Heroes of Hi-Fi
Audiophiles prize remasters made at nondescript Sebastopol studio
Mobile Fidelity Senior Mastering Engineer Shawn R. Britton in the lab making a master recording from the master tape on the right to the lacquer disc on the recording lathe behind him. Both machines are running at half speed to ensure fidelity.
Jeff Kan Lee / PDPublished: Sunday, July 25, 2010 at 4:03 a.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, July 25, 2010 at 8:36 a.m.
For employees at Sebastopol's Mobile Fidelity, it's 1977 and everyone is still grooving to LPs turning on their dad's hi-fis.
Facts
SHELF FULL OF HITS
Mobile Fidelity's top-selling remastered recordings:
Pink Floyd, "Dark Side of the Moon"
The Beatles, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"
Pink Floyd, "The Wall"
Eagles, "Hotel California"
Elton John, "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road"
The Beatles Box Set
In an age when most people download their music, this small company continues to reissue the classics on vinyl or CD, holding its own in an industry that is struggling to reinvent itself.
The engineers who toil inside the recording studio in a nondescript industrial park cater to music lovers around the world who still put a premium on how a performance should sound.
Their clientele includes guys like Marc Siegel, a 57-year-old Los-Angeles area insurance salesman who owns a custom stereo so advanced that visitors to his house often ask if he has a band rehearsing inside.
"I do not want to go home to my music room and look at a computer system. I want to read the liner notes or a book and have at it," Siegel said.
Sales of remastered recordings produced at Mobile Fidelity's Sebastopol studios may not be as robust as when vinyl and compact discs ruled the music world.
But by catering to the tastes of audiophiles, many of them Baby Boomers who were weaned on their parent's hi-fi stereo, the company has managed to survive in an industry where casualties abound.
"Flat is the new black," said John Wood, the company's executive vice president in charge of product development and new technologies.
Although Mobile Fidelity has called Sebastopol home since 1988, many people are unaware of what it does or the impact it has had in the audiophile world.
Out of the public eye, company engineers put a new sheen on recordings that include some of the most seminal productions of our time, including works by the Beatles, Pink Floyd and Frank Sinatra.
The company works with music studios or directly with artists to obtain original recordings. About 20 percent of the price of every remastered LP or compact disc sold by Mobile Fidelity is paid to the original owner for use of the recording, according to Wood.
The company uses a unique process known as "half-speed" mastering to create the finished product. For LPs, the process involves slowing down the cutting system used on vinyl so that the sound is transferred with greater precision from the source tape to the lacquer.
"We're very good at extracting more information from the tape than our predecessors," Wood said.
Sonoma County would not strike anyone as a hub for this kind of work. But Wood said the process of remastering music, which requires patience and an attention to detail, complements Wine Country's culture of fine wine and foods.
"We'd rather do it right than rush along and make a buck," Wood said. "It's a labor of love, no doubt about it. We're not making tons of money."
Creative industries are an important part of the county's economy, employing about 11,000 people and representing 7 percent of the county's total payroll, according to a report by Moodys.com.
"This is the type of thing that will lead us out of the recession, coming up with products and services that customers around the world will want," said Ben Stone, the county's Economic Development Board director. "With a relatively small impact land-wise and with a small number of employees, they can generate a substantial positive economic impact."
Mobile Fidelity was founded in 1977 by Southern California sound engineer Brad Miller, whose pioneering recordings of steam trains are reflected in the company's name.
Herb Belkin, a music industry executive, bought the company from Miller in 1979. He moved to Occidental and relocated the recording studio to Sebastopol, where it has remained since 1988.
Jim Davis of Music Direct took over the reins in 2001 after buying the company out of bankruptcy. Mobile Fidelity has about 12 full-time employees who work at company headquarters in Chicago or the studio in Sebastopol.
The company sells LPs and CDs through its website or at select retail outlets, including The Last Record Store in Santa Rosa.
Last year's sales were less than $2 million, well below what they were in the go-go 1990s, when sales hovered at about $12 million, according to Wood.
Still, there is a market among people willing to shell out about $30 for a remastered LP or CD, or more through sites such as eBay, where the company's version of Peter Frampton's "Comes Alive!" recently sold for $95.
Siegel, a former professional drummer, said he searches out Mobile Fidelity's remastered recordings at Amoeba Music in Hollywood. He said he owns about 6,000 CDs in all.
"When you compare what the record label did and then you listen to what Mobile Fidelity has done, the difference is staggering," he said. "You don't have to have a great system to hear the difference. That's what's cool."
To survive, Mobile Fidelity will have to convince a younger generation of audiophiles that there are better ways of listening to music than downloading it onto a computer and playing it through tiny headphones.
"I think there are a lot of people in the younger generation who are realizing that they've kind of missed out on the true artist's intent," Wood said.
You can reach Staff Writer Derek Moore at 521-5336 or derek.moore@pressdemocrat.com.
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