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Post by darthparrox on Oct 5, 2018 18:55:53 GMT
I hate his DCC "Highway 61 Revisited". From raw and primal record Steve managed to get lounge muzak sound.
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Post by aaa-appreciator on Oct 5, 2018 19:30:41 GMT
Are MFSL the same kind of snake oil as AF or actually decent? Since learning about the shenanigans of Hoofy I’m wary of all these companies professing audiophool quality products.
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Post by darthparrox on Oct 5, 2018 19:35:22 GMT
MFSL is good. You can always check their stuff via rutracker
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Post by Chicken in Black on Oct 5, 2018 20:14:34 GMT
MoFi is a legitimate label. They're reputable about the sources they use, and they did a flawless job on the Frank Sinatra Capitol titles they reissued a few years ago. They also handled a large chunk of the Bob Dylan or Miles Davis catalogs, while Audio Fidelity could only get some occasional reissue.
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Post by Sanjay Gupton on Oct 5, 2018 20:47:04 GMT
I've got The Stones' MoFi box. It's killer. I can't say it's "better" than any other release is, but I think it's really nice.
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bradman
Better than Steve
Posts: 5,136
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Post by bradman on Oct 5, 2018 22:00:24 GMT
I've got an odd assortment of their stuff, it's all pretty damn good. And thanks to Flat Transfer for that Loverde quote about Pretenders masters, interesting stuff.
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Post by thepeopleschord on Oct 6, 2018 5:14:02 GMT
It's interesting that STeVE says anything at all about the Pretenders botch. I was under the impression that it was a verboten subject over there.
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Post by hoffa_nagila on Oct 6, 2018 13:57:08 GMT
Are MFSL the same kind of snake oil as AF or actually decent? Since learning about the shenanigans of Hoofy I’m wary of all these companies professing audiophool quality products. They're basically the opposite of DCC or Audio Fidelity: they use the best sources, sound great, don't make false claims or blame any fuck ups on the listener, are still in business...
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Flat Transfer
Terry Kath
Providing DR numbers for the EK 34188, DIDP 20006
Posts: 484
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Post by Flat Transfer on Oct 6, 2018 14:24:35 GMT
I've got an odd assortment of their stuff, it's all pretty damn good. And thanks to Flat Transfer for that Loverde quote about Pretenders masters, interesting stuff.
RE: the AF version. There were two things 'wrong' with it.
There's was the missing telephone effect, as explained in the poat above by R. Loverde. And the audio on the AF was notably compressed looking (in a waveditor), compared to the original old CD version. STEVE co-mastered this with Bob Vosgien. He has always blamed the pressing plant for the compression but more likely Vosgien added the compression and Hoffman approved it purely by listening, without realizing what was done.
Upon being confronted by the SHites, he declared it FUBAR and promised a replacement disc. However, he soon had to retract his statement after being denied by Marsehole, who would have to pay for a re-pressing (after all, you don't get a refund when the content on the discs does not differ from the source material).
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Post by aaa-appreciator on Oct 6, 2018 15:01:24 GMT
Ok, thanks for clearing that up. I’ve seen some MFSL titles that look good (but pricey) and had assumed they were a quality product, then starting reading about AF and just thought it was more of the same.
How’s this for stupid, I didn’t used to know what SHM-CDs were and when I discovered the other place and all the SHites worshipping at the feet of Hoofter, I thought the SH stood for his initials and he was some incredibly successful mastering engineer. Oh how I laugh about that now.
