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It’s Official – The Audiophile World Has Lost Its Mind

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Black Sabbath Available Now

A little more than a year ago, back in June of 2023, we reviewed The Cars first album Rhino released on Heavy Vinyl. Here is our review.

We didn’t see the point in pulling our punches — when a record sounds as bad as that Cars album, somebody should stand up and say so, so we did.

We said it was possibly the worst version of the album ever made, its only competition being the Nautilus pressing from 1980, one of those bottom-of-the-barrel I-hope-we-all-learned-our-lesson Half-Speeds from back in the salad days of the remastered audiophile record craze.

(Yes, I admit I bought plenty of that crap back then, and I can’t even say for sure that I could tell how awful the remastered Nautilus pressing sounded. I believed what I was told — that the original pressings needed the ministrations of some guys with a lathe who thought they knew more than the engineers at Sterling when it came to cutting good sounding records. I must have been completely clueless to believe any of it, and now that I look back on those days, it’s obvious I was.)

But enough about me. Let’s talk about the hack who cut this godawful record. If you will allow me to quote myself from my Cars review:

Kevin Gray has struck again. He’s a modern one-man demolition crew, taking exceptionally well recorded analog albums and turning them into the vinyl equivalent of CDs, and bad CDs at that.

What we heard on side one of the new Black Sabbath remaster can be seen from our notes as reproduced below.

  • Nasal, upper midrange boost
  • No real space
  • Hard and smeary
  • Sizzly rain intro
  • Vocals are very present in a harsh and unpleasant way

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Put Us to the Test! We Can Tell a Good Record from a Bad One, Digital or No Digital

Skeptical Thinking Is Key to Finding Better Sounding Records

And we don’t need to know anything about how it was made in order to judge it!

For those of you who did not follow this story from a few years back, you may want to catch up here.

Although it’s behind a paywall, you can get a free test drive easily enough.

Now that you are up to date on the overall contours of this mess, here is another one of the many thoughts I have had concerning the revelation that Mobile Fidelity has been secretly sourcing at least some of their masters digitally since 2015.

Back in August of 2022, I wrote what you see below to Geoff Edgers, the reporter who exposed this ridiculous mess. (I toned it down quite a bit. The original version was not suitable for publication.)

Earlier that same year he had visited me at my studio, where I played him the awful Dire Straits first album that MoFi remastered, one of the worst half speeds ever made (review coming, but you can get a good idea of my take on it here).

By August of 2022 he was starting to see just how crazy the world of audiophiles actually is, and the more he learned about some of these people, the crazier they seemed. And he was not wrong about that.

My letter (with a few additions):

Jim Davis (of MoFi) is not one to be trusted and would have loved to cover up this whole thing if he could have figured out how to do it. It got away from him, and as far as I’m concerned, good.

And you heard how shitty their Dire Straits record is. Who cares if it’s digital? The sound is bad. Why bother trying to figure out the reasons this crappy label doesn’t know how to make good records? It’s just a fact. Accept it.

Many of MoFi’s now-exposed records were on Fremer and Esposito’s own lists of the best sounding analog albums.

Of course they were. I defy you to find me two “audiophile experts” who are wrong more often than these guys!

From the article:

One of the reasons they want to excoriate MoFi is for lying,” says Howarth. “The other part that bothers them is that they’ve been listening to digital all along and they’re highly invested in believing that any digital step will destroy their experience. And they’re wrong.

These people who claim they have golden ears and can hear the difference between analog and digital, well, it turns out you couldn’t.

The best ears? Are you kidding me? In their dreams. These guys give every indication that they are virtually devoid of critical listening skills. The evidence supporting this reality has been laid out in this very blog in scores of commentaries over the course of more than twenty years.

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Eat Your Spinach

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Miles Davis Available Now

I recently wrote about Bitches Brew. A few excerpts:

The staff may or may not like these kinds of records, but I sure don’t. To be honest, Bitches Brew fits just fine into a section I like to call “albums I can live without.” The world is full of them.

