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Mobile Fidelity Analog Vinyl Controversy

Digicile

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As I understand it, the main reason to insert the DSD step was ultimately to prevent wearing out the master tape.

Who on earth would want to have it the other way?
I don't understand all of this since I only got my record player recently. What exactly is the difference in quality between a master tape and digital?
 

IPunchCholla

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And at the same time, their actions clearly undermine the notion that the digital step in the process sonically degrades the signal. It doesn't. Skip the discs if you want the best sound---the best sound is the digital step in Mo-Fi's process.

Of course, anyone really paying attention will hear the sonic degradation of turning a perfectly good digital file into a sonically distorted LP. It's easy to hear, if one is paying attention.
And at the same time, their actions clearly undermine the notion that the digital step in the process sonically degrades the signal. It doesn't. Skip the discs if you want the best sound---the best sound is the digital step in Mo-Fi's process.

Of course, anyone really paying attention will hear the sonic degradation of turning a perfectly good digital file into a sonically distorted LP. It's easy to hear, if one is paying attention.
Yep. I like the proof it brings digital being sonically transparent and vinyl having inherent loss. I’m just impressed, in a negative way, with the care they put into misleading people about their process.
 

DonH56

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I don't understand all of this since I only got my record player recently. What exactly is the difference in quality between a master tape and digital?
(Hand waving) The master tape is a physical media, actual tape, that is the final recording before actually cutting the record master, a metal disc that is used to "imprint" all the vinyl discs produced and sold. Digital masters are bits in a file created from the original recording, which is often all digital after the microphones and analog input conversion. Digital masters are often 24-bit files at 48 to 192 kS/s with a dynamic range of 120+ dB. Analog tape machines topped out around 80 dB or so IIRC, and exhibited higher distortion.

An example tape machine:
STUDER_A810_01.jpg7EF8AE8E-5FAC-4312-9059-9F01DA3E14DBLarge.jpg
 

gnarly

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As I understand it, the main reason to insert the DSD step was ultimately to prevent wearing out the master tape.

Who on earth would want to have it the other way?
And apparently the DSD step preserved the master tape accuracy better than trying to stay analog, by copying the master tape to another high-speed tape........


I guess the other way that could be desired, would be for the master to have been DSD to start with :D
 

DMill

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I don't understand all of this since I only got my record player recently. What exactly is the difference in quality between a master tape and digital?
You have sort of answered your own question if I understand you correctly. The master tape is just that… the original recording of the artists. Digital is simply a copy of that in the digital space. As far as hearing any difference…. You won’t. But analog purists will argue that you will. The purpose of digitizing master tapes makes sense as it would preserve the original recordings forever. In an oversimplified way think of cassette tapes. Each time they are played they are subject to environmental and physical stress. It’s why your favorite cassettes would wear out after hundreds of playbacks. Same is true of master tapes. But to me this is largely irrelevant to this situation. The question here is not whether digital is good. It is. It’s whether MoFi lied or mislead their customers into thinking digital was not part of chain. Which I believe they did. Does this answer your question?
 

Robin L

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Yep. I like the proof it brings digital being sonically transparent and vinyl having inherent loss. I’m just impressed, in a negative way, with the care they put into misleading people about their process.
It's one of those mysteries featuring a term verboten to utter---note that MoFi does not use the term "Digital" in their various apologies, they just provide a promise to use somewhat less vague language in the future, a promise broken on arrival by virtue of failing to use the term "digital". Basil Fawlty must be involved here, somehow. I've got no real problem, I am well acquainted with all the usual snake oil suspects, but this farce underlines the essential silliness of our hobby of creating sonic illusions. It's mostly snake oil and fairy dust in the far end of the pool, and here is definitive proof.
 

Digicile

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You have sort of answered your own question if I understand you correctly. The master tape is just that… the original recording of the artists. Digital is simply a copy of that in the digital space. As far as hearing any difference…. You won’t. But analog purists will argue that you will. The purpose of digitizing master tapes makes sense as it would preserve the original recordings forever. In an oversimplified way think of cassette tapes. Each time they are played they are subject to environmental and physical stress. It’s why your favorite cassettes would wear out after hundreds of playbacks. Same is true of master tapes. But to me this is largely irrelevant to this situation. The question here is not whether digital is good. It is. It’s whether MoFi lied or mislead their customers into thinking digital was not part of chain. Which I believe they did. Does this answer your question?
Thank you for the explanation. I've never owned anything using tape so it's hard to know why anybody would use that.
 

Rednaxela

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I mean wearing out a master tape is in itself a bit unethical right?

Or wanting someone to do that so you as a consumer can be sure of your AAA pressing.
 

MCH

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it would preserve the original recordings forever.
I am not sure that the "forever preservation" of digital files is a solved problem, at least of files like the ones being discussed that very few people has access to. Sadly.
Maybe someone is aware of the strategy of the big companies on that, specially after the 2008 fire? Every time they make a film mocking a dictator i am crossing fingers...
 

Robin L

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I mean wearing out a master tape is in itself a bit unethical right?