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Post by Chicken in Black on Oct 6, 2018 16:00:17 GMT
Marshall "Marsha" Blonstein is a distinguished music entrepreneur and hairpiece wearer. Among his many ventures, he's the guy who founded DCC and later AF. He had noticed that Mobile Fidelity was quite successful in their niche business and copied their model with DCC. As he didn't have the funds or the capacities to challenge them directly, he turned the battle on the PR field by teaming with Steve Hoffman, who was at that point a somewhat disgraced former MCA junior executive/starfucker with a knack for self-promotion and stories involving mostly dead celebrities. Blonstein actually explained in an interview (that I can't find online) that he basically promoted Hoffman as a rockstar mastering engineer to gain fame for DCC and fill the gap with MFSL. That's why you had all these stories about STeVE having a special bond with the artists he was supposed to be remastering (I guess that on these early releases, Steve had uncredited "assistants" who actually handled the technical side, with Kevin Gray later gaining some recognition after he threatened to leave or asked for a raise). Steve wasn't apparently a direct employee of DCC, as he was an independent, but most of his business was related to them. In the final years of DCC, just before the label went kaput, Steve Hoffman started to exploit his fame with a website and boards related to sound quality in masterings. This helped Blonstein to fill the gaps from the time DCC stopped all operations (their final albums were released in 2000, the same year SH.tv started) to the time Audio Fidelity was launched in 2002, with their first releases in 2003. As a side note, both MFSL and DCC went bankrupt around the same era (1999-2001), as the sales for CDs were starting to plunge due to P2P and MP3, and some of their distributors had already gone bankrupt. Both labels were eventually revived, under the same name for MFSL and as Audio Fidelity for DCC. With DCC, there were also accusations of mismanagement, as some of the money was used to finance a different company owned by Marsha's wife. audiotools.com/en_labelsv_d.htmlAudio Fidelity was never as successful as DCC. They weren't able to take full advantage of the vinyl revival, and their "rockstar engineer" was persona non grata not just for MCA reissues, but now for everything under the Universal umbrella, which was getting wider and wider. Kevin Gray didn't have the same clout for the reissues he handled on his own, even when the ghost of Barry White would be visiting him. When Audio Fidelity started its activities, the tone on the forums changed. Steve started to promote his own products (which was inevitable) but also to badmouth the competition. The problem is that MFSL was also relaunched at the time, with a new generation of mastering engineers, like Shawn Britton or Rob LoVerde, who quickly reestablished its reputation. These two were members on SH.tv. When they tried to clear a few "misconceptions" published by "Our Host" (about their Roy Orbison compilation), they were banned, and the forum turned into a full propaganda machine for the cult of Hoffman, fueled by apostles such as Dave (the Night Gort), even if Steve wasn't ready to make many direct accusations against Audio Fidelity. Meanwhile, all that Audio Fidelity could count on was the name of Steve Hoffman, his "breath of life" and a catalog that basically got the scrapes of what MoFi or Analogue Productions would work on. His shtick also appealed to boomers who were willing to buy for some serious money an umpteenth copy of some undistinguished soft rock release from the 70s, but didn't appeal to the younger generation who was into vinyl. When Marsha "retired" from the music industry, the address for Audio Fidelity was just some mailbox at a mall. MoFi is nothing like that.
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bradman
Better than Steve
Posts: 5,136
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Post by bradman on Oct 6, 2018 16:00:52 GMT
Yeah, the Pretenders original CD is just fine, get the Rhino 2 disc for the bonus stuff.
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Post by System Tweak on Oct 6, 2018 17:47:01 GMT
Thanks to chickeninback for a great summary of the situation. It also brings up something I've wondered about. Having joined the Forums in the years when Steve-O the supposed ultimate mastering legend was "co-cutting" his projects with Gray, Marsh, or other people who were obviously capable of working on their own, I figured that someone else must have been doing the actual mastering work during the DCC days too even though SH usually got sole credit on the DCC releases. Gray in particular must have been cheesed off that he was portrayed in SH-ville as a kind of junior Hoffman protégé learning at the feet of the master.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2018 19:15:04 GMT
Even Chris is asking Hooferman questions about his sweet Vickie’s sexual powers.
DeVoe:
Hoofy:
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UDII
Cynthia
Posts: 1,329
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Post by UDII on Oct 6, 2018 22:27:18 GMT
Yeah, the Pretenders original CD is just fine, get the Rhino 2 disc for the bonus stuff. If you have the ears you need a Target pressing.
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