Mobile Fidelity Surface Noise


Recently bought my first two MoFis in a few years - 'Sinatra in Paris' and 'The Cars.' Cleaned both on a VPI 16.5 w/ the VPI fluid. Both have an unacceptable level of (the same) background noise - kind of a shushing sound with the occasional tick. Played some other LPs after for comparison, inc. a vintage MoFi and some regular issue stuff. The noise was not there, eliminating a set-up issue. Has anyone else had this problem with the new issues? Is it mold-release compound, or the old saw they used back in the day ('i.e. "MoFi does not de-horn its masters, so you my hear the occasional tick or pop until the record is played a few times..."), or just lousy QC? Disappointing, to say the least.
radiodaddy

Showing 3 responses by robob

I am glad somebody brought this up.

I was thinking about starting a thread on the lack of quality of audiophile pressings these days. I have some from several different labels including Classic and Rhino that are way below the quality that we used to get from MoFi and Sheffield in the 70's and 80's. I have Coltrane Jazz from Rhino that is very noisy. I was busy and never returned it. By contrast, I have an original MoFi of Dark Side Of The Moon that is quiet. My fairly recent Close To The Edge from the small label Friday's Music is quiet. The bigger audiophile labels need to do better and we need to hold their feet to the fire.

And my hearing or my system is not particularly susceptible to surface noise these days. My Kleos is quieter due to it's line contact stylus than my Shelter but some of these releases have loud pops and other anomalies.

Hang in there,
Robert
"The Kleos is quieter than other cartridges because it simply can't reproduce higher frequencies."

LOL

Perhaps you heard a bad sample? Or a system mismatch? Your Olympos may be hotter, I don't know as I have not heard one, but the Kleos is perfectly capable of retrieving high frequencies.

Or maybe you have it confused with something else?

Again, the Kleos is quieter than many due to the line contact stylus.

Y'all be cool,
Robert