Three Overlooked Lessons from The Mo-Fi Analog Master Tape Dumpster Fire

There is so much to unpack from the recent news that Mobile Fidelity wasn’t exactly being completely forthright about their analog mastering process en route to sell well-heeled audiophiles massively expensive vinyl versions of creatively important music. It wouldn’t be the first audiophile fib told by a company in the industry. It likely won’t be the last. But many important plot lines are being overlooked in this scandalous story.

We covered the background facts of the topic in our article: Mobile Fidelity’s Digital Vinyl Debacle: Are your records really analog?  But digging deeper into the implications, here are three key points that aren’t being discussed enough.

Issue One: Analog Master Tape Is Great, But It Isn’t “Perfect Sound Forever”

Understandably, most audiophiles haven’t spent a lot of time in a professional recording studio. It isn’t hard to blame them; getting access to these cave-like Meccas of recording technology isn’t super-easy for the non-recording-engineering-producing-or-performing people of the world.

One thing you learn if you work in the pro audio space or, in my case, studied this stuff in college is that analog and digital master tape are both able to record gorgeous, dynamic, and pretty low-distortion music. That goes for analog master tape (1/4, 2-inch etc.) digital master tape (a bit of an old format) and today’s chosen method, which is to record HD music right onto a high-capacity hard drive.

1. Analog Tape Physically Degrades Over Time: This means that one can’t play an analog master tape repeatedly (unlike a file on a hard drive), especially the original master tape, which is likely physically cut, spliced and edited in ways that make it even more delicate. The magnetic nature of the tape also additionally makes it degrade over time. Think of the reverse reverb effect on “Whole Lot of Love” from Led Zeppelin II. Legend says that the reverse call-and-response part by Robert Plant was because of tape bleed through. That is just the nature of analog tape specifically back in the late 1960s, when engineers like Eddie Kramer were pushing the limits of multi-track recording. Hard drives obviously don’t have these types of physical wear issues, yet can reproduce every bit as much of the sound, if not more than old-school analog tape. My colleague, Jacob Green, talks about how many times that MoFi would have had to play Thriller from the master tape to make 40,000 vinyl records. That would not happen if Sony Music has any say, and they do. Lots of say.

2.  Analog Tape Is Really Tough to Store Correctly: Do you remember the 2008 fire at Universal Studios that burned up unthinkable volumes of historically important music, including a lot of master tapes? If not, check out the New York Times article here. To store analog master tape correctly, you need to treat it with kid gloves. Temperature control and humidity control are also key elements of the costly and complicated process. The Library of Congress does such work. Many major record labels do too, but that doesn’t keep things like fires from happening. Simply put, every master tape has more than one digital backup because that the physical reality of the format. Analog tape has its slight perks, but it is a total pain in the ass to maintain over time, and in time, the tape will degrade.

3. Very Few Studios Have Analog Tape Machines Anymore. At USC back in the mid-1990s, we learned how to align the heads on a Studer A-800 analog tape deck, which is a famous recorder that was an industry standard for years in the pro audio world.

Many of us enjoyed working with analog better than digital tape most times, but today finding a fully functioning Studer A-800 or any other recording deck that can professionally play back (or record) two-inch analog master tape is pretty challenging. Motors for a deck like an A-800 as well as various other mechanical parts go for $1,200 to $1,500. Those parts are like a Lamborghini collector feverishly buying up Coutach wheels for $10,000 a rim when (if) they see them so that they have parts for the future. The reality is: the future is here and analog tape isn’t. The logistics, the physical issues, and most importantly the costs make working in analog the way of the past even if there are certain audiophiles who can’t break away from the ways of the past.

4. Forget Finding the Tape Machines—Nobody Had Any Tape 20 Years Ago, Let Alone Today. The argument against analog tape gets worse, folks. Finding new, two-inch analog tape is pretty tricky. Many engineers record over old recordings, which doesn’t make for a longer lifespan for the tape with the new recording on it. Hard drives are everywhere. They are also cheap and easy to access, with solid state ones being even more reliable.

A full-resolution copy of a master recording will faithfully play back as many times as you want. Anyone with the right tools and access can make edits in the digital domain and not have the physical cuts on the incredibly valuable tape. Digital recording is the modern standard. It just is. MoFi proved that to us even if they told their “true believer,” big-dollar clients something different.

Issue Two: It’s OK to be Angry You Were Sold a Bill of Goods…

This isn’t the first time audiophiles have been taken for a ride, but also remember that those Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs recordings still sound pretty damn good if you can take the acrimony out of the equation. A lot of care went into making those remastered records, even if they weren’t disclosing their digital realities. I remember having somewhat insider access to remixing and remastering old music (albeit, in 5.1-channels surround at DTS) when I was interning in college. The cost and challenges of dealing with B-list (if not C-list) titles were insane. $250,000 to $500,000 for the rights to remix the record is just a starter. Back then, the artists, engineers, and producers often wanted creative control and to be part of the process, which added originality (which is good) but also time and cost to the project. Access to the tapes was a total nightmare. And if I am not mistaken, the best-selling DTS DVD-Audio title was Queen’s A Night at The Opera and that disc sold around 50,000 units. Ouch. Dark Side of The Moon on SACD sold over 1,000,000 copies, but that was a CD-compatible version of one of the top selling records of all time. Few other SACDs or DVD-Audio discs sold very well.

My major issue with MoFi and the Audiophile Elders (think: print magazine evangelists) is that they don’t always deal in fact, science, or truth. As a hobby, we need to stop spewing total anti-technology garbage to consumers. They don’t want to hear it. Accept vinyl for what it is (hint: it’s a “kitsch” audio format, but not high-resolution by analog or digital standards). Accept that getting access to the master tapes for a record like Thriller is an earthly miracle. Don’t regress to old technologies when new ones are likely better, cheaper, more evolved, and safer for the actual master.

The question that you have to ask yourself is: are you hurt/angry enough to want to get in on the class action suit against MoFi? They’ve earned your anger. I feel you. On the other side of the coin: do you want to see them go bankrupt and stop releasing higher-quality versions of beloved older recordings? It is kind of a conundrum, isn’t it?

Issue Three: The Mainstream Media is Talking About the Audiophile Hobby, Which is Stone Cold Awesome

The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and others are covering this late-summer, technology story. And while MoFi’s alleged actions are pretty bad, there is the cliché that suggests that there is no such thing as bad publicity. Need proof? Kim Kardashian was the daughter of one of Orenthal J. Simpson’s “Dream Team” lawyers who worked as Paris Hilton’s personal assistant. I believe she had a sex tape after Paris’ “film” put her on the celebrity map. Today, Kim Kardashian is globally known and rocks a 10-figure net worth. Her entire brand is practically built on scandal and notoriety.

We should be happy that the hobby is getting mainstream ink, even under this negative light. The more people paying attention to high-performance audio, the more fun we are all going to have. If there is meaningful growth in the industry, there will be new companies emerging on both the music side and equipment side as well. There will be more affordable, high-performance gear that can give us more-and-better goosebumps from our listening sessions. And isn’t that what the hobby is all about?