going to listen to live music, straight out of the amps, direct from the musicians' fingers as god intended, just going really wild at how amazing life is

"THIS MUSIC IS GOD WRAPPING ITSELF AROUND US!!!" says the guy who loves his CD player more than anyone else

DSD is really good. I doubt there would be much (if any) difference between a record made from a DSD file and a record made from the original.

and they are using DSD256 which is 4x the sampling rate of an SACD. see that's the thing. all the controversy and A/B blind testing was in the context of evaluating normal redbook CD vs analog. DSD256 is a completely different animal. all these schadenfreude people expressing glee that audiophiles couldn't tell the difference between "digital" and analog are sort of revealing their own biases.

whoops meant to use italics not underline.

absolutely dying at the fact that mofi has quietly updated the diagram someone posted upthread.

old version:
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0192/6322/5922/files/MoFi_UD1S_Tech_Sheet_SuperVinyl_Update_1024x1024.jpg

new version:
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0192/6322/5922/collections/MoFi_UD1S_Tech_Sheet_DSD_R1_800x800.jpg

This is fucking hilarious. It's like a setup for a Spinal Tap joke - "why don't you get an SACD or a DSD download so that you're only left with the DSD transfer from the original master recording?" Pause. "But they only have one step after the lacquer!"

But you are right DSD 256 is a huge boost over SACD....but apparently some of their vinyl releases like Blood on the Tracks actually used a standard DSD64 transfer.

https://mofi.com/products/mfsl45ud1s-006_bob_dylan_blood_on_the_tracks_180g_45rpm_2lp_box_set

Damon Krukowski has an interesting take on this in his newsletter today:

The many debates provoked by the incident seem to center around an agreed-upon goal: how to get closest to hearing the original master tape of an album? That is what MoFi has been pitching as their mission, and what their buyers have been paying for.

But in my experience, that goal is questionable to start with — as questionable as assuming a high-priced record is a good record. Albums are mixed in order to be reproduced. When that process truly was 100% analog — the last of my own records made that way was Galaxie 500’s second album, in 1989 — the master tape was deliberately mixed with more high end than desired, because it was predictable that some of that would be lost in the reproduction process toward pressed records.

In other words, the original master tape is not how those analog albums were meant to sound. The record is.

There is a further irony as we add digital into the picture. Digital reproduction does not alter the master the way that analog does. For many commercial CDs, the final product actually is the original master, and vice-versa. Even when a digital master is higher resolution than CDs can reproduce, it is still possible to listen to them via computers without any degradation at all.

When CDs first came out, many of them sounded awful in part for this very transparency — they were duplicating analog master tapes more or less directly, rather than interpreting how they were meant to sound at the end of the process for reproducing records. Digital was blamed for those “harsh” CDs - but that is also simply how some analog master tapes can sound.

As we all got used to digital, engineers learned to mix differently for the CD — the high end that went into the master was going to stay that way, so you had to make sure it sounded right at the start. You could also load the bass way more heavily than before, because you didn’t have to worry about bouncing a needle out of its groove.

Now we get to a nutty problem about the vinyl revival. If an album was originally mixed with digital reproduction in mind, because it was made in the era of CDs… and you now put that master through the analog reproduction process for vinyl without compensating… you get a muddy sounding record, too heavy in the low end and without sparkle in the highs.

Or is that analog “warmth”?

What this all points to, for me, is the contingency of listening. I don’t believe there is a single ideal for audio, as much of the MoFi-sparked debate seems to presume, because there is no one way to hear a recording. How the recording sounds depends on how we are listening to it, more than how it got there.

For example: our albums always sound one way in the studio, where we hear them through Yamaha NS-10s, a speaker no one loves but many engineers have learned to use as a predictive tool for how recordings will sound after reproduction.

They always sound better — fuller, more spacious — once our brilliant mastering engineer Alan Douches has done his part to prepare them. But they still never sound the same way twice.

When we listen to them in the car, they have no bass because the car has so much of its own.

