The Fleetwood Mac Rumours 45 vinyl controversy:

Once again, the self serving Steve Hoffman has deliberately stirred up a controversy that serves only his own interests, and hurts record companies and music fans everywhere in the process.

The subject of the controversy is the recently issued 45 rpm vinyl of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, remastered by Huffness and Grey several years ago.

On his vanity board, Hoffman informed his followers that the European issue 45 Rumours is not mastered by him, and therefore should be avoided at all costs, dismissing it as inferior.

It's doubtful Hoffman even heard the European version, which from my understanding was more recently remastered that the Hoffman/Grey version, and by a renowned European mastering engineer who does not have a vanity board or the ego needs of Hoffman.

As a result, hordes of Hoffman lemmings and lurkers returned the copies they ordered from Amazon and elsewhere (Hoffmanites love to pick up music cheap at Amazon and then complain about it), which any way you slice it causes a fairly significant loss of real money for Amazon, Warners and other music retailers. Hoffman doesn't care. It's all about himself. Not about the music.

Speaking of which - I had a chance to compare the two directly over the weekend. Objectively.

They do sound different, but I could not say one sounds better than the other. As a broad conclusion, I suppose it's fair to say the Huff/Grey is warmer and smoother, favoring the mids as Hoffman followers prefer. The European 45 is perhaps more true, it has greater realism and transparency. Neither trumps the other.

Which in turn raises the question - is it fair or honest for a mastering engineer to trash another mastering of a title to promote his own?

Since the early days of vinyl, titles have been mastered locally in different regions - indeed, many on the Hoffman board are obsessive about comparing pressings from different countries.

In the vinyl heyday, it was unheard of for one engineer to trash another regions' engineer's work - unprofessional, at best, downright boorish and churlish at worst.

Yet here comes Hoffman again - known for trashing others far greater and more accomplished than he, like Bernie Grundman, Shawn Britton, Ken Scott, and so many others.

Look, I know that Hoffman is a shameless self promoter who plays very fast with the truth. He's the Sarah Palin of audiophile remastering - all he's got is a social media following of needy people who have disorders that make them attach themselves to him, despite his having rather little real knowledge and having a fairly sketchy resume and intellect. Like Palin, he knows how to play the social media following to suit his interests, and use it as a weapon when he cares to. And like Palin, there's little substance behind the social media facade - all there really is, is a group of rather odd, challenged followers who are cult like in their fervour for their master. Little is fact, it's all heavily controlled to suit a personal gain agenda, and overall it's verging on manipulating the weak and not too bright. It's all pretty sick.

But with Rumours, Hoffman is deliberately sabotaging the industry to suit his own agenda. It's a real shame, as that Euro Rumours 45 is really very good, and any who have attempted to say that on his forum have been quickly deleted. Audiophile totalitarianism at it's best.