Better Records vs MoFi

What Better Records does can be done for far less $. Find clean, not abused early pressings of your favorite titles and have them Ultrasonically cleaned or buy a ultrasonic machine and do it yourself. On 95% of said titles this will result in better sound on many systems than MOFI pressings. If you are lazy, go ahead and pay for the Better Records service, your choice.

@chrisoshea 

If Better Records was merely looking for the quietest pressings they could find and cleaning them, I could partially agree with you. Over the last several years, I purchased four copies of Jethro Tull's Stand Up and finally found one quiet enough to suit me. But BR goes through the extra step of listening carefully to all of the quiet ones in the hopes of finding exceptional sound quality.

The process of starting with a tape and ending with the final LP product is fraught with numerous potential mechanical problems along the way from cutting the original acetate, making the stamper, properly heating the stampers before pressing and on and on. Sometimes one side of an LP has much better sound quality than the other so BR will pair it up with another copy on which the other side is the better sounding one.

Over the years, I bought three LP copies (two of them were sealed) and one CD copy of Fleetwood Mac's Future Games and they all sounded murky and veiled. I had resigned myself to the fact that it was just recorded that way and there was nothing to be done about it. When I saw a copy on Better Records, I figured I would take a chance and purchased it. It is a white-label promo copy that actually has an extra level of high frequency detail that is missing from my other copies. I still think the original recording is compromised, but this LP copy stood out from the rest. It sounds better.

How many copies are you prepared to buy and how much time are you willing to spend carefully comparing the sound quality? I was happy to pay the $129.99 for Better Records to do it.

I have sold about 18,000 records in the last 3 decades (I'm a listener, not collector per se).  Tom Port's hot stamper LPs generally (95% of the time) are superior to MOFI reproductions.  This is unfortunate because they do press quiet LPs.  I've acquired probably 40 MOFIs and kept 2 (most from collections at $1 to $5 each).  The Maazel Respighi LP is a great example of a totally failed remastering.  YUCK!  It was a numbered copy that I sold for $295 with a no. 40? (low) when others were advertised on Ebay for $400-500+.  I sold Tom another MOFI for $300 sealed (rock) which he resold for $500-600.  He told me it wasn't really exciting music so no loss there.  

I'm not indicating that all MOFI LPs are worse sounding than a well pressed original hot stamper LP, but it is too often the case.  Often, CD copies sound better than original pressings (especially if they aren't hot stampers).   Tom agreed on such LPs as Down to Earth by Ramsey Lewis (I have 3 original and early LPs differently pressed yet the CD is superior).  

If one can afford to, buy the Better Records LP.  

Child level statistics and some knowlege about the record mastering / pressing process ( mother …stamper…press, cycle time, day, temp…etc will tell you the deadwax is a good place to start…. Many variables are NOT discernible via deadwax….. start w deadwax and listen……

And Port and company can’t hear them all…. nor can we mere mortals…

Record prices, even without Better Records or MoFi, are inflated. To me, those enterprises are two different things.

I never doubted that sample to sample variations, even with the same dead wax inscriptions, could sound different.

I was a MoFi customer in the original era. Today, not so much simply b/c I have good pressings of all the warhorses (or at least those I care about).

I’ve done shoot-outs --sometimes, 12 different copies.

I did buy one record from Tom Port- Tons of Sobs, "Free"’s first album which is a favorite in the electric blues genre. His copy does sound better than two others I own with the same dead wax. (One is a pink label, 3rd pressing not the bulls-eye, and a pink rim label). His was a UK pink rim label, super hot white ultra stamper whatever, in mint- condition. I liked the record enough to buy it from him, but I don’t think that’s his usual fare.

The price of standard vinyl from the old days has gone up in price by multiples, and early pressings simply aren’t available easily in M- condition. Look up a relatively rare copy and see the condition rating.

I’m usually chasing small/private label stuff that isn’t on anybodies’ radar. That stuff is not reissued by MoFi and usually not Tom Port’s fare.

I just got an email for Horace Tapscott’s Live at the IUCC. I have an OG, an original, that didn’t cost crazy money 5 years ago. Side 3 is amazing.