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

Weird review. "Other than less than exemplary cover art reproduction, I think Mobile Fidelity's One-Step Thriller is worth the $100 investment."

Gives it a less than stellar review and then says its worth the money

 

Wut? He gave it an 8!

 

I had the same reaction, especially after reading his comment about how they phoned it in on side 2. Strange.

 

I think the review is correct about side 2, Billie Jean does sound a bit reserved on the Thriller MFSL compared to the original LP or original Sacd. I didn't buy the onestep I bought the sacd. The MFSL is good in isolation, put on the original LP or sacd afterwards and BAM! That's Thriller.

 

Bit late to this thread……..so what’s going on?

 

He clearly was hedging. The bottom line is he rated SQ an "8". Not bad, but not upper atmosphere, either.
He liked side 1. He disliked side 2.

 

not much, apparently MFSL have been cutting vinyl from CDR's and taping them off the radio for years.... or something along those lines.

 

Read the actual review.

 

I did. At best it's a mixed review

 

Right. Thats kind of the point of what I am saying.

For $100.00 it should be better than this:

"Side two of the One-Step sounds as if the MoFi engineers either lost interest or weren't really paying attention to what the original intended—or perhaps the digital conversion has more of an effect they were unable to counter. The depth and warmth beginning with "Billie Jean" found on the original, goes missing on the One-Step, which frankly sounds more like a CD transfer."

But then he says "other than the artwork its worth $100.00"?

Talk about yapping out both sides of his head lol.

I think it is also hilarious that all through this thread folks were griping about the worth of the One Steps and now that we see this at best mixed review, an 8 is good enough.

Not that I hold much into Fremers reviews.

Like I said, weird review.

 

... or so you'd think, judging by some of the posts.

 

If he goes all in on a digital record he’s basically making a mockery of his whole analog is better mantra. If he trashes it completely he’s biting the hand that feeds him. So, he plays the middle game like any good con man would.

 

Exactly. Eh, I dont care about his reviews. I just found it interesting since it was brought up. Of course he has to bring in the digital vs analogue thing lol. Yet somehow forgets his other stellar reviews of Mofi DSD transfered albums. Must be hard to do reviews sitting on a fence like that.

 

I still think that many of the $60 -70 non one steps are the sweet spot and the best MoFi has done. There are of course exceptions that are less than stellar, but the past decade of Krieg’s mastering to vinyl has a pretty high success rate imho.

 

I too was mildly surprised by Fremer’s ‘Thriller’ review, mildly because he is nothing if not somewhat disingenuous. IMO, he always has been, one minute spouting as much hyperbole as he can and the next, depending on what he perceives as a vested interest, coming back down to earth and diplomatically flip flopping. Highly unreliable and very weak, again, imo.

BTW, anyone know why he left Stereophile? Could it be that even they finally saw the light and had had enough of him?

 

I would agree that if they want to use digital steps, they ought to get away from these elaborate One Steps and stake out lower cost territory. They could win with sales volume. I'm buying a lot of $25-$30 digital step titles from Amazon that sound fine to me. A digitally-sourced LP shouldn't cost much more than this.

 

Quite a few references to Mofi in this one posted yesterday

 

Yeah, Im hoping by this time next year this One Step UHQR that has turned goofiness will be history. Remember the days when one could get a decent to great mastering for 2 figures?

 

I've hardly been an apologist for Mike Fremer on the whole Mo-Fi debacle, but I actually found his review interesting in his recounting the history of the engineers, producers and studios, as well as the process by which the original recording was put together. (I have little doubt that Fremer did a lot of learning to prep for his stint as an expert witness in that Quincy case which served him well here).
As to his conclusions, those are often less important to me than the history, the description of process and the like. I guess listeners can agree or disagree with him on those conclusions, based on their own listening evaluations. I know I have an early copy of Thriller in my stacks, haven't listened to it in decades and probably won't hear the MoFi unless somebody throws it on at a listening get-together. Is it inherently contradictory to say it lost the magic of side 2 of the OG but is still worth the hundred bucks? I have no idea.
I did think his write up, until he got to the MoFi part (which is obviously what most people reading that review were interested in) was quite well done. Like I said, I'm more interested in the history and process than any thumbs up/thumbs down conclusion. I did learn something about how the original record was made.
So, in "reviewing the reviewer" I'm not as negative as some of you are. And I'm trying to give him credit for not letting his role in the MoFi controversy prejudice his view-- but it's pretty hard to be objective when you are part of the story, no?
I'll leave it to those who buy this record and have an OG to determine whether it was money well spent.

 

Agreed. I thought the review was fine and informative. There is more to a review than judging and assigning numbers. People seem to either want a 10 or zero. It's a symptom of Rotten Tomatoes culture where ambivalence is no longer allowed.

 

No, it says nothing about the viewers. Fremer reviewing MOFI is about as useful as the ShamWow guy reviewing MyPillow.

 

Any word on a shipping date for Bitches Brew…?

 

So (if Fremer is correct) instead of charging people $100 for a digitized 33 record that sounds great, they are charging $100 for a digitized 33 record where half sounds great and the other half where he says it sounds like they phoned it in, is ok and the overall score is only an 8.

Pass.

 

I find it more interesting he gives the Music only an "8".