Definitive Audiophile pressings

But on the normal releases mostly it doesn’t bother me all that much apart from the odd one that has an eccentric colour way.

It’s not the issue with mofi for me, that’s stale curation and the fact that their parent company has started charging flipper prices towards the end of the pressing run and even worse cancelling peoples standard price orders to do so! Music Direct should be ashamed of themselves!
 
McGlam said:
Does anyone else not like MOFIs from an aesthetic perspective? I don't like the banner on the covers and the crusty old audiophile connotation. I remember thinking the same thing about those fancy gold CDs as a kid. I know they sound great, but they are just kinda ugly to me.
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I completely agree. The aesthetics are terrible (IMO). I prefer a nice deluxe sleeve that closely replicates the original; same goes with the printed record label. I don’t mind if the jacket is given an upgrade to a tip-on or gatefold as long as there isn’t much added superfluously. That being said, it does wonders for their marketing; those MoFi printed text across the top of the album helped them become the “go to” audiophile brand over the last 40 years.
 
McGlam said:
Does anyone else not like MOFIs from an aesthetic perspective? I don't like the banner on the covers and the crusty old audiophile connotation. I remember thinking the same thing about those fancy gold CDs as a kid. I know they sound great, but they are just kinda ugly to me.
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Despise them. Though even worse than the banner is the insanely generic spine.
 
McGlam said:
Does anyone else not like MOFIs from an aesthetic perspective? I don't like the banner on the covers and the crusty old audiophile connotation. I remember thinking the same thing about those fancy gold CDs as a kid. I know they sound great, but they are just kinda ugly to me.
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I don't like the Music Direct MoFi it has become.
 
LeeVing said:
I don't like the Music Direct MoFi it has become.
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Did MD change the MoFi branding? The newer MoFis don't look all that different from the 80s ones...it's a different font but they are all the same and have the color band on top as far as I can tell with all the ones I have...
 
McGlam said:
Does anyone else not like MOFIs from an aesthetic perspective? I don't like the banner on the covers and the crusty old audiophile connotation. I remember thinking the same thing about those fancy gold CDs as a kid. I know they sound great, but they are just kinda ugly to me.
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Do keep in mind that MoFi has been doing this since before at least some here were even born, and certainly before audiophile vinyl was on the radar. I agree with the questionable esthetic, but for something that began over 40 years ago, I also can understand why they might be reluctant to change their basic approach this late in the game. Ugly as it may be, you have to admit their album-jacket branding is distinctive!
 
Russ I said:
Do keep in mind that MoFi has been doing this since before at least some here were even born, and certainly before audiophile vinyl was on the radar. I agree with the questionable esthetic, but for something that began over 40 years ago, I also can understand why they might be reluctant to change their basic approach this late in the game. Ugly as it may be, you have to admit their album-jacket brand is distinctive!
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I also don't mind the splines especially when they are all next to each other even though I don't organize mine that way.
 
McGlam said:
Does anyone else not like MOFIs from an aesthetic perspective? I don't like the banner on the covers and the crusty old audiophile connotation. I remember thinking the same thing about those fancy gold CDs as a kid. I know they sound great, but they are just kinda ugly to me.
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It actually bothers me quite a bit too. And I’ll keep complaining about it just like I do when VMP zooms and crops cover art. It lately got to me with the MOFI Self-tltled Pretenders.. they cropped the bottom off and shifted the art down to slap on that ugly banner. I know we’re stuck with it because it’s their branding, but you’d think the branding on the spine AND the back was enough that they didn’t have to fuck with the cover art.
 
MikeH said:
Did MD change the MoFi branding? The newer MoFis don't look all that different from the 80s ones...it's a different font but they are all the same and have the color band on top as far as I can tell with all the ones I have...
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They changed a lot...less so the artwork.

Pre-Music Direct MoFi were pressed in Japan....they were "audiophile" but less gimmicky audiophile.
 
