Mobile Fidelity Analog Vinyl Controversy

[RammisFrammis]

Not sure I buy into the claim that Mylar won't EVER get brittle but I give you that.
How about wear from playing, being dragged over the heads and other objects in the tape path?
It will never stretch or shed oxide, magnetic particals under use?
There will be no accrued damage?
We're not talking kryptonite here.

The whole point of a professional tape recorder like a Studer A80 is to not cause damage to a tape by playing it. These machines have rotating guides which incur no friction to the passing tape. Tape tension is carefully controlled by take up and feed servos. I'm a partner in a professional recording studio and we deal with this type of thing all the time.

Now this does not mean the tapes can't be damaged by boneheads in the field who have no idea how to care for them. Unfortunately that happens. But that's a bonehead problem not an intrinsic tape problem.

 

[RammisFrammis]

The other issue is where do you find a tape machine to play back these tapes. While technology advances no one is making "new" tape machines to play back these old tapes so they end up getting played back on "antique" equipment which is getting harder and harder to maintain. Both the tapes and the tape machines have a shelf life that is getting close to expiration.

Your assessment is far too pessimistic. There are many very well maintained machines in existence. We have some of them at our studio. This situation is not nearly as dire as you seem to think it is. Do you have any specific experience with analog tape, or analog tape machines at the professional level or tape archiving?

 

[Vladimir Filevski]

Let me try

@Vladimir Filevski , in this diagram:

[A] lies  -->  [B] class action  -->  [C] take down

you are saying, that A is the source and not B. At the same time, in this diagram:

[A] analog tape  -->  [B] dsd  -->  [C] vinyl

you are saying that B is the source and not A. @tonycollinet is just making a bit of fun out of your inconsistency

No, I didn't say that.
Class act is not a source, lies are the source for starting the class act! Cause for the Class act is their lie!

Both analog tape and digital DSD tape can be used as sources for lacquer cutting. Honest companies state clearly if they are using digital sources for their lacquer cutting. Liers, such as MoFi, lied that they do not use digital tapes as a source for lacquer cutting. Period!

 

[rdenney]

It honestly just boggles my mind that, of all the blatant swindles in the audio world, THIS is the "deception" people have finally decided to get worked up over.

And the congregation said, "AMEN!"

Rick "Preach it, brother!" Denney

 

[Jim Shaw]

I got sucked into this rabbit hole on Youtube, and I can't stop laughing.

 

[Labjr]

Roger Nichols (audio engineer of Steely Dan) about loss of transients within hours after recording on analog tapes. So what about 30 years or older mastertapes reused for remasters.

Roger Nichols interview – Sound Design, production et conception audio

– What were the determinant factors.....? RN : Well, that goes back quite a way. I love listening to music. I think it was hereditary. You know, my grandfather was in the film and the music…

pieralessandri.com

You..., in the whole debate...debate about Analog and Digital, you’re preference...is for digital?

RN: Yes, and it’s mostly because when I record something on a digital machine..um, you know, and I play it back ten years from now it will sound exatly the same. So if there is some little artifact because it’s digital, it’s a majorable (sic) artifact, and it’s going to be the same artifact ten years from now. If I record something on Analog tape and it doesn’t matter whether I’m do using Dolby SR, Dolby A or DBX or no noise reduction or whatever it is, if you record something on a piece of analog tape and play it back later the same day, the same program is not on the tape. And there’s nothing so far that anybody’d been able to do about that, you know, like those little magnetic particles are made to be able to wander around and they do so by themselves while the tape is just sitting there. I’ve made DAT copies when I’m cutting tracks, and then have an automation snap shot of the mix and then later that evening put the tape back on, play it back, compare it with the Dat, and there’s already starting to be a difference. And by the time a week or two weeks go by and it’s time to mix, a lot of the transients have started to disappear. If you use this as a tool, some people like what this does, and it sort of helps to mix all their music together, that’s fine, but, you know, you can’t say that Analog tape with Dolby SR is as good as Digital. It might be as quiet, and but it’s not going to retain the signal, you know, as long as Digital tape. So that’s my biggest worry about Analog tape.

DAT? Mini Disc? That interview has to be 30 years old. And digital doesn't always sound the same. Different machines have different converters which sound different. I'm actually suprprised he preferred digital recording back then.

