Pretty much the only thing I knew about Steve Hoffman was his infamous forum. However, in the process of ripping my CD collection I’ve just reached H (hooray – only been going just under a year!) and have come across Buddy Holly – From The Original Master Tapes. This was engineered by Steve Hoffman the mid 80s and is truly stunning sonically. He obviously spent time sourcing the right masters and the end result is revelatory.
One thing I don’t fully understand, however, is that Roon has analysed the CD as having a Dynamic Range of 4. I had always thought that the best albums, sonically, were those with a high Dynamic Range but this one seems to be an outlier. Perhaps someone can put me straight.
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We are privileged to be on the planet at the same time as him.
It’s Steve Hoffman’s sonic landscape, we just live in it
https://stereocentral.freeforums.net/
Blimey, you wander around in some strange places. Beware of cesspits
That place has been going forever, fueled by an eternally burning hatred of Hoff and his Manites. A very little of it of it is useful, such as the information about S.H.’s theft of master tapes and his lack of respect from the recording industry in general (far from the revered genius his Manites make him out to be).
It can be very funny sometimes, but there are some obssessives there who will trawl through thousands of posts to find material by people they don’t like and also find pictures and other stuff posted on social media by them. Strange way to spend your time on the internet
I think Roon is mistaken as this lists track Dynamic Range between 9 and 14, with an album average of 11.
https://dr.loudness-war.info/?artist=buddy+holly&album=from+the+original+master+tapes
Sound quality of recordings can’t be reduced down to a number. Mixing and mastering is a matter of balance, and that exists in the middle, not the extremes. I ignore those dynamic range numbers. Sometimes music needs dynamics, sometimes it’s best without it. A sound mixer with experienced ears should make those determinations, regardless of what machines say.
I think Hoffman would agree with you. I only have 1 or 2 CDs mastered by him, they sound fine, but not sure my HiFi/ears are of sufficient quality to notice differences between masterings unless it’s fairly obvious like The Beatles 1987/2009 versions.
I also have that Buddy Holly CD and it sounds brill. Albums of “Beard” music with a DR of only 4 tend to, let’s say, not sound too good.
DR of 4 is “Death Magnetic” levels of compression, fine for “Doof-doof” music perhaps.
“Beard” music?
It’s a term from the We Buy Records podcast.
“Beard music” = anything with a guitar.
“Calculator music” = anything with a keyboard.
“Doof-doof” = I think I made that up.
Theme from EastEnders?
There’s today’s tea/keyboard interface. I’m supposed to be on a safety training course, and not doing lols.
Git ahhhht o’ my training course!
Nah, doof doof has been a thing for yonks round our way.
Here we have dunka dunka as in EPA-dunk. EPA being the power restricted car youngsters can drive around in without a licence in which they blast out dunka dunka music, often in the night, upsetting the old ‘uns like myself. A colleague of mine makes this kind of music with her friend. They go by the name Oooklart
Another one in English is untz untz.
That is not bad at all. Although if I heard it in the street at 3am I might not appreciate its finer points.
That’s one of the softer tunes. The in-car amplification has some oomph.
Doof-doof was begat by tssss-bub-tssss-bub-tssss-bub, which in turn was a descendant of Bump-Clack.
@JQW here has a place in his town he refers to as Bar Doof-Doof…
It’s an overpriced bar a few doors up from my place that plays Doof-Doof Music until 3:30am two or three nights a week. Luckily I’m often working until those times myself.
Thanks @fentonsteve. I’ll have to follow this up in the Roon forums.
With the greatest of respect to the Hoffmeister*, wasn’t he pushing against an open door there? Of all the original rock and rollers Buddy was the best recorded. Not Fade Away always sounds like they’re in the room with you. I suppose he was subjected to a lot of that simulated stereo malarkey (the infamous “bathroom” effect) in the 70s and that had to be stripped away.
*follow the bear
Yes. There’s not too much fuck-up leeway there. Unlike his infamous remastering of The Mamas And The Papas, where he took it on himself to create an unlistenable hard stereo separation that strangely doesn’t get mentioned much on his forum.
I’m not sure if this helps but this is the section on Dynamic Range calculations from Roon’s Knowledge Base:
As with Volume Leveling, Roon’s dynamic range calculation is done based on R128 standards. In technical terms, Roon’s “Dynamic Range” is the same as R128’s “Loudness Range”.
