Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Little Feat Available Now
I have a theory about why MoFi’s mastering approach tended to work for the Waiting for Columbus album when it failed so miserably for so many others. It goes a little something like this.
Back in their early days, MoFi tended to add bass and treble to practically every record they mastered, regardless of whether or not the master tape they were using needed a boost.
A little extra sparkle up top and a little extra kick down low was what the audiophile public seemed to want. We call this the smile curve and lots of audiophile records have a case of it.
Truth be told, I was a member of that group and I know I did.
Fortunately for them, Waiting for Columbus is an album that can ofteny use a little at both ends. Rarely did The Mastering Lab supply it, making the original domestic pressings somewhat bass-shy and dull on the extreme top. The MoFi clearly corrected the poor EQ choices The Mastering Lab had often made.
UPDATE 2024: Poor EQ Choices?
Or perhaps it could have been one or more of the following:
- Perhaps the band liked it better that way.
- Perhaps The Mastering Lab found it easier to cut that way.
- Perhaps the cause of the records lacking extension on both ends comes from some other factors that cannot be known.
Or, if you don’t like those three, just make up some other reasons that sound plausible, or ones that fit in with other ideas you may have, even though there is probably not an iota of evidence to support any of it.
This is the way of the audiophile record collector — theories galore, but not much experimental evidence to back them up (or falsify them as the case may be). We are more inclined to the No Theory approach to finding good records, which you can read about here. We believe it has served us well and can do the same for you.