When we listen to them at home, they sound one way in the dining room where we have small speakers, and one way in the living room where we have bigger ones, and one way in our office where we have a boombox.

They sound different on LP and on CD, and via digital download at full resolution.

And they always sound worst streaming! (Because of lossy compression. That’s a story for another day.)

So here’s my take on the MoFi controversy. Let the mastering engineers do their thing, using whatever technology they find best. Get the reproduced music however you can. And focus on the analog component you are going to have to add to the chain in the end, no matter what. Your ears.

That's pretty otm. The problem MoFi helped build up with their marketing is the idea that for a vinyl record only an all-analog chain will suffice with the aim of getting close to that original master as if you were playing directly off it - it's strong implied in all the hype arguing for the appeal of their vinyl products. But it's not that simple or doctrinal, it's really just the mastering that makes something sound good, and that can encompass a ton of things, not just a single puritanical approach. Even MoFi's own engineers have said this in the past (but on their own, not on MoFI's behalf), if you hand in a straight copy of a master tape, that's NOT mastering. Doing nothing except making a high-quality transfer is not what a mastering engineer is supposed to do and it's highly unusual for a recording artist to want that.

That second sentence probably needed to be chopped into two. (also, strongly, not strong)

A lot of the MOFI site isn't loading correctly for me, so I'm not getting product descriptions other than the very basic lists of titles. But as I understand it, these one-step, 45 RPM 'Box Sets' are dividing formally single-LP albums into doubles, which to me is extremely funny when we're talking about Roth-era Van Halen albums which they have in the pipeline and were all 30-35 minutes to start with, so in that case the MOFI audience is paying $125 per title to get the fancy pants experience of listening to two 12-inch EPs and flipping sides every 8-10 minutes just so they can say they hear Dave & Ed & Mike & 'Lex better than ever before.

I look forward to the book of 78's that will be the next generation of MoFi album reissues.

Galaxie 500 guy otm.

When CDs first came out, many of them sounded awful in part for this very transparency — they were duplicating analog master tapes more or less directly, rather than interpreting how they were meant to sound at the end of the process for reproducing records. Digital was blamed for those “harsh” CDs - but that is also simply how some analog master tapes can sound.

This is true to an extent, but early CDs were all over the map. You had what Damon describes -- essentially a flat transfer -- but then you also had CDs that used excessive noise reduction, so much so that on, for instance, the early CD(s?) of Kind of Blue sticks-on-cymbals went missing, as did parts of solo bass passages, and everything else sounded like it was trying to get out from under a heavy blanket. Labels were essentially throwing a bunch of different approaches to mastering at a wall to see what stuck, but in the meantime, selling those trial runs to consumers.

also the highly obscure “de-emphasis” flag which was set for tracks where the CD player was supposed to apply a high frequency roll off filter - perhaps to combat the high end “goose” Damon was talking about? I don’t think it’s been used since the early 80s but a rip which doesn’t take that into account can sound godawful.

Pre-emphasis was not compensating for RIAA equalisation, it was for boosting SNR with early ADC gear that was sometimes only 14-bit (Philips originally specced for 14-bit redbook but Sony rounded it up a nice, computer-friendly 2 bytes). 14-bit would have been plenty for playback but less than ideal for ADC, even 16-bit is cutting it close unless proper attention is given to signal levels when recording

obviously there's been no reason at all for using pre-emphasis for over 3 decades now

There are occasional discs from the 90s and probably beyond that have the pre-emphasis flag set on, possibly by mistake in at least some cases. And also some older discs that seem to have been mastered with pre-emphasis while the flag is off.

if the ADC process was never updated beyond the point where preemph is justified then it should still be used even today

it's impossible for a listener to know if it's intended or not without details of what happened in the studio or at least having a different CD pressing of the same master that "sounds right" to compare against

could always compare it to the vinyl I guess

When it should be on and it's left off, the sound is really unpleasant - thin, piercing and shrill. I don't know if there's been a case where it was left on when it should be off, but if that did happen, you'd have an extremely dull sound. Anyway, since the sound quality would be really bad, it almost becomes a moot point of whether the PE flag should be on or off.