Music is deeply personal. If you don’t feel the need to like what other people like, you and I should get along just fine.

This is music for those who want to be challenged. That’s as true today as it was 50+ years ago when the record came out.

I still don’t care for it though. In my defense, allow me to fall back on the wisdom of de gustibus non est disputandum.

A fellow left me this comment:

Really enjoyed this piece on ‘Bitches Brew’, your take on the album’s density, texture, and restless energy was a great read. It’s fascinating how Miles managed to create something that still feels both challenging and endlessly rewarding all these years later. I especially appreciated the way you framed its impact beyond just jazz, because that’s exactly why the album keeps drawing people back in. I also run a small blog with a few articles about Miles Davis, I hope you’ll take a look, I’d appreciate it.

I thought that it deserved a reply and came up with this one:

Dear Sir,

The records we sell must stand the test of time. Can we say that Bitches Brew stands the test of time? In some ways, yes, absolutely. People are still writing about it. People are still buying it.

But is anybody sitting in a room, by himself, facing two speakers with the lights down low, and actually able to enjoy the music enough to get through all four sides of it? Let me put it as nicely as possible: the most likely answer would be “not many.”

We’re looking for customers who will pay hundreds of dollars for an album. One album. They typically do so with the understanding that they will want to play such an album over and over again. Maybe even become obsessed with  it.

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Shouldn’t a Digital Recording Sound the Same on CD and Vinyl?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Dire Straits Available Now

UPDATE 2026

These comments are taken from a reddit thread that Geoff Edgers and I were on years ago talking about Hot Stampers. I would add that the audience seemed to have very little experience with high-end audio. Based on the comments I read, most of them, like most audiophiles, especially audiophile record collectors, thought I was selling snake oil.

(Doesn’t it strike you as odd that no one ever seems to bring up the fact that we make a point of explaing to you exactly how to find your own snake oil?)

Someone asked a question about vinyl for digital recordings. Discussing the difference I typically hear between CDs and vinyl pressings, I offered the opinions you see below. (We might have been talking about Brothers in Arms; I honestly don’t remember and don’t think it matters anyway.)

For those of you newer to the blog, please keep in mind that, unlike a great many fans of analog, I actually like the sound of the hundreds of CDs I own and make a point to play them regularly for enjoyment. Properly mastered CDs can sound shockingly good.

In my experience, a good CD will wipe the floor with the vast majority of Heavy Vinyl records being made today. If you are buying modern remastered records, I highly recommend you stop and instead make the effort to find a good CD player and buy vintage — and even some of the better gold — CDs.

My comments:

Well, a too-short version would be something like:

On the vinyl and on the CD the tonality should be identical.

If it is not you have problems and you need to do some work to find them and fix them.

Assuming correct tonality, the CD should be big, lively and clear, assuming you have a good CD player and a good CD.

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When you read a review of a record that was obviously reproduced with inferior equipment, what’s your first reaction?

When You’re Just Getting Started in Audio…

Mine is typically “what an idiot!“

But then I might step back and, taking a moment to reflect, recognize that I myself have written seriously mistaken reviews back in the days when my equipment was inferior. I have to recognize that could have been me, and maybe not all that long ago.

Here’s one from the mid-90s, about twenty years after I had purchased a pair of rather large floor standing speakers and a number of highly-rated, very expensive hi-fidelity components to drive them.

But all that hardware and all that money could not tell me how awful sounding some records were, and there are plenty more from my past.

In fact, there are so many that we thought they deserved their own special category here on the blog, under the heading dubious sounding records I once liked.

The explanation for all the nonsense one reads on the web could not be simpler or more obvious.

The lo-fi to mid-fi crowd doesn’t know what it’s missing and telling them doesn’t do them (or you) any good because they are not where they need to be yet. They are not where you are — they are where they are. And that just happens to be the same place you were at some point in your journey.

They are in the hole you used to be in. The difference is you managed to climb out of that hole. They’re still in it.