LeeVing said:
They changed a lot...less so the artwork.

Pre-Music Direct MoFi were pressed in Japan....they were "audiophile" but less gimmicky audiophile.
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We're talking about aesthetics, not the vinyl compound they used. The branding has been pretty consistent I'd say since they started.

If you want to talk about the sound quality, a lot of the early stuff used smiley face EQ which most people think sounded worse on a lot of the early pressings. So in that case, if they pressed the same albums today, they would likely sound better. A&R and annoying price-hikes aside, not sure what the "gimmick" is on the actual sound. Most of them sound incredible still. It's just the titles they choose that mostly suck.

edit: I also think they stopped pressing in Japan before they went bankrupt in 1999 when MD came along and bought them out but I could be wrong about that.
 
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MikeH said:
We're talking about aesthetics, not the vinyl compound they used. The branding has been pretty consistent I'd say since they started.

If you want to talk about the sound quality, a lot of the early stuff used smiley face EQ which most people think sounded worse on a lot of the early pressings. So in that case, if they pressed the same albums today, they would likely sound better. A&R and annoying price-hikes aside, not sure what the "gimmick" is on the actual sound. Most of them sound incredible still. It's just the titles they choose that mostly suck.

edit: I also think they stopped pressing in Japan before they went bankrupt in 1999 when MD came along and bought them out but I could be wrong about that.
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Was it not that they started off quite neutral and highly regarded but took a really bad turn towards smiley face eq in the late 80s/90s and that coupled with the vinyl drop off led to them going bust and music direct stepped in to buy the brand?

I know the early 80s Beatles ones I’ve picked up so far definitely don’t have over emphasised bass and treble in place of the miss.
 
Joe Mac said:
Was it not that they started off quite neutral and highly regarded but took a really bad turn towards smiley face eq in the late 80s/90s and that coupled with the vinyl drop off led to them going bust and music direct stepped in to buy the brand?

I know the early 80s Beatles ones I’ve picked up so far definitely don’t have over emphasised bass and treble in place of the miss.
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Yea--the annoying thing is that nobody really knows when they started doing the smiley-face, or at least there doesn't seem to be any consensus on when the switch over happened. So there's a bit of a gray area where people seem to find the MoFis pretty polarizing. I happen to love the MoFi Ziggy Stardust. Some people hate it, but I believe that's a japanese press that is not uniformly loved. Some people think the smiley face EQ happened before then, others think it was after.

From what I remember reading, MoFi ended up going bust because one of their biggest distributors declared bankruptcy and a lot of MoFi's inventory went with it.
 
MikeH said:
Yea--the annoying thing is that nobody really knows when they started doing the smiley-face, or at least there doesn't seem to be any consensus on when the switch over happened. So there's a bit of a gray area where people seem to find the MoFis pretty polarizing. I happen to love the MoFi Ziggy Stardust. Some people hate it, but I believe that's a japanese press that is not uniformly loved. Some people think the smiley face EQ happened before then, others think it was after.

From what I remember reading, MoFi ended up going bust because one of their biggest distributors declared bankruptcy and a lot of MoFi's inventory went with it.
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Thankfully the job they did for Bowie on the recent remasters means that my box sets are more than enough to do me!
 
Joe Mac said:
Thankfully the job they did for Bowie on the recent remasters means that my box sets are more than enough to do me!
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Yea I'm curious about the comparison between the MoFi and the recent remaster of Ziggy but I try not to double dip on titles unless it's a clear upgrade and I'm real happy with the MoFi. I do love a lot of the other Bowie recent remasters I have though and love that they are still pretty affordable!
 
dhodo said:
The only thing I like(d) about the hoffman forums is that there seem to be several people on there who have had the time and money to listen to 20 different pressings of the same thing and share what they have learned.
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Agree here. Whenever I am trying to find what the best sounding pressing of something is, I usually search the album title and "hoffman" because I can at least narrow it down to a few pressings. Or I come here and ask people :)
 
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