 

[antcollinet]

The whole point of a professional tape recorder like a Studer A80 is to not cause damage to a tape by playing it. These machines have rotating guides which incur no friction to the passing tape. Tape tension is carefully controlled by take up and feed servos. I'm a partner in a professional recording studio and we deal with this type of thing all the time.

Now this does not mean the tapes can't be damaged by boneheads in the field who have no idea how to care for them. Unfortunately that happens. But that's a bonehead problem not an intrinsic tape problem.

They might be very very good at not damaging the tapes, but they will not be perfect. If there is physical contact then degradation will occur.

And I don't think the heads are rotating.

 

[antcollinet]

No, I didn't say that.
Class act is not a source, lies are the source for starting the class act! Cause for the Class act is their lie!

Both analog tape and digital DSD tape can be used as sources for lacquer cutting. Honest companies state clearly if they are using digital sources for their lacquer cutting. Liers, such as MoFi, lied that they do not use digital tapes as a source for lacquer cutting. Period!

Chill dude.

 

[RammisFrammis]

They might be very very good at not damaging the tapes, but they will not be perfect. If there is physical contact then degradation will occur.

And I don't think the heads are rotating.

And your specific experience in this field is what?

Due to rigidly controlled tape tension, and in many playback machines only one head in the headstack, plus the geometry of the heads, tape wear is inconsequential, especially considering these master tapes aren't played over and over again just to make a transfer. Yes, there is no 'perfect' in anything in the world, but these machines are 'perfect' enough to avoid tape wear. The record labels don't just loan these tapes out to any old yahoo with an Akai in his stereo system.

 

[levimax]

Your assessment is far too pessimistic. There are many very well maintained machines in existence. We have some of them at our studio. This situation is not nearly as dire as you seem to think it is. Do you have any specific experience with analog tape, or analog tape machines at the professional level or tape archiving?

Probably too pessimistic and all I know is what I read in online forums which is not the best source so I will stand corrected. On the other hand from reading the Studer forums it appears that worldwide there are a limited number of people, who are not getting any younger, that rework key parts for these machines and the same goes for people maintaining these machines. I am curious, in your studio who is responsible from maintaining your machines? Do younger employees show interest in learning how to do this or is it just the old timers that do the work? Thanks

 

[RammisFrammis]

Probably too pessimistic and all I know is what I read in online forums which is not the best source so I will stand corrected. On the other hand from reading the Studer forums it appears that worldwide there are a limited number of people, who are not getting any younger, that rework key parts for these machines and the same goes for people maintaining these machines. I am curious, in your studio who is responsible from maintaining your machines? Do younger employees show interest in learning how to do this or is it just the old timers that do the work? Thanks

I am the one who is responsible. I have a bit under 50 years specifically specializing in analog tape machines, and have worked for the importer of a European tape machine manufacturer as the USA technical resource. So obviously I'm closer to dying than not.

We don't have any younger people specifically training for maintenance. To really get good at it, one must be conversant with machining, electronics, and completely familiar with the theory. I'm sure we could find some young person eager to take up the challenge, but I have found that most young people who encounter an analog tape machine for the first time just stare at it and question how magnetism can store sound.

Frankly, most of what 'needs' to be remastered has already been remastered. Fewer people care about legacy recordings and just accept what's already out there as 'the version'.

As for the subject of tape degredation, the elephant in the room as far as the recording industry is concerned is the entire generation of lost (relatively recent!) masters due to the 'sticky shed syndrome' debacle. Yes, the tapes can be baked, but by the time they get to us, a lot of the oxide and back coating has ended up on the heads of previous tape machines before the client decided the tapes were in trouble. As the higher frequencies are recorded nearer the surface of the tape and the lower frequencies penetrate deeper into the oxide, you can see the problem. Newer mastering tapes from RTM and ATR don't have this problem, but analog tape is not used as a mixdown medium routinely. We do a few mixdowns from ProTools onto our vintage vacuum tube Ampex 351-2, but that is the exception rather than the norm.

 

[Snarfie]

DAT? Mini Disc? That interview has to be 30 years old. And digital doesn't always sound the same. Different machines have different converters which sound different. I'm actually suprprised he preferred digital recording back then.

