MoFi Records

[bitchstewie]

Interesting article

https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/08/05/mo...

[AndyTR]

Great article, thanks for sharing. I love vinyl, I have some mofi albums and the mastering is fantastic. I don't really care if they're using DSD if the albums sound as good as they do.

[BIRMA]

Very interesting, I have a large collection of these that I bought in the 70's as one of my favourite Hifi stores Hamiltons in Southampton sold them, they're long gone but my albums are still like new. I wonder if in the 70's the method may have excluded digital.

[Nico Adie]

BIRMA said:

Very interesting, I have a large collection of these that I bought in the 70's as one of my favourite Hifi stores Hamiltons in Southampton sold them, they're long gone but my albums are still like new. I wonder if in the 70's the method may have excluded digital.

It most certainly did - CD's weren't introduced until '82 - with digital recording/mastering around the same time give or take a year...

[Miserablegit]

As long as they sound great that should be all that matters but I can see the issue if they’ve been advertised as AAA

I use hi res digital tracks for recording on my Revox B77 - I like the sound and cannot afford the £400 for a prerecorded album.

[Crackie]

Nico Adie said:

BIRMA said:

Very interesting, I have a large collection of these that I bought in the 70's as one of my favourite Hifi stores Hamiltons in Southampton sold them, they're long gone but my albums are still like new. I wonder if in the 70's the method may have excluded digital.

It most certainly did - CD's weren't introduced until '82 - with digital recording/mastering around the same time give or take a year...

CDs were 1982 but the first commercial digital recording was released in 1971. NHK, the Japanese broadcaster, developed stereo digital recording during the 60's. Denon made their first commercial digital recordings in 1971 using NHK's tech.

Denon released their DN-023R digital recorder in 1972.

US company Soundstream released their DTR in 1975



Digital recording entered the mainstream in 1977 when Sony introduced the PCM-1.

Edited by Crackie on Saturday 20th August 17:01

[BIRMA]

Nico Adie said:

BIRMA said:

Very interesting, I have a large collection of these that I bought in the 70's as one of my favourite Hifi stores Hamiltons in Southampton sold them, they're long gone but my albums are still like new. I wonder if in the 70's the method may have excluded digital.

It most certainly did - CD's weren't introduced until '82 - with digital recording/mastering around the same time give or take a year...

Yes that would tie in with my first CD player a Technics model I seem to recall Big Country by Big Country was one of the first CD's I bought. I can still remember thinking how sparkly clean and clear it sounded. Pretty much stopped playing my vinyl half speed masters from there on.

Just to correct my statement (it was a long time ago) I bought the Technics SLP 10 and the Big Country CD The Crossing in 1983, along with my original Linn SondeK LP12 (£79 in the 70's when released) my Laser disc player and laser discs plus a golf ball typewriter are all stored in my loft.

Edited by BIRMA on Sunday 21st August 10:30

Edited by BIRMA on Sunday 21st August 10:38

[Miserablegit]

I had always thought it was 1985 with the release of Brothers in Arms but a quick Google suggests it was, as you say, 1982, with Billy Joel’s 52nd street.

The Guardian suggests Brothers in arms was first cd to sell 1 million copies and was first DDD recording.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/jun/12/brot...

[TonyRPH]

Ry Cooder's Bop Till You Drop album was one of the first (if not the first) vinyl albums mastered from digital.

I think that was followed closely by Fleetwood Mac's Tusk album IIRC.

Both great sounding albums, whether on vinyl or CD.

I really don't see any issue with this revelation about MoFi apart from marketing their records as pure analogue.

[OutInTheShed]

TonyRPH said:

[.....

I really don't see any issue with this revelation about MoFi apart from marketing their records as pure analogue.

It's all about selling stuff to anoraks who think they can hear the difference.
It's like mocking someone's faith behind their back, while taking their money.

It's a joke really, because there's a whole lot of processing between the musician and the master tape anyway.

The real issue is that many/most CDs (and other consumer media) suffer ill-judged production between the master tape and the 0s and 1s the consumer gets. Record labels fiddled with the material to try making the CD sound 'better' than the vinyl, and often had some bad ideas about what 'better' meant.

[Crackie]

BIRMA said:

Nico Adie said:

BIRMA said:

Very interesting, I have a large collection of these that I bought in the 70's as one of my favourite Hifi stores Hamiltons in Southampton sold them, they're long gone but my albums are still like new. I wonder if in the 70's the method may have excluded digital.

It most certainly did - CD's weren't introduced until '82 - with digital recording/mastering around the same time give or take a year...

Yes that would tie in with my first CD player a Technics model I seem to recall Big Country by Big Country was one of the first CD's I bought. I can still remember thinking how sparkly clean and clear it sounded. Pretty much stopped playing my vinyl half speed masters from there on.

The first CD players ( Philips CD100 & Sony CDP-101 ) were introduced in 1982 but there had been digital recordings, released on vinyl since, available since 1977. A 1978 digital recording of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra performing Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring was the fist digital release to win a Grammy.

The Ry Cooder album mentioned by Tony was released in July 1979........Giorgio Moroder released E=MC2 in August and Fleetwood Mac's Tusk & Stevie Wonder's Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants came out in October.

Edited by Crackie on Saturday 20th August 20:41

[BIRMA]

It would appear most of my very early MoFi LP's are worth an awful lot more than I paid for them. I did baulk at the price at the time but they were about twice as thick as standard LP's and I believe were made of non-recycled vinyl.
I guess if you played them on a Dansette record player you would be hard pressed to notice any difference but on my system at the time a Linn Sondek LP12 Shure V15 cartridge, Krell integrated amp and JBL L100 Century speakers Money from Dark Side of the Moon sounded absolutely wonderful/spectacular even.