Keep in Mind

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Some Thoughts on Testing in Audio

Robert Brook runs a blog called The Broken Record, with a subtitle explaining that his blog is:

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

Some THOUGHTS on TESTING in AUDIO

My Two Cents

I made a couple of quick notes and sent them by email to Robert, as follows:

  • One record is not enough for this test, or any other for that matter, and
  • Tests need to be blinded.

Without blinding all you are doing is confirming your prejudices, which is something you correctly point out in your piece, and no matter how much you want to think you aren’t doing that because you are trying so hard to guard against it, it is almost surely what you will end up doing.

Confirmation bias is at the heart of most mistaken audio judgments, something I learned a very long time ago, and only after making every kind of mistake there is to make, over the course of decades no less. Only one thing had the power to set me on the right path, and without it I would never have learned how to make any real progress in audio, or find better sounding records for that matter.

If you don’t know how to run good experiments, how can you be sure your results are of any value?

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Letter of the Week – “The energy, the bass, the clarity was all there. I still can’t get over it.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Heart Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased a while ago (emphasis added):

Hey Tom,   

Hope you don’t mind me E-mailing you with comments on my recent purchase of Dreamboat Annie but I’m busting to tell somebody. 

I am stunned. I had one “run of the mill” copy and one of the Nautilus albums which I thought was pretty good.

It’s good if you never hear a Hot Stamper. The Hot Stamper just blew them both away.

I read the description of the HS on your site and every word was spot on. The energy, the bass, the clarity was all there. I still can’t get over it.

Near the end of Magic Man the synthesizer goes down to a very low octave and just drags you with it and keeps you there. It’s amazing.

It’s hard to understand why these people on the audio forums mock and degrade you guys. I guess they are afraid to spend a little money and see what a Hot Stamper sounds like. I have a feeling even if they knew how good the HS was they still would not buy one simply because it’s more money than they are willing to part with. So to justify not buying one they put the Hot Stamper down.

It’s just my opinion. They sure don’t know what they’re missing.

Only bad thing about you guys is once you hear how good a record can sound, the rest of your collection kind of takes a back seat to the HS. Oh well, I can’t stop now.

Steve E.

Steve,

Thanks for writing. We used to like the Nautilus pressing of Dreamboat Annie about as much as you did. Here’s our review.

Once you hear just how good the best pressings can sound, it becomes clear that the Nautilus is not worth the vinyl it’s pressed on, but until then, it’s certainly a good sounding record, just not as good as the real thing.

Our explanation for the mistaken judgments we audiophiles make is not complicated. As you may have read elsewhere on this blog, it all boils down to three little words.

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Straight Up – Porky Not So Prime Cut

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Badfinger Available Now

UPDATE 2026

This commentary has been updated multiple times, most recently in 2025.

British band, British pressing… right?

Nope. It’s just another mistaken idea.

We evaluated an original British pressing in our shootout, unbeknownst to me as it was playing of course. And guess where it finished: dead last.

The most thick, congested, crude, distorted, compressed sound of ALL the copies we played.

We love the work of Porky, Pecko, et al. in general, but once again this is a case where a British Band recorded in England sounds best on domestic vinyl. (McCartney’s first album on Apple is the same way.)

Just saw this today (11/29/2021)

On November 18, 2019, a fellow on Discogs who goes by the name of Dodgerman had this to say referencing the original UK pressing of Straight Up, SAPCOR 19:

So Happy, to have a first UK press, of this lost gem. Porky/Pecko

Not sure what those two commas are doing there. Pausing for emphasis? Sure, why not? This is a big deal.

Like many record collectors, he is happy to have a mediocre-at-best, dubby-sounding original pressing, poorly mastered by a famous mastering engineer, George Peckham, a man we know from extensive experience to be responsible for cutting some of the best sounding records we’ve ever played. He is truly one of the greats.

Is Dodgerman an audiophile? He might be, or at least he might choose to describe himself as one.

Many audiophiles employ this kind of mistaken audiophile thinking, believing that a British band’s albums must sound their best on British vinyl for some reason, possibly a cosmic one.

