Steve Hoffman

[BradH]

3-Lock Box had a post in another thread asking who Steve Hoffman was and why he catches so much hell. There wasn't an answer so...

Short answer: he's a guy who remasters music. Why does he catch hell? Because some people think he's great at it. He's got his own rabid fan base who engage in the most intense research and debate over which titles he's remastered over the years right down to the matrix number. This offends some people because sound engineering is not an exact science and that leaves room for a lot of emotional ranting and charlatanism. Regardless of whether Steve sucks or not you're going to get all kinds of reactions in this realm. I've worked with sound engineers before and I can tell you, by and large, they're some of the most uptight primadonnas imagineable. Some were okay, though. I think the knock against Hoffman stems from the fact that he doesn't have some kind of degree in this area that I'm aware of.

My take? The guy is brilliant. I sat down one time to listen to Agualung (DCC) and Who's Next (MCA). (Not just any MCA Who's Next). Two old warhorses that have been wrung out to death, right? I figured the sound quality would be good but what happened was more than just good sound. I instantly remembered what it was I loved about those albums when I was a teenager. This tells me a couple of things. 1) Even if you're not an audiophile, the sound quality of a disc can have a huge effect on the emotional response of the listener. 2) Most mastering jobs suck.

If Hoffman isn't the best then he's at least one of the best. His followers are anal to a fault in that many have the anti-equalizer bias that runs through audiophillia like the Spanish Inquisition. But Hoffman himself has a more casual attitude. If you don't like the sound of a disc then eq it at home. (He doesn't fall into the phase distortion myth.) In other words, lighten up, Francis. Even if you don't agree with him, it's a helluva refreshing attitude from someone in his profession. It seems to me that he approaches his job like an artist or a fan instead of a technician. In the meantime, I'll let my ears be the judge. Every Hoffman master I have sounds excellent.

[3-LockBox]

3-Lock Box had a post in another thread ...There wasn't an answer.

Now there's a news flash :skep:



I said in an earlier post that I'd heard a DCC Gold disc that was as bad or worse than the first issue. Well, now that I think of it, I'm not sure it was a DCC remaster. It was Aerosmith-Toys In The Attic, and maybe 'worse than' was a tad overkill, but I've heard DCC Gold versions of other CDs that didn't justify the hefty price tags, to me anyway. Paul McCartney's Band On The Run for example: I did do a side by side with a friend's DCC copy and my 25th Anniversary edition and I didn't hear anything that made me wish I'd spent the extra *$15 bucks on the DCC copy. But by the same token, I prefer some of the MoFi Ultra Disc IIs over the reissues of some CDs (Rush-Moving Pictures for one).

Like they say, YMMV.

*of course, had I spent the $29.99 asking price of the DCC Gold copy back when, I could easily make double or triple that now on E-bay. In fact, I passed over a DCC Gold Gerry Rafferty-City To City disc because 30 bucks was too much, but I saw it on somewhere today (I think was the DCC site) with the asking price of $150. However, I see E-bay has a seller with a MFSL half-speed mastered vinyl copy with a $19.99 reserve and no bids

[3-LockBox]

(He doesn't fall into the phase distortion myth.)

Are you referring to equalization?

[BradH]

...but I've heard DCC Gold versions of other CDs that didn't justify the hefty price tags, to me anyway.

Yeah, that's a whole issue itself. Is it worth it? I've bought ten of the MoFi's and acquired copies of a lot more that I probably wouldn't have paid full price for.


Are you referring to equalization?

Yeah, I don't buy the claim that people can hear phase distortion when it's affecting a static frequency. You can't hear phase distortion anyway, you hear the lowered response of certain frequencies. You may get some bleedover into the adjacent freqs but it beats listening to crappy frequency response in an untreated room.

[3-LockBox]

Yeah, I don't buy the claim that people can hear phase distortion when it's affecting a static frequency. You can't hear phase distortion anyway, you hear the lowered response of certain frequencies. You may get some bleedover into the adjacent freqs but it beats listening to crappy frequency response in an untreated room.

I tend to agree. I use an EQ anytime I can. Whether its a graphic EQ or its SRS WOW circuitry on my computer or MP3 player, or bass boost, though some bass management schemes on some equipment abolutely suck. But when EQing sounds bad to me, I usually write it off to poor design and/or poor execution, rather than phase distortion.

I happen to be a DIY speaker builder, concentrating mostly on single driver concepts, but I'm not a purist. I use fullrange drivers mostly as a wideband driver, and augmenting them with super tweeter and LF woofer. I tune a design by ear and don't rely on sims, which seems to puzzle certain people within my DIY circles. I'm not exclusively DIY in terms of what speakers I listen to. Some DIY speaker builders abhore crossovers as well, (thus the single driver concept) and EQs are blasphemy. I see crossovers as a sort of EQ anyway, and I have no problem implementing them, though I have learned that while one may get away with cheaper drivers, cheap crossover components can ruin a project.

Certainly, there's crappy equipment and better equipment. I recently picked up a small amp that might seem pricey for its wattage rating, but sounds superior to anything I own, so in a sense, I kinda swung over to the 'not all solid state amps sound the same' camp. But still, I have my own sense of how I want music to sound, which may vary with my mood, so I'm not hung on things like purety of signal and accuracy. Given the type of music I listen to, accuracy is an unachievable goal anyway.

[BradH]

...so I'm not hung on things like purety of signal and accuracy. Given the type of music I listen to, accuracy is an unachievable goal anyway.

It's that purity aspect that gets me. People praise straight-wire-with-gain while listening in a room that's got standing waves out the wazoo. It looks like a heart attack if you chart it out. Small rooms are worse. By the time it hits your ears it's far from accurate no matter how pure the signal was when it hit the driver. So, I guess I am hung up on using eq's because almost every room needs one. And you don't have to be an audiophile to notice the difference when it's done correctly. But I tend to shy away from eq'ing every disc the way you want. At least write down the setings for the flat curve before you tweak! I look at eq'ing as a way to correct the room response and just leave it. That's probably a holdover from working in video and trying to make people aware of the NTSC standard, trying to get everyone on the same page. That was damn near a lost cause. So, I look at curves in sound systems a lot like gray scale in video. Just set the standard and run with it. The difference is amazing. But those Hoffmanites have better ears than I do if they wanna get their tweak on. Despite all this tech talk, I tend not to think too much about frequencies when I listen to music. I'd rather just relax and trust the curve.