As matttttkkkkk says, rips generally won't take it into account (there was even something about EAC having to remove support for it?) and I've spotted a couple just by the sound, it's quite pronounced.

Ah, that's right. I recommend SoX if you have a Mac.

install SoX tools first: https://macappstore.org/sox/

Or another way to install is to run in the Terminal app the following:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"; < /dev/null 2> /dev/null

Press enter/return key. Wait for the command to finish - this took about 5, maybe ten minutes, it could vary depending on your internet connection as it is downloading the appropriate tools.

Run:
brew install sox

Then with Terminal still open, type in the right command for each wav or aiff file that needs to be converted.

sox thepath/name/for/your/track.aiff thepath/name/for/whereyou/wanttoput/your/track-withnewname.aiff deemph

I do have an old version of EAC that can read the flag. It doesn't apply the EQ, for that I use a plugin in Foobar.

How often was this flag used? Never heard of it. Is it well supported by CD players?

I think it's standard for all CD players. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's baked into the standard authoring of CD's, even when it's not used - there's basically a data set that specifically addresses it - so even though it isn't picked up by a computer when creating files that are supposed to duplicate the audio data, it's not something that can be dropped from standard playback on any standalone CD player.

So I guess whenever they had to cut vinyl from DSD transfers, it would have been DSD64 from 2011 to January 2014. More details here:

https://mofi.com/blogs/news/mofi-president-jim-davis-addresses-the-digital-lp-mastering-controversy

It's too bad they didn't say this from the start because I think a lot of people would've been sympathetic. I was surprised when they got Dylan, Miles Davis and other Sony owned titles because Sony rarely licensed any of their titles to audiophile labels - like if people knew that was the "catch," it wouldn't have been a huge problem because at least they finally got those titles on audiophile reissues. Hiding that fact just created this looming thing that snowballed over time.

(The "catch" being they needed to create DSD transfers as the master tapes could never leave Sony's facilities.)

check out this record cut straight from the Universal masters

https://craftbits.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/chip-dip-lp.jpg

LMAO

that Damon post is very good!

What's the benefit of the of the DSD multiples? With DSD128/256/etc you can push the quantisation noise further out of the audible band? Cos that's the thing with 1-bit, right - shedloads of noise, that has to be shaped somewhere. Also, according to Lipshitz et al, you can't dither it, so the noise remains correlated with the signal, therefore A Bad Idea as an archive medium. But I really don't remember the back and forth on that, it was 20 years ago... Team PCM here ;)

Quite agree with the idea that MoFi should've just got ahead of this, and owned it. What a terrific tool to have at your disposal as a maker of boutique editions of LPs - the ability to go and make a completely transparent clone of a precious original master (set up and calibrated by yr expert tape-op) on site, and take it away on an SSD, and do what you like down the line. I wonder if the agreement was "delete that file in one month".

This didn't get mentioned - and at this point it's too late - but people could point out the Steve Hoffman masterings for DCC Compact Classics as an example of reissues that were often mastered from copies (typically analog copies if it was for a gold CD). The company never mentioned it, and it ceased to exist 20 years ago anyway. It's not really a secret anymore, but those gold CD's still fetch a good deal of money and to be fair usually sound great.

yeah the absolutist "every atom on the master tape intact" attitude is absolutely smoked by the right EQ choices and attention to phase etc. But it remains hilarious how banal the records are which are subjected to this degree of fetishisation.
I would buy some good Throwing Muses remasterings in a heartbeat - those records are tangled and dense, and some of the CDs sound like absolute crap. Thinking of looking into the vinyl but I have a great digital setup which is so much easier to navigate.

I don't know, stuff like the Muses LPs and Husker Du - they sound the way they do because of how they were recorded. No remastering is going to change that.

Oh and "House Tornado" is glorious in its opaqueness.