MoFi MasterDeck Turntable, $6000

If you’re looking for a great turntable, with a great tonearm, MoFi has unbeatable values.

The UltraDeck at $1500 is an easy choice as the best bang for your buck. There are a hundred reasons why. You can read about them at Dave’s Faves.

If you’re willing to go north of UltraDeck, please consider MoFi’s new MasterDeck. It’s a much heavier bigger brother with significant refinements. MasterDeck competes with the priciest tables in our biz for many times less money.

MoFi tables are designed by Allen Perkins who owns Spiral Groove. Spiral Groove tables start at $36k sans tonearms. Allen has boiled down all of his parts choices to points of diminishing returns. That’s plenty good enough for any of us who work for a living.

MasterDeck is heavy with tapered platter (15 lbs alone) design. The platter has an aluminum core and is covered with Delrin. The combination of weight and non resonant material create the balance Allen thinks is best. No, don’t be tempted to put a rubber or cork mat on a MoFi table.

MasterDeck uses Spiral Groove’s Encapsulated Inverted Bearing design. This minimizes friction and wear. It comes with HRS isolating feet which are valuable for leveling as well.

The tonearm is a 10” Perkins original. It has a carbon fiber tube that is internally tapered for rigidity and damping. The arm uses gimbal and unipivot principles. The bearings are synthetic sapphire and ruby construction. There’s a unipivot point supporting it vertically and two ruby balls that support it as it rotates around its axis. Those 3 points offer the fast energy transfer and stability of the gimbal, but still give the performance advantages of a unipivot. The arm has a removable shell but the wires are traditionally fixed, eliminating an obvious source of signal degradation.

MasterDeck’s arm has a high degree of adjustability: Azimuth, VTA, Overhang, VTF and Anti-skate are all finely tunable. Cardas cable is hardwired for the arm. The counterweight is designed to travel across the pivot point to optimize the moment of inertia.

The lower portion of the plinth is made of MDF. The next two layers are aluminum. They house the electronics and switches. The arm board is aluminum and removable.

MasterDeck plays 33s/45s & 78s. It has a four digit digital readout which allows precise speed control adjustments. Please note, many expensive tables on the market have been proven to NOT run accurate on speed. Most of us don’t have a good enough ear to catch it. With MasterDeck, you can be sure of your speed/pitch.

Stereophile’s reviewer writes about MasterDeck’s sound. “MasterDeck is a forensic tool, a musical CSI, dissecting a record’s every nuance from the hidden depths of its grooves. It laid bare the mix, soundstage, tone, dynamics, frequency range, and life force of the music. If there’s a better turntable for nearly $6k, I haven’t heard it. An exceptional music playing machine.”

R&R HOF 2025 Nominees:

Who’s Going In Next? We’ll find out in late April. Artists or bands aren’t eligible until 25 years after their first commercial recording. I’m betting one is a slam dunk.

Top Candidates:

Bad Company

The Black Crowes

Mariah Carey

Chubby Checker

Joe Cocker

Billy Idol

Cyndi Lauper

New Order

Oasis

Outkast

Phish

Soundgarden

The White Stripes

Please Support N American & Euro Manufacturers

In the Jan 2025 British hi-fi news, there is a review of a new Quad branded preamp and power amp. There are numerous references to Quad’s founder, Peter Walker, who founded his iconic English company in 1936. On the cover there’s even a reference to Quad’s “return.” The problem is, these “Quad” branded pieces have nothing to do with Quad. The company is long gone. It hasn’t been reborn. These are simply Chinese built electronics that LOOK similar to the Quads of yore.

This is nothing but an effort of creative marketing. In this case, IAG of China makes it. They make boatloads of gear with dozens of brand names. They also own Luxman, which sells for “prestigious” pricing.

This is happening all over our industry. Chinese job houses are building zillions of products and branding them WHATEVER the customer requests.

