In a recent post I recounted an email exchange I had with my friend A.B.. He and I have been trading some of our records back and forth, an exchange that’s been interesting and fun for both of us, especially me as I’ve been able to hear some records I probably otherwise wouldn’t have been able to hear. Records like the MoFi Abraxas Ultradisc One Step, for example, a record that is very dear these days indeed, and of which, A.B. just happens to own a copy.
The Broken Record Lending Club!(?)
It was this record swapping with A.B. that gave me an idea that, while still germinating, I hope someday will bear fruit. I’d like to form a club, tres exclusive mind you, where members provide other members access to some of the records in their collection. Substantial deposits would be made and members would be rigorously screened and no doubt subject to a whole host of other rules and safeguards that I have yet to fully concoct.
Having done this record swapping now on a limited basis, I have to say, it’s a great idea that provides a lot of opportunity for a handful of brave analog audiophiles to learn a great deal more about some of their favorite records, as well as records that they may not know so well. It would also be an opportunity for the more stout hearted to hear some records that challenge their systems in ways that will help them make the necessary improvements to play these more challenging records better. This is an experience I’ve had and one that I’ve found especially rewarding.
If you’re interested in possibly becoming a member in our flagship lending club (and you live in the N. America as I expect shipping costs overseas will make this prohibitive), feel free to reach out to me in the comments.
Sometimes there are records we’re curious about, but we’d prefer to hear a copy before we buy one of our own. Among the many benefits of such a lending club would be that it allows members to do just that. And if there was EVER a record you’d want to borrow a copy of BEFORE you bought one of your very own, it’s GOT to be MoFi’s One Step of Abraxas, currently available for upwards of $4000 on Discogs.
When A.B. said he was going to insure his Abraxas One Step for a grand and confirmed that I’d be willing to do the same on the return trip, I was frankly taken aback. Insurance for $1000? On a MoFi? Are you kidding me? His copy doesn’t even have the original box!
Then I looked at prices and discovered that even copies of just one of the two records in the set (it’s a 45 rpm with two discs) were up for sale for over $700. THEN I understood perfectly why he wanted to hedge against damage or loss. I also understood that I really needed to hear his MoFi Abraxas One Step, a record that had clearly generated a great deal of interest, not to mention market value among collectors.
But does that interest or “value” have ANYTHING to do with how good this version sounds? I decided to look into what other folks out there had said about MoFi’s One Step Abraxas, back when it came out in 2016, starting with Michael Fremer, who at that time was writing for Analog Planet.
M. Fremer’s Review of the MoFi Abraxas One Step:
“Halfway through this “one step”‘s side one I said to myself “This might be the best record I’ve ever heard”. I meant by that the technical quality of the record and how much it resembles tape in four critical parameters: the wide dynamics and low bass response, the unlimited dynamic range, the tape-like sense of flow and especially the enormity of the soundstage presentation. More importantly I got a greater appreciation for the music, the musicianship and the showmanship too.”
When I read this I thought Mr. Fremer’s comments were not unlike some I made about an early, probable original pressing of Abraxas that I wrote about recently. I wouldn’t say I thought that record was the best record I’d ever heard, but I was quite impressed with it. I also got a whole new appreciation for the album after listening to it, much as Mr. Fremer had.
Fremer also mentions that he had a couple of “originals” on had to help “refresh his sonic memory,” although he never mentions how either of these sounded or how they compared sonically to the MoFi. I’d have been curious to know this as I’ve heard several early pressings and most of them have not sounded good at all. Therefore whether the originals Mr. Fremer had to play were all that useful for comparison in assessing the merits of the One Step is at best unclear.
I suspect however, given some of Mr. Fremer’s other comments, that the originals he had on hand were not very good sounding copies. My reasons for thinking this have to do with another of his comments:
“Sonically the first half is truly astonishing and then it head south fast as if the group got tossed from the more costly studio to one they could afford. Not saying the second half sounds bad but it doesn’t sound as spacious or textural suave as the first half. . . “
This was exactly the opposite experience I had with the copy I wrote about. That copy sounded significantly better on the second side than it did on the first. Of course, we’re talking about just one copy, but in my view this debunks any notion that the flaws Fremer hears on the second record of MoFi’s One Step have anything to do with the recording,
MoFi’s Shawn Britton Weighs In
Later I ran across these comments from Mobile Fidelity’s Senior Mastering Engineer (circa 2017), Shawn Britton:
“For those wind chimes, you hear greater detail. You hear more of those low level details. Reverb tails carry out better, there’s a more pliable sound stage. It’s pretty impressive. I thought that it might be a high frequency thing but we now think that the bass is more solid too.”
Interesting! Abraxas does have a ton of bass. And I also heard wonderful detail, as well as great musicality in the version I wrote about. I’m not exactly sure what a “more pliable soundstage” means, but I’d have to agree, that does sound “pretty impressive.”
Where I was forced to part ways with these fine gentleman and their comments on Abraxas was when I actually heard A.B.’s copy of the record they were reviewing. Even as I write this, I am having trouble clearing enough befuddlement out of my brain to share my own experience of listening to MoFi’s One Step of Abraxas, an experience SO unlike that of Mr. Fremer and Mr. Britton that it escapes my comprehension.
What We Agree On And On What We Don’t
First off, I do agree with the comment about the wind chimes. On the MoFi One Step, you do hear a lot of detail up top, detail that’s by no means missing on a good vintage copy. Not only do the wind chimes on the better vintage copies I’ve heard sound detailed, but they also sound natural, palatable and REAL. This is something I cannot say about the wind chimes on MoFi’s One Step. Sure there’s lots of detail, but it comes at the expense of musicality.
