Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab has been cutting vinyl from digital since a long, long time ago...

As it stands, I still look forward to my One Step of Bitches Brew.

 

and all those people who pay for pure analog records because they thought they could tell a difference

 

So he thinks that if people had good two-channel systems, there wouldn’t be surround systems? OK.

 

Keep in mind that Original Master Recording has been a trademark of MFSL from the very beginning. It's a slogan used for marketing - at the risk of stating the obvious, I don't think it should be perceived as an indicator of their process.

This reminds me of something I read a long time ago, where people accused Mcdonald's of not using pure beef in their burgers. The burger wrapper used to say "100% Pure Beef" or something. So conspiracy theorists then said that McD's still used additives but formed a company called 100% Pure Beef so they could pull one over on their customers.

 

You missed he his cutting from tape

 

Well, he said his source at MOFI said that it would be cut from a copy tape. There's a slight difference. I don't think he could personally confirm it, but only confirm what was said to him. He did leave the possibility of what he was told being untrue, however unlikely. This is what I had thought all along and I hope it's the case. I have no issue with them working from a copy tape. It would still be analog - but not the original master tape technically. I think they can escape this mostly unscathed if this is the case.

 

It really doesn't matter if you can taste it or not. One can filter out even the smallest particles in wastewater, use bacteria to disinfect and chemically treat the water so that it is clear and tasteless. That does not mean that a company can put that water in a bottle add carbonation and call it "natural mineral water". It does not matter that some people prefer to save the money and drink chemically treated wastewater, just as it doesn't matter that some people would prefer to save the money and purchase a digitally sourced album (or buy the digital file and forego the physical format entirely).

Essentially, if you can afford it and are willing to pay a premium for mineral water sourced from natural springs, you should not be given wastewater with the feces and bacteria filtered out just because you can't tell the difference. That is truth in advertising.

 

That article says nothing about which tapes MFSL used. The evidence has always been that for most titles, they used the UK album cutting masters shown on the box album jackets. For Abbey Road, MMT, and the White Album, things are less clear.

Even the UK wasn't cutting from the "original analog master tapes," ever.

 

I don't know about that. $125 for a digitally sourced Bitches Brew? I am thinking of cancelling my preorder. I might buy the SACD, but prefer to wait for someone to announce a AAA version of the vinyl.

 

I canceled my preorder.

 

This is consistent with my guess about these One Steps:

Mobile Fidelity says nothing about the mastering chain or the mastering process.

It is my guess that the magic here is an AI-assisted mastering process, which would necessarily require a digital chain.

Master -> Digital -> AI -> Pressing

The One Step is just the latest in the a long line of MFSL snake oil--something they can peg a marketing campaign upon. But the real magic is AI that's doing the equalization perhaps time correction, and whatever else.

But no one wants to say they're using AI on the digital source to create the analog pressing they're selling for $125.

 

was the original 2014 mofi Bitches Brew all analog?

 

Out of curiosity… why? Do you think it will suddenly sound worse?

 

Hey, Steve, help us out here. I was going to start a new thread on this, but maybe this is a better place.

In your professional opinion, what can legitimately be called an "original master"?

We potentially have multitrack masters, stereo master mixes, cutting masters, analog copies of any of the above, digital copies of any of the above, etc.

My understanding has always been that the typical non-audiophile LP was produced from a cutting master, which likely wasn't the original stereo master. (I freely admit that I am not sure that I have this right.) Best case, that would be at least a second-generation copy of the original recording, maybe worse (unless the album was recorded direct to 2-track). LPs cut in other countries were often one or two generations lower.

My point is that the whole "Original Master Recording" thing has been a somewhat misleading phrase from Day One, as soon as MFSL stopped cutting Brad Miller records and started licensing titles. It conjures up visions of using the tapes that were produced by the artists in the studio, which of course is completely untrue. They were probably getting a combination of cutting masters, U.S. copy tapes of foreign recordings, and who knows what else. Are any of those really "Original Masters"?

Any clarification would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

The way I see it... he himself still says it's still the best sounding recording he's heard. Now he's hurt cause it wasn't cut the way he thought? If that's the case, are we now talking placebo effect? Just a thought.

My attitude... if the recording is great, it doesn't matter how it was recorded. And as he himself said, nowhere did they explicitly say they were cut from the original master. He made the assumption himself based on old info.

Anyway, I have the MSFL (UCCD 552) Ultradisk II Gold disk released in 1991. Sounds good (still sounds good) to my ears.

 

So I watched the video and even he says he doesn’t think MOFI ever said they cut from the master tape. So what am I missing with this “controversy”? That we all inferred a process was in place that turns out to be different. And now know we couldn’t tell the difference anyway?

 

That's very likely so. Nocebo in case of the "dreaded" digital steps.

 

Well, I have a few digital MOFI releases to keep me occupied after I retire (add 70 post-2015 LP’s to the photo below). I’ll wait on Bitches Brew.

 

The Stevens box and Living in the Past spring to the eyes on that pic.... As it should be

 

Yeah, I have loved that Living in the Past set for years. It is still one of my favorite items in my collection. In fact, I look at those shelves and realize that I have spent a lot of time with some of those older MOFI titles. So I don't want to bad mouth MOFI's digital work. It has provided many hours of blissful listening. But, I think they need to be up front about their mastering chain for the One Steps. Depending on their explanation, I may cancel some of my $2000+ preorders. I suspect that many here are in the same situation.

 

Hadn’t realized that about BIA, thanks. In any case my point is that a single lacquer clearly can go the distance of tens of thousands of copies given that A,C, and D sides are still all the original lacquers in print since 2015.

Brothers in Arms is maybe not the best reference, it being a digital recording anyway.

But it’s very important to note the RTI plating code on the replacement B3 stamper 24168.2(3) dates the cutting of that lacquer no later than 2015. So it was not cut in 2019 as a result of a recall, but some of the B2 stampers were clearly thrown out and a B3 (which already existed) was thrown in. The newest repress of BIA (2022) has the B2 runout, not B3.

Which gets to the fact that any label that wants to press a serious high quantity can just cut multiple sets of lacquers with their source at the beginning. They 1) don’t need to make a copy tape for more theoretical future lacquers and 2) don’t need to call up the label to get the tapes back in hand 5 years down the road. Just use the source in hand, cut multiple lacquers, plate everything and let the metal sit until it’s needed.

 

I still don’t know if this guy is on the up & up or just a corporate spokesman. I know who he is, just not sure what.