The Steve Hoffman Forums
One of the best online resources for people interested not only in music but also pristine sound are the Steve Hoffman forums. If you ever spent days, weeks or months looking for some obscure tune, members here will likely find it for you in an instant. If you want to find out which edition to buy of a CD, it has most likely been discussed here or will be if you post a new thread. If you’d like to find out what’s happening in the audiophile circles, you’ve come to the right place.
Steve Hoffman, for those who don’t know his name, was one of the first (if not the first) champions of remastering back catalogs, has remastered a string of albums to high acclaim and worked first as a public broadcaster and then for MCA, developing his ideas on remastering there. Chances are that you have one of his remastered disks in your collection - from Audio Fidelity, BMG/Razor & Tie, Cisco, DCC, MCA, Chess, Impulse, or the like.
Steve Hoffman’s forums offer a wealth of information regarding musicians, bands, remastering, audio hardware, general discussions and more. For me, visiting there regularly has relieved some of the financial burden of collecting music - buying the wrong edition of a new CD has mostly become a thing of the past. On top of that, the forums have often turned me on to a particular edition of a CD or a new edition about to be released. Most of all, the forums have taught me to avoid overly equalized or boosted remasters - it is here you will be warned about crummy engineering jobs before you waste your hard-earned cash on junk.
But be careful: you need to get to know the forums to be able to judge the opinions voiced. Some members abhor practiacally any CD not remastered by Steve Hoffman or a few other known engineers, whereas other members have a more “liberal” view and will discuss in detail the pros and cons of a new release. Sometimes I also think you need to be a Beatles fan to survive on the forums, but there are enough others to support you, should you voice anything remotely negative about the surviving (or deceased) members. ;)
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