If the reviewer wants to write that he likes this new Chinese gear in Quad clothing, that’s his prerogative. But all these references to Walker and England are simply horse hockey. Luxman is reviewed in magazines as though it is still a venerable Japanese family owned company.

The pieces are designed to look like 1960s Quads. They’re made in Shenzhen, China, by IAG, who also makes Wharfedale, Mission, KLH, Leak, Audio Lab, Castle and many other brands. Oh, their main biz until a few years ago was making yachts.

In the same mag is a review of Mo-Fi speakers designed by Andrew Jones, which, no surprise, are built by a vendor for them in China. Nearby is Hi-Fi Rose, an outfit in S Korea with a myriad of streamers slapped on to chassis with SMPS supplies and D amps. They’re sold largely on their aesthetics which run from steam punk to glitz & glam.

Our Alternative

We are selling products like Atoll (of France) and Bryston (of Canada) who actually make their own gear, in their own houses. The same holds true for speakers from Bryston, Axiom, Magnepan, Atohm and Klipsch Heritage. All of these products are made by the people whose name is on the banner. These companies have pride in their sonic performance and workmanship.

Please don’t settle for Chinese built products that have simply been vendored out. Further, I don’t like the way they steal our technology or hack our computers. By the way, the worst is yet to come. When you buy Chinese, your performance won’t be as good and you’re supporting job houses (some of which even have their own barracks!) instead of N American and Euro manufacturers who build with TLC.

Magnepan X Models

There has been an underground world of Maggie modifiers for decades. These hobbyists buy Maggies and install what they’ve read are better caps, fuses, connectors etc. Many of these mods go sideways and the result often does more harm than good. Magnepan has paid attention to these efforts but never endorsed them. A fair number of these mods end up butchering speakers and they end up back at Magnepan to make them right.

Magnepan has decided to come to market with X versions of most of its models. The X versions are TWEAKED versions of existing models. The X versions are distinct upgrades based on mechanical and electronic improvements, with real craftsmanship by the way! Magnepan isn’t just sloppily soldering a couple new caps into crossovers as well meaning DIY fellows do.

You can read the fine print on the Magnepan site. In short, the X versions are indeed better than the standard versions. Yet I would always get the next regular model up, rather than an X version of a lesser model- with the exception being MG 2.7X.

For example, Magnepan MG 1.7i runs $3k per pair. The 1.7X runs $5k per pair. I would still rather have the 2.7i for $6k per pair which includes Maggie’s True Ribbon tweeter, which 1.7X does not.

To me, the most logical X model to consider is MG 2.7X. It runs $10k per pair while the standard version runs $6k per pair. It is the first model in the family to use Maggie’s True Ribbon tweeter. MG 2.7X is almost double the 2.7i. The sound is tighter and cleaner. If your wallet is fat enough and you have commensurate electronics, I’m happy to recommend MG 2.7X in particular, over MG 3.7i.

Models

MG.7, $2000pr

MG7X, $4000pr

MG 1.7i, $3000pr

MG 1.7X, $5000pr

MG 2.7i, $6000pr

MG 2.7X, $10,000pr

MG 3.7i, $9000pr

MG 3.7X, $13,000pr

MG 20.7, $22,000pr

MG 20.7X, $30,000pr

MG 30.7, $44,000pr

MG 30.7X, $55,000pr

Top Live Albums Of All Time

Info compiled by Stacker. Ratings are based on a point system, earned by how many charts the albums were on, how high they went on the charts and how long they were on them.

10 “The Koln Concert” Keith Jarrett

9 “Made In Japan” Deep Purple

8 “Live At Leeds” The Who

7 “Live At The Apollo” James Brown

6 “Stop Making Sense” Talking Heads

5 “98.12.28 Otokotachi no Wakare” Fishmans

4 “Rust Never Sleeps” N Young & Crazy Horse

3 “At Fillmore East” Allman Bros Band

2 “At Folsom Prison” Johnny Cash

1 “MTV Unplugged in NY” Nirvana