What Happened To The Bass?
And that “low bass response”? Again I would agree, but it goes so low that it never has any clear bottom. I actually had trouble discerning any low end extension at all. To my ears, the bass sounds SO LOW that it might as well be playing under water. I raised my arm, and then I lowered it. Then I raised it and lowered it again. No amount of fiddling with the arm height yielded even remotely better bass, and I eventually gave up.
This mushy low end marred the sound of this record in several ways. In particular, it made it hard to discern what was going in the lower midrange. The congas, arguably an essential part of the sound and character of the album, had barely any impact. They sounded lifeless and contributed precious little to the energy of the music.
There’s another percussion instrument on “Oye Como Va,” I think maybe a Guiro? On my best vintage copy of Abraxas I can hear this instrument clearly and clearly placed in the studio space. There’s a palatability to it. It “lives” in the mix, and it’s an essential part of the music. On the MoFi One Step, it sounds like an afterthought. I could barely hear it in the background.
I’d also agree that the MoFi One Step delivers a big soundstage. I’m not sure about enormous. I’ve heard bigger. But it’s what happens IN that soundstage that matters. And IN that soundstage, nothing sounded right to me.
Nothing Sounds Right To Me
As I recall, in my last article on Abraxas, I called the performance “ferocious.” I’ll stand by that, but on the MoFi One Step I had a hard time getting even an inkling of that ferocity. The guitar sounded clear as a bell but completely wimpy. The organ had no weight and its keystrokes lacked impact. The drums sounded like cardboard, which sounds rather flippant to say but is actually an accurate description. How any of this amounts to sound that is “tape-like” is hard for me to fathom.
On the vintage copies I’ve heard, if that copy is not transparent, the vocals tend to get lost in the mix. On MoFi’s One Step, mastering engineer Krieg Wunderlich seems to have tried to “fix” this issue by adding some clarity to the vocals, which he succeeds in doing, perhaps with a little boost in the upper mids. But now those vocals seem somehow a separate entity, independent from the rest of the band and the performance as a whole. I found listening to it this way weird and distracting.
To be honest, I’m having a hard time accounting for the chasmic difference in my experience listening to MoFi’s Abraxas One Step and Mr. Fremer’s. It’s as though we were hearing completely different versions of the record. But if I had to venture a guess, I’d say the differences in our systems have a lot to do with why our listening experiences were so different.
Different Experiences / Different Systems
I suppose it’s possible that Michael Fremer’s system is just a whole lot better than mine. I have little doubt it cost a lot more than mine to build. It seems at the very least his system circa 2016 was a lot better at playing records like the MoFi Abraxas One Step, but who knows? I’ve never heard Mr. Fremer’s system and I doubt I ever will.
I don’t know a lot about Michael Fremer’s system, but I expect it’s built in the conventional way that most modern systems are built these days. I could probably do my research and look up what he has, but I’m not sure it really matters.
My experience of having once been on this conventional system building trajectory, the one that most audiophiles take by employing big powerful amps, low efficiency speakers, CRAZY expensive and highly coloring wires and turbo charging power cords, is that it ultimately leads us further away from the full potential of analog. And because the vast majority of analog audiophiles use records like the MoFi Abraxas One Step as their reference records, the choices they make in gear will likely be ones that make modern heavy vinyl records sound better than they really do.
What Records Is Your System Built For?
As my system has gotten better at playing the best vintage pressings, just about every heavy vinyl reissue I’ve played has sounded worse by comparison. Not necessarily bad mind you, although in some cases, yes, pretty bad actually. But with the kind of improvements I’ve made the distance between the better vintage records and the heavy vinyl reissues I’ve heard has gotten significantly bigger.
This has reinforced my confidence in the path I’ve followed over the past few years to improve my system. Not once have I ever heard a modern pressing that could compete seriously with the best vintage ones, and therefore a system built to play the best of the best vintage pressings will be a system that, in my mind and to my ear, has a fighting chance to realize the full potential of analog.
I’m not sure many other audiophiles have or will follow this path, but I’ve little doubt it’s one worth taking. Over time, which approach to analog audio and records is better will, like the debate about heavy vinyl reissues and Hot Stampers, remain an ongoing and heated one.
But whichever side you may find yourself IN that debate, at least consider this: however unlikely it may seem, MAYBE, just maybe, I’m right about this MoFi One Step of Abraxas. Maybe consider leaving just a teensy little crack of doubt open in your mind that MAYBE this record doesn’t sound as good as Mr. Fremer and Mr. Britton say it does.
If you do, you might just save yourself a few thousand dollars. You might also leave the door open to building a much better sounding analog audio system AND to finding MUCH better sounding records to play on it. You might even find yourself contacting me about joining The Broken Record Lending Club.
One final note: Michael Fremer and I may not agree on the MoFi One Step of Abraxas, but we seem to agree on MoFi’s 45 rpm recut of Dire Straits. You can read my review here and watch his comments on this video, in which he levels some of the same criticisms I do in this review against some of Mobile Fidelity other records.
And one final final note: If you’re curious to know what Mr. Fremer had to say about MoFi’s 45 rpm recut of Dire Straits when he was writing for Analog Planet back in 2019, you can find that here. It’s a very short review and won’t take up much of your time, but the title really says it all.