Just thought I'd let everyone know that last week someone on the Hoffman board mentioned one of my old Amazon reviews and basically got a discussion going about what I had said more than 4 years ago now, and honestly part of it got me upset over what they were saying about me but another part of me felt somewhat flattered that someone over there would bring up one of my old reviews in the first place. Now admittedly I normally don't spend too much time over there since like one person said I'm basically the Anti-Hoffman preferring my music to be as loud and compressed as possible so long as I can hear everything distinctly without the need to strain my ears in doing so, but sometimes I find out about interesting things over there and truth be told though I mostly disagree with just about everything someone says over there the discussions can be pretty fun to read regardless of how I feel about sound quality. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is how interesting and kinda funny it was to me that one of my old reviews could create such a stir over there. Especially considering the fact that I don't even write for Amazon anymore and when I did I pretty much was an amateur writer (might still be to this day actually), not to mention the fact that it was written more than 4 years ago which is exactly how long it's been since I last wrote anything for them lol. Just thought you guys on here might find it amusing too and since I don't have an account with them and probably never will I decided to let you all know about it here. Here's the link to the discussion too if anyone's interested: http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showt ... p?t=119378.

Hoffman? Who's this hoffman guy? Is this like "Beverages by Hoffman"?

Congratulations Michael! Getting a (delayed) reaction, at least, is cool.

Ah...okay...that explains it. Thanks Jimbo!

Lord--that thread reads like the minutes of a homeowners association meeting or something. Meow!

What's great about this place is that you can write a post about the Hoffman board and see it evolve into a thread.

If you posted about ICE/IMWAN over there, your post would be gorted out of existence.

Did someone say "Hoffman board"?

Michael, I have to tell you ~ I don't really agree with your remastering preferences, but I admire you a great deal for sticking to your guns and continuing to collect whatever YOU like. Sometimes we as music lovers get so hung up on the technical details ~ the mastering, the mixes, the packaging ~ that it can suck all the fun out of the hobby and we forget why we're here in the first place, for the music.

Invite their members here. Worst that could happen is you get banned, Chris, and you've probably built up an immunity to that by now!

Seriously though, anyone who's a member of Hoffman's board, invite your friends over there to visit us at ICE too. We'll never be a replacement for all the audiophile stuff that goes on there ~ I wouldn't even want us to be, I think it's often more damaging to our enjoyment of the music than helpful ~ but I bet a lot of the dedicated collectors would also enjoy having a handy source of new release info. All the music forums on the Internet can happily co-exist whether Hoff thinks so or not. (Didn't we all used to be on the same side against "the establishment" once upon a time? Or did I just dream that one night in the '70s ...?)

A few days ago I was trying to explain to them what a great place this is. Many of them appear hesitant to register here.

Go figya!!

Ah, but did you show them the pics of you and Denny Laine? That's sure to work when all else fails, DanO.

"Would I steer you guys wrong? Look, Denny Laine is a friend of mine!"

Thanks for the kind words Linda. I know I may not have the most popular sound-quality tastes at times but you guys have never made me feel bad for liking my music the way I like it and I appreciate that. I may not understand the lingo used to describe the way something sounds (like upper midrange/treble boost/bottom end/high end etc.) and honestly have never once in my life gotten any kind of "ear fatigue" from listening to my music at exceedingly high levels, but yet around here that doesn't seem to matter though it's all they seem to care about over at that other place lol. That's the main reason I'll probably never sign up with them because they do seem to be way too picky about the technical aspects of a recording (though I can be the same way too lol when something seems too soft to me) and like that discussion showed I'd probably be ostracized for life over there thinking the way I do. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm happy to be a part of this forum and I thank you guys for tolerating me and my wacky sound quality preferences.

I've tried to get a few people from over there over to here with no avail. It's so much more peaceful over here.

Linda,

If I were to invite Hoffmanites, I would have to do it by either PM or e-mail. If I were to post an invite for all to see, it would be gort-- well, you already knew that.

I know it's been said before, but the only time they allowed a mention of ICE was when the old forum was shutting down. Hell, a couple of them seemed gleeful about it. renny tried to post about the new ICE board here at IMWAN and well-- you know what happened there.

Part of the reason I consider ICE/IMWAN to be my music "home" is because, like you said, it's about the music. I still check out the Hoffman site and post there as well, but when they start posting the waveforms and getting into the techical minutiae of unremastered vs. remastered CDs, I usually go "click" and move on.

The environment there is too regulated and PC for me to consider it home. That's not to say there aren't some great people there, but this is home.

And if I got banned on the Hoffman board, it would be the real thing.

Well, the thing is it's not a community as such, it's a promotional site to keep Hoffman's name out there in a marketplace that has less and less use for what he does. If you look at it that way then the heavy moderation and PC-isms are more reasonable ~ he's not going to spend money on bandwidth for people to discuss genres/eras of music he'd most likely never be hired to work on, or types of releases (multichannel remixes, digital-only releases) that he'd rather not work on. It sometimes comes out in the threads as "Everything since 1975 is shite ..." but really I think it's a natural consequence of Hoffman directing the tone and topics into areas that promote him to his best advantage. Why should he even bother with a website otherwise?

You make a good point, Linda. However, periodically, Hoffman asks forum members for donations to keep the site going. Personally, I find this a little offensive as, like you said, this is a promotional site to keep his name out there. I've spent enough money on DCC gold discs over the years and feel that being asked for money in a forum where I can't post as freely as I'd like to be off-putting.

I'm banned.

Bandwidth costs bread, as Danny will tell you. I don't even want to think about what Hoffman's place costs with 10,000 people hitting the threads. Your bannings alone cost Dan a fortune at ICE every day!

(I'm kidding. )

The DCC gold discs ... those Badfingers are super-dynamic ... but his work sort of became diminishing returns for me over time ... I finally decided not to automatically upgrade anymore (without hearing others' opinions first) to a new Hoffman remaster after I A/B'ed that Faces one from a couple of years ago. It was virtually indistinguishable from the cheapo silver disc. I don't know if my equipment isn't good enough to catch the subtle nuances or what, but I can't hear it. Which DCCs do you own, Chris?

Not as many as others here and on the Hoffman board do, I'm sure. My favorite is the Eagles' Hotel California. There are a few I wish I'd picked up before DCC went bust.

I bought the Faces as well, but as I'd never bought that CD before, it was a guilt-free buy. I also got it on Amazon fairly cheaply.

The Ronstadt Greatest Hits CDs are good also.

I thought Hoffman was pretty good in "The Graduate" and "Tootsie", but I didn't think he was all that great in "Lenny" or "All The Presidents Men"...to each his own, however...

There does seem to be so much over-criticism over sound quality there that some people miss the point completely. Someone posted a complaint about the b/w British TV clip form The Kids Are Alright where Pete Townshend is taliking about the Beatles, and said that if you were listening to a stereo of the Beatles without their voices "they're flippin' lousy!" He thought he was refering to the sound quality of the recording. I had to set him straight.