Hoffman Forums in Wash. Post: "How a Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire."

Excellently stated Mark!

 

Certainly no company should flat-out lie about their products - if MoFi was specifically saying that OneStep was an all-analog signal chain, but it was not all-analog, then that's a false statement.

But what I'm seeing instead is cognitive dissonance. Someone is so convinced that analog is superior to digital that they become emotionally invested in the idea. They decide the OneStep is the best they've ever heard. Then they find out it's digital. Those ideas - analog is better and the best-sounding recording is digital - are at war with each other. Cognitive dissonance is a real thing and it can be surprisingly disruptive to one's mental equilibrium.

 

Enjoyable, well written article. Thanks. Nothing more to be said. All out in the open. Pointless to keep rehashing.


Watched Michael Fremmers You Tube vid at a Seattle audio show recently. Fun vid. A deaf person had a audio type ball to help them. Real cool. Fremmer has an arrogant bragging I’ve been everywhere way. The New Yawk know it all thing. Still enjoyed the vid. But even his joking, isn’t joking. Then watched the next new vid on his expert witness experience. He’s so arrogant it’s like a satire. Unbelievable. He goes through life that way. Off putting is an understatement. Just completely unaware. He made another vid rehashing after this article. Stomach turning.

 

I have that SACD so I really had no reason to buy the UHQR version. I think I just got wrapped up in the hype.

 

Hint: Stop the page from loading before the Paywall comes up. If you miss the first time, try again.

 

We’re MoFi scumbags for their lies of omission, and, outright distortions of truth?
Of course they were.
But, I’ve never had a problem with albums made using digitally sourced master recordings copied from the analog masters, so I’m amused at the apoplectic reaction I’ve read from those who loved the MoFi albums prior to the DSD scandal.
It’s like those who claim that soda made with sugar taste better than soda made with corn syrup, but, in a blind taste test once of people who held that view, they chose the corn syrup soda as having better taste.
The analog-or-die MoFi listeners and the sugar-or-die soda enthusiasts both bought into the hype and they fooled themselves.

 

thanks I'm going to try it...

 

I was in Red Rose Music in NYC, designer Mark Levinson's company. He was demo-ing his equipment that day with the SACD layer. It really IS good.

 

That was one interesting article for me. I am not a vinyl guy and I have not been since 1986. I bought vinyl including MFSL titles prior to that date but that also predates this issue. I had always been interested in the SOURCE tape. What was it? They had the Original Master Recording banner and they had the Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab banner. I have asked twice over the years about the two banners and both times told that the Original Master Recording was only used if the source tape was the actual original master tape. I had never given thought to other steps in the process as being analog or digital and since I had only bought CDs and SACDs since 1986 it didn't matter because I knew there had to be digital steps in the process.

I can understand the concern and upset of those who buy vinyl from MFSL thinking they have a fully analog album when in fact a digital processing step has been introduced. I am not saying you were short changed on sound quality, but you were short changed on the truth. And, I am disappointed in a company I have loved and respected for their products for so long for being deceitful to much of their clientele for so long.

 

I don't understand how people can defend this. It takes a special kind of dissonance in its own right to say this is okay behavior because someone is that vested in the digital/analog debate.

Because it really comes down to a simple issue of lying. I've never had an ear that could hear fine differences in digital and analog unless something is really compressed, and I've never maintained I could hear that much difference, so my disappointment and slight anger doesn't come from cognitive dissonance or being hoisted upon my petard. It comes from simply being lied to as a customer. And the value of the records has gone down. For the cumbersome nature of vinyl, we're getting digital performance. Might as well be on a compact disc. Take up less space. And now the resale value of the records has likely plummeted, which was always a calling card as a collector.

The whole thing is a mess and deserves to blow up in their face, really. Just disappointed in the whole thing.

 

Welcome to the world, the "real world"
This place and space in time on this planet has been filled with lies and worse and on much more important issues and matters.
And how about can anyone say "placebo effect"
Also the mind is so powerful.... ah forget it. Some will figure it out.

If it sounds good to one/many and they are happy that's all that's needed, if not keep searching till one finds what does.
And I leave on this note which pertains to the thread topic...
"placebo effect"

 

Do you all want to play “match the real name with the user name of those people in the article” with me?

I think I have most figured out.

The thread starter here left out the quote of a Canadian forum member who got (erroneous) email confirmation these were AAA.

I remember that member mentioning Fremer straight stole his email image from this forum for his own video.

it’s actually cool to see this little la-la land forum spill into “real life”.

 

Hit the "Escape" key.

 

thanks...

 

I have no horses in this race, because I love digital and analog equally, but that last statement I bolded above is simply wrong.

Just because so many people think the MoFi recordings from digital files sound great, that says nothing about if they would or could find the same vinyl reissue, if actually made from an analog master, to be better.

When there is no analog master sourced reissue version to compare to, there is nothing, as Randy Braun says in the quote above, "to hear a difference" between.

 

@AnalogJ , supposedly the Sunday at the Village Vanguard is the only AAA One Step.

 

Great interview,

 

I found the article for free in the Washington Post section of the Apple News app.

 

I am not big on talking head videos, but this one is worth watching. Lots of insight from someone who understands this stuff, but isn't personally invested in it; also, very telling in his description of trying to get interviews for his piece.
It may be a tsunami in a small pool, but it's the pool we live in. Having someone with knowledge dive into this without any objective but to get the story straight is welcome and refreshing; as @snorker points out in the other thread, it could not have happened without IG Mike getting the "interview" first.

 

It's what I've known and said for years.
SACD can be, often is, superior to vinyl.

 

Out of curiosity, which SACD are you referring to - the Mark Wilder single layer?

 

I have the US 2CD version of that one. It sounds great to me.

 

A few ideas:

1. try the reader mode in your browser, it effectively clobbers the paywall stuff and shows just text (working for me on this article in Firefox).
2. Search the title on google, but tick the "news" button to filter -- a lot of news outlets let you read it if you find it via a "news search", works often for NYT stuff. Also did this for this article and it displays fine.

It actually makes Allmusic readable again too!

 

I just tried the esc key and it worked... I'm going to check out the Reader Mode (if I can find where it's located?) as well...may come in handy down the road...