Top Artists – Gino Vannelli

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.

(more…)

Ohm Stereo Imaging Demonstration Record – Potentially Superb Sound

This review is from 2008. If you see one of these in the record bins, pick it up, it won’t cost you much.

This Ohm LP has tracks from some of the world’s finest superdisks such as Flamenco Fever, Hot Stix and For Duke. It also includes various selections from Vanguard. The last copy I played had SUPERB sound.

Note especially the first track on side two performed by the PDQ Bach Ensemble — it’s truly DEMONSTRATION QUALITY. 

The record is pressed on Teldec Virgin Vinyl. The back cover features extensive liner notes, explaining what to listen for on each of these unique selections.

I was heartened to see Gino Vannelli’s name on one of the tracks, taken from Powerful People, a personal favorite of mine.

The album was mastered by none other than Bill Kipper, one of our favorite mastering engineers. We discussed his work in a previous listing:

Think what a different audio world it would be if we still had Bill Kipper with us today, along with the amazingly accurate and resolving cutting system he used at Masterdisk.

As far as we can tell, there are no records being produced today that sound remotely as good as this budget subscription disc.

Furthermore, to my knowledge no record this good has been cut for more than thirty years. The world is awash in mediocre remastered records and we want nothing to do with any of them, not when there are so many good vintage pressings still to be discovered and enjoyed.

The likes of Bill Kipper are no longer with us, but we can be thankful that we still have the records he and so many talented others mastered all those years ago, to enjoy now and for countless years to come.

Keep in mind that it’s all but impossible to wear out a record these days with modern, properly set up equipment, no matter how often you play it.

(more…)

Brother to Brother – A Half-Speed Mastered Disaster

More of the Music of Gino Vannelli

More of Our Favorite Titles from 1978

Sonic Grade: F

An Audiophile Hall of Shame pressing and a Half-Speed Mastered Bomb if there ever was one.

Wooly bass, sucked-out mids, compressed to death, this record is one of the worst of the A&M Half-Speed series, and that is saying a lot.

We’ve played at least a dozen titles from this series and only one of them was any good.

The regular A&M pressings with the right stampers just kill it.

This pressing is every bit as bad.

(more…)

Gino Vannelli / Powerful People – Our Shootout Winner from 2014

More Gino Vannelli

This original pressing has some of the best sound we heard all day in our shootout.

Few copies were as BIG and BOLD as this, and that is unquestionably our sound. 

Overall this copy is far richer and fuller than most, and that’s a big deal on Powerful People, an album which is almost always pure midrange — no bottom, no top, just midrange. Until we did this shootout I wasn’t sure we would ever find a copy with any real bass or top end. For that very reason we had more than once abandoned this project in past years.

Then, a few months back I came across a cheap CD of the album in my local record store and started playing the hell out of it in my car. I had completely forgotten how good the music was, but it all came rushing back to me — once I had cut the CD’s treble and boosted the bass so that it sounded rich and smooth like the MoFi vinyl. Soon enough I knew we had to do the shootout, and fortunately for all involved the best copies of the album sounded amazingly good, much better than I remember and a whole lot better than the seriously flawed MoFi I used to play. (more…)

Gino Vannelli / Storm At Sunup – Our Shootout Winner from 2011

More Gino Vannelli

This White Hot Stamper side one was CLEARLY the best sound we heard in our ENTIRE shootout. No other copy had any side that sounded as BIG and BOLD as this. It’s richer and fuller, and that’s a big deal on Storm at Sunup, which is almost always pure midrange — no bottom, no top, just midrange. Until we played this copy I wasn’t sure there was EVER going to be any bass or top end. Thank goodness this side one came along, otherwise we would have been tempted to junk the whole project. (more…)

Gino Vannelli / Brother to Brother – A Desert Island Disc

More of Our Favorite Titles from 1978

I love this album! It’s very pop, beautifully arranged, the kind of popular music they just don’t make anymore. Four stars in my book!

Gino doesn’t get a lot of respect, but he has plenty of talent and his music still holds up today.

We’ve recently compiled a list of records we think every audiophile should get to know better, along the lines of “the 1001 records you need to hear before you die,” with an accent on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. Brother to Brother is a good example of a record many audiophiles may not know well but would be well advised to get to know better.

(more…)