Interview was done 9 december 2010. He compared recordings around 2010 and or a bit earlier. There is another interview with Nichols regarding Donald Fagens - Night Fly quite interesting.

 

[Labjr]

Interview was done 9 december 2010. He compared recordings around 2010 and or a bit earlier. There is another interview with Nichols regarding Donald Fagens - Night Fly quite interesting.
View attachment 227828

I don't believe the interview was done on that date. He's talking about how good DAT machine is and said he never recorded to hard disk before.

In a 2006 article he claimed he was trying to back up his DAT tapes before they were unrecoverable. So digital tape wasn't as perfect as he thought.

 

[KHodges66]

Again - no convincing evidence of this has been provided. The plaintiffs will have to do much better if they want to win the class mo

Again - no convincing evidence of this has been provided. The plaintiffs will have to do much better if they want to win the class action.

Mofi’s engineers admit it on video.

 

[antcollinet]

@KHodges66

You could do with sorting out your quoting.

They have admitted what on video? I very much doubt they have admitted fraud.

 

[DMill]

It would’ve been nice to see MoFi customers try to resolve this without lawyers. I’m guessing that many of them may not be too concerned if there was a digital step involved. By most accounts MoFi does a really good job with remasters. I do think there was some guilt by omission on MoFi’s part. But it was @tonycollinet that put it well in a reply to me that the irony of the dog biting it’s own tail here might be getting lost. MoFi has championed vinyl for a long time. It would be a loss if you still like spinning plastic under a rock.

 

[antcollinet]

@KHodges66 please learn to use the reply function correctly. It really isn't difficult, especially if you review your post before posing it.

 

[KHodges66]

I fail to see how they have egg on their faces or how this episode undermines the notion that all analog mastering sounds better, all else being equal. I have lots of Mofi records that I bought in large part because I believed their representations about the mastering. The fact that I didn’t notice that they were mastered with a digital step doesn’t mean that those same records wouldn’t have sounded better if they were mastered as Mofi said they were.

 

[RammisFrammis]

Roger Nichols (audio engineer of Steely Dan) about loss of transients within hours after recording on analog tapes. So what about 30 years or older mastertapes reused for remasters.

Self erasure of the highest frequencies is a real thing, but this happens only within a few hours to a day after recording. After that amount of time, self erasure stops, so your speculation of the effect continuing over an extended time is incorrect. If this were not the case, it would be impossible to manufacture calibration tapes which were useful! Calibration tapes, if not abused and / or run on a machine with magnetized heads/guides will last indefinitely. I have one from 1987 which still correlates with a new one I purchased just a couple years ago.

If you are interested in getting deep into the weeds, the MRL calibration tape website has a wealth of articles, some highly technical.

 

[Sal1950]

It honestly just boggles my mind that, of all the blatant swindles in the audio world, THIS is the "deception" people have finally decided to get worked up over.

Wow, such a true statement.
I think it has upset the audiophool world to this extent because it is a 'proven' scam that they can't deny.
Unlike the cable/powercord group, they can just avoid any embarrassment by refusing to do things like DBT,
with counter claims that DBT aren't reliable, don't work, yadda yadda.
Truth be known, MoFi has supplied collectors with the best possible sound you can get from dragging a rock thru a ditch.
They should be thankful instead of raising all this hell.

They might be very very good at not damaging the tapes, but they will not be perfect. If there is physical contact then degradation will occur.

Exactly. @RammisFrammis errors with his claims stated in absolute terms, mylar isn't forever and and there's no such thing anywhere in the universe as "guides which incur no friction"

As for the subject of tape degredation, the elephant in the room as far as the recording industry is concerned is the entire generation of lost (relatively recent!) masters due to the 'sticky shed syndrome' debacle.

OK, kool, so mylar has an weakness?
The whole point of my posts has been "there never be a better time than now" to get all analog masters archived to digital files and those files then tended to in appropriate manner. Analog tape all has an experation date and for a lot of classic recordings that date is here now.

Frankly, most of what 'needs' to be remastered has already been remastered.

I really hope that's true. Too much was lost in the UMG fire to ignore the possibility of loss due to mechanical problems, material degration, and Acts of God.