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What Do Audiophiles Think about Analog?

Robert Brook runs a blog called The Broken Record, with a subtitle explaining that his blog is:

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

We know of none better, outside of our own humble attempt to enlighten that portion of the audiophile community who love hearing music reproduced with the highest fidelity and are willing to go the extra mile to make that happen.

What Do AUDIOPHILES THINK About ANALOG?

Looking at the picture above, I’d say it probably gives a great many of them a headache.

And why shouldn’t it? It sure looks easy, and the fact that everyone who writes about it, reviewers and forum posters alike, seems to think it is easy. They all seem to think that all you have to do to get good sound is to buy the right equipment and play the right records — mastered by the right people, of course — and you are good to go.

But it actually turns out to be hard, so hard that some people — no doubt many of the ones who bought into the idea that it was easy in the first place — want to throw in the towel and move on to something else, preferably something that offers more bang for their hard-earned bucks.

If I had taken the above advice, and bought the remastered records the so-called experts have been recommending to audiophiles like me for decades, who knows, I might have thrown in the towel too.

But I was obsessed with music, and obsessed people don’t give up on anything easily. (The result, for what it’s worth, is hundreds of great sounding records for sale and thousands of blog postings.)

My Two Cents about Robert’s Post

(the slightly edited version taken from the comments)

Robert,
Thanks for taking on some of the more specious arguments — as well as some very good ones, to be sure — advanced by the music lovers you quote.

Job well done, and one that I could never have taken on as it would have made my head explode right at the start.

I wrote a piece recently about what I believe is fundamentally at the heart of the many misunderstandings music lovers of these various persuasions are unable to overcome.

It’s far more esoteric than the many good points you make. I’m assuming that at this stage of the game we can all agree that analog is superior to digital.

What I am trying to do is to get audiophiles to listen critically enough to recognize that no two sides of the same record have the same qualities in the same proportion, that variations in sound quality are almost unavoidable, and that record shootouts are the only way to bring this idea home to the typical analog audiophile enthusiast.

You can find it under the heading of breaking barriers and crossing bridges.

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Getting Fooled, or Fooling Yourself?

Basic Concepts Every Audiophile Should Understand

This excerpt is from a longer commentary we wrote in 2022 about the digital step (the horror!) Mobile Fidelity was secretly using to make their so-called One Step pressings.

What follows is one way to look at what happened and who it happened to.

This gentleman you see pictured, a certain Mike Esposito, made a foolish mistake.

He bought into the hype of the Modern Audiophile Remastered Record hook, line and sinker.

Rather than being skeptical, he wanted to believe what they told him.

He did not use his own ears to make judgments, he let others — reviewers, fellow audiophiles, the label itself — tell him what was pure and good.

Now he has learned that he was misinformed by those in whom he placed his trust. Even worse, he was lied to by the label he… is worshipped to strong a word?

He was also misinformed by the audiophile reviewers who should have known something was wrong. Not being able to recognize the shortcomings in the sound of these pressings was entirely predictable, since these reviewers never developed listening skills much better than those of Mr Esposito. (For more on just how out of his depth the man was, click here.)

His world has been turned upside down. But that’s not technically true — it was always upside down.

We know of practically no evidence to support the proposition that this label knows how to make good sounding records.  We wondered how they were still in business and have no expectation of ever getting any answer more helpful than “shut up.” (If you actually have evidence to support any claim you wish to make, we can help you do that.)

Finding good records and being able to reproduce them properly is hard. Perhaps now Mr Esposito is coming to appreciate just how little he knew about either.

UPDATE 2025

Based on the fact that he charges $1.99 per month — I kid you not — to advise his clients which are the best sounding pressings of the albums he auditions, it’s doubtful that he has learned anything from his experience of being fooled by Mobile Fidelity, along with all the other audiophile reviewers who apparently are as easily duped as he is. (Is there any job in the world requiring less in the way of qualifications than “audiophile record reviewer”?)

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