Powerful People on MoFi – What Was I Thinking?

More Entries in the Mobile Fidelity Hall of Shame

UPDATE 2024:

I just found my old review notes from 2014! They can be seen below. Please to enjoy.

At the time of our last shootout in 2014, I still had the MoFi pressing of Powerful People in my personal, very small (at that point) record collection.

Almost all the best sounding records from my collection had been sold off long before, going to good homes that I can only assume would play them more than I had in the last ten years.

If it’s a record you see on our site, chances are good I’d have listened to it until I’d practically turned blue in the face.

But I had kept my Powerful People Half-Speed these 30+ years because the domestic pressings I’d played were just too damn midrangy to enjoy.

At least the MoFi had bass, top end and didn’t sound squawky or hard on the vocals.

Well, let me tell you, played against the best domestic pressings, the MoFi is laughable. (In that respect it shares much with the current crop of audiophile reissues.)

It’s unbelievably compressed, a problem that is easily heard on the biggest, most exciting parts of the tracks. They never get remotely as big or as loud on the MoFi as they do on the lowly A&M originals.

It’s also sucked out in the midrange, like most MoFis, and, like most MoFis and Half-Speeds in general, the bass is not well-defined, punchy, and it never goes very deep.

There is also the issue of the MoFi 10k boost on the top end — it’s clearly audible and as bothersome as ever.

In summation, like most of the better audiophile records — from long ago as well as those being produced today — the most you can hope for from these reissues is that they can fix a few problems you might be saddled with on the particular pressing you own.

But if you work at it, the “right” plain old record, properly cleaned and played, will show you sound that the audiophile edition can barely begin to reproduce.

Having auditioned by the thousands the kinds of records you see on the site, the reality of this truth is irrefutable to us now, and has been for a very long time. Our customers know exactly what we are talking about; they’ve heard it for themselves.

The rest of the world seems content with the junk vinyl being produced today, which strikes us as sad. Very, very sad. But, hey, as long as we don’t have to listen to that crap, why should we care?

Good pressings are out there. You can ignore them, or you can seek them out. After all, it’s a free country.

What to Listen For

Rich keys — there are organs and electric pianos and other keyboards creating the soundscapes for every song. The Tubey Magical richness of that sound is key to practically every track.

Lots of percussion too. Graham Lear is a fabulous drummer who would go on to work with Santana on his amazing Inner Secrets. There are congas and bongos and bells all over these songs, and for us audiophiles what could be better?

Side One

People Gotta Move 
Lady 
Son of a New York Gun 
Jack Miraculous 
Jo Jo

Side Two

Powerful People 
Felicia 
The Work Verse
Poor Happy Jimmy

Powerful People

The story below revolves around Storm at Sunup, the first Vannelli album I fell in love with. That said, in my opinion it applies equally well to Powerful People. Now, so many years and gray hairs later, I actually prefer Powerful People to Storm at Sunup. It’s much jazzier and the material is stronger, tighter and more heartfelt.

My Old Story

Storm at Sunup is my all time favorite Gino Vannelli album. I used to play it all the time back in the ’70s. It was one of a handful of recordings that made me want to pursue audiophile equipment in the hopes that better equipment would be able to reproduce its sound even bigger and better.

Right around that very same time, I got my first audiophile tube preamp, the Audio Research SP3A-1, which replaced a Crown IC-150. Playing this album through that tube preamp was a revelation, as you can no doubt imagine (especially if you know the IC-150). After that there was no looking back. I started spending all my money on better and better equipment and more and more records, and I haven’t stopped yet.

This is also the kind of recording that caused me to pursue Big Stereo Systems driving Big Speakers. You need a lot of piston area to bring the dynamics of this recording to life, and to get the size of all the instruments you hear to match their real life counterparts. For that you need big speakers in big cabinets, the kind I’ve been listening to for about the last forty [make that 50] years. (My last small speaker was given the boot around 1974 or so.)

The Big Sound is the only sound that interests me, to tell you the truth. Anything less is just not going to be good enough.

Further Reading

If you are still buying these remastered pressings, making the same mistakes that I was making before I knew better, take the advice of some of our customers and stop throwing your money away on Heavy Vinyl and Half-Speed mastered LPs.

At the very least let us send you a Hot Stamper pressing — of any album you choose — that can show you what is lacking on your copy of the album.

And if for some reason you disagree with us that our record sounds better than yours, we will happily give you all your money back and wish you the very best.

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