There are other methods of computing Dynamic range out there – most commonly by measuring the “Crest Factor”.
Crest Factor measurements reflect the difference between the average volume and the peak volume–so they are easily swayed by periods of silence or near-silence (which distorts the average), and by short-duration peaks–which may not represent the volume of the loudest parts of the track accurately.
The R128 method used by Roon is more resilient. It begins by computing the statistical distribution of loudness values present at different points in the track, ignoring periods of silence. The computed dynamic range represents the difference between the 10th percentile and the 95th percentile of that distribution. In other words, the “top” of the range is the volume level that 95% of the track sits below, and the “bottom” is the volume level that 10% of the track sits above.
Though both methods portray roughly the same information, Crest Factor values aren’t directly comparable to values produced using the R128 method.
And having read further previous posts in the Roon Forum it seems that the difference is due to the different methodologies (Roon uses R128 while the loudness-war site uses Crest Factor).
Crest Factor: three more from them after the news.
And a couple from The Roon Forum
They did the soundtrack to White Teeth.
White teeth?
White white teeth?
The hair, the teeth and the smell?
THAT Dorothy?
I think I’ve reached the outer limits of my interest in my own post!
I have that effect. Have I ever mentioned…, etc?
I’ve sat on a coach with him over three days. Part of Nancy Covey’s Louisiana Tour in 1992.
“The engine on this coach is totally brickwalled. I preferred the horse and cart”
The Hoffman forum is a case study in sycophancy and confirmation bias. Whoever said that audiophiles play music to listen to their system rather than the other way around may well have been describing that place. There is some good info on there but also a lot of wankery.
To get a flavour for the place, read some threads on the Mobile Fidelity fiasco. In short, these guys had been releasing vinyl pressings of ‘classic’ albums for years and receiving generally gushing reviews by Hoffmanites. Then a few years ago it was revealed that they had been using digital masters all along. The subsequent backtracking is hilarious.
It is a cult of middle-aged nerds, many with appalling music taste ( lots of threads seeking the best vinyl pressing of the debut Journey album etc) desperately seeking validation for their purchases.
I think that quote is attributed to Alan Parsons.
I like good sound but I don’t care how it is achieved, so the MFSL ‘fiasco’ made me chuckle. Does it sound good or not? Some of their (and Hoffman’s) releases don’t sound great by modern standards as the master tapes didn’t. Something about porcine ears and purses.
You can buy audiophile pressings of Cream albums. Great music but they still sound like they were recorded through a woolly sock.
I think the MoFi nonsense is hysterically funny. I know a fella who went from “these recordings are the mutts nuts” to “these records are awful and I’m selling them” immediately he found out his precious vinyl had been sullied by dirty digital technology. The chap is a mate but sadly also a first class idiot.
“The Hoffman forum is a case study in sycophancy and confirmation bias. Whoever said that audiophiles play music to listen to their system rather than the other way around may well have been describing that place. There is some good info on there but also a lot of wankery.
It is a cult of middle-aged nerds, many with appalling music taste ( lots of threads seeking the best vinyl pressing of the debut Journey album etc) desperately seeking validation for their purchases.”
Apparently there’s also a down side. 🙂
I’ve never heard a single note of Journey, preferring to totally dismiss them entirely on the basis of their naff album covers. Have I done the right thing?
The Kevin Grey vinyl remaster (the Conquest pressing with the VC003258 stamp in the dead wax) is my go-to iteration, with crisp highs, warm lows and a well-defined soundstage. Avoid the original CD release – the brickwalling made my ears hurt.
“I picked up a near mint target of the Kevin Grey remaster and it’s real nice. I’m happy with it”. 👍👍👍
What became of Leffe Gin? Taught me to speak Hoffmanese, y’know.
I’m still alive! Just went away for a bit from all internet activity.
Huzzah! Glad to hear it – and good to hear from you! And the occasional step away from the Internet can only be a good thing…
“Gorts! Lock this thread”
Best discussion I followed on the Hoffman site was about a Fats Domino compilation of original mono masters that one guy found out was »not mono enough« (apparently he could detect music coming from both (!) of his expensive stereo speakers, and he had the graphs to prove it).
After numerous pages of discussion – and a couple of posters poking fun at him – he’s still the only one who is offended by this mastering crime. The record in question is now generally considered as a »sound quality disaster« on the Hoffman Forum.