Or wanting someone to do that so you as a consumer can be sure of your AAA pressing.
Right. Backing up digital files is also a good thing and a whole lot better than copying a tape analog style.

I wonder how this will play out. We haven't come to the point where CDs are cool again, but I am sure the time will come soon enough that record wear becomes an issue again. And someone is going to notice how nasty worn records sound on some audio-oriented platform, and the whole process starts up, with CDs über alles once again.
 

JP

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but I noticed at least one which slashed the price considerably. No-one's scooped up this 'bargain' yet, but I bet most of the 11 watchers are other speculators sitting on stashes of expensive MFSL discs who are probably desperate to offload them.
That's a 2008 reissue, not a one step.
 

krabapple

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1. They put "Original Master Recording" on their SACDs, and have for years. Does it mean "pure-AAA" there? No, of course not. That's never been what they're talking about.

They would never call it AAA because that's literally impossible for an SACD release. (Or a CD release) The final letter has to be a D.
 

Vladimir Filevski

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As I understand it, the main reason to insert the DSD step was ultimately to prevent wearing out the master tape.
Who on earth would want to have it the other way?
All purist analog vinyl lovers - i.e. MoFi customers.
 

krabapple

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Their reputation before this was a bunch of vague ad copy about their mastering chain, and some actually well-regarded releases.

And I suspect there was a reason for that: they well knew the vinylphile market's Luddite stance on any digital step in the LP production process.

If so, I don't exactly feel sorry for Mofi. (Though If I gave a hoot about vinyl and actually collected the stuff, I wouldn't give a hoot about them working from a DSD copy of the original masters)
 

krabapple

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It's still not clear to me exactly how MofI masters its LPs. DSD can't be edited (EQ adjust etc) directly, it needs a PCM step (or copying to tape!) for that. And even if there is no remastering done to the DSD copy before cutting (i.e, it is transferred 'flat' to vinyl) surely there are some mastering moves that have to be performed *during cutting itself* for some releases? Are these captured to a tape or file? (i.e. creatinga 'production master' to make life easier when cutting later batches) Or would Mofi have to physically recreate the cutting moves every time the lacquer wears out?

And as for "No A/D in our VINYL CUTTING process" that would seem to mean 'we don't use a digital delay line during cutting', i.e., we don't use what was standard technology since the 1980s. Is that confirmed? That would make cutting even more onerous.
 

Blumlein 88

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It's still not clear to me exactly how MofI masters its LPs. DSD can't be edited (EQ adjust etc) directly, it needs a PCM step (or copying to tape!) for that. And even if there is no remastering done to the DSD copy before cutting (i.e, it is transferred 'flat' to vinyl) surely there are some mastering moves that have to be performed *during cutting itself* for some releases? Are these captured to a tape or file? (i.e. creatinga 'production master' to make life easier when cutting later batches) Or would Mofi have to physically recreate the cutting moves every time the lacquer wears out?
They could turn each reel into one big DSD file, and play it back just like you do with a tape deck. All you're doing is starting and stopping playback. Any eq or other processes can be done as you work in real time using analog hardware.
 

krabapple

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They could turn each reel into one big DSD file, and play it back just like you do with a tape deck. All you're doing is starting and stopping playback. Any eq or other processes can be done as you work in real time using analog hardware.

Where does the 'work' go? Are you talking about eq done during cutting itself?
 

Blumlein 88

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Where does the 'work' go? Are you talking about eq done during cutting itself?
Sure why not?

Or when doing the original DSD file they could use the master tape as if it were cutting the master lacquer, but instead it is cutting the master DSD file which will then be used instead.

I can think of other ways you could do it keeping everything else analog all the way.
 

amirm

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The judgement of whether conversion to DSD is OK needs to be made in the eyes of buyers, not those of us who are not customers. And many of those people cannot stand digital anything. Logic of it being a better format doesn't work with them. So why should it make sense in this context?

Had a QA manager working for me years ago at Sony. He brought his wife to a trip we made in Germany. She is vegetarian. They go to a restaurant and she gets soup which she believes to be devoid of meat. While eating the soup, she senses what could be meat. She proceeds to spit it out! Waiter goes and gets the Chef who had become quite angry of someone spitting out his soup! To me as a non-vegetarian, a bit of meat would be of no concern but clearly to her, was a huge deal to make a scene that way.

Another closer analogy. A high-end wealthy audio guy was remodeling his house and posted pictures of the audio room. I raised a concern that he had made no accommodation for an Ethernet jack. You should have seen him blow my head off saying that the day digital comes close to his system, is they day he will kill himself or some such thing! I responded that one day that may change and that if he loves music, he better be into networked audio. He said no way. Fast forward a few years and now he used subscription digital music!!! But we digress.

The point is that these guys are super religious about about their analog audio and LP. They pay huge premium to preserve and use that format. To have one of the icons of their world using digital all this time is just untenable. In that regard, MoFi abused the trust their customers put in them. It matters not whether the results are better, etc. It simply is not what they were selling.
 
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