Well, it's June and no word of the Simon and Garfunkel release. Tic Toc. Funny how the price on the next Ultradisc has gone up to $125. Looks like mofi wants some of that resale money people are getting. $125 is just greedy. Don't tell me production costs went up on these things. They are making a serious profit at $100 a pop. If this is true, they may end up shooting themselves in the foot. Some clown over at mofi probably said, "Hey, we can charge $200 a piece and they will buy them."
They probably could, on certain titles, and at more limited pressing runs. At 7500 for some of the SRV titles, I highly doubt it.
They probably figure if AP can sell a single disc box set (Jimi Hendrix) for $100, it shouldn't be difficult to sell a double 45 for $125. My guess is they won't continue increasing the pressing number if they do this.
I agree about the price increase. But hey maybe its a cost thing on their side. And come on, you really want to say youre out and six months from now be looking at $225 to $500 for these things on the secondary market? Youre in ....for life
The final cost of the AP UHQR is around $120 with shipping, something that MD offers for free at these prices.
Very true, but if you buy $89 of in-stock items with the Jimi box set the shipping is free. That has been there policy for a while now. I'm sure they only charge high shipping costs to entice people like me to buy at least $89 of product.
So, we have to order an extra $90 just to get free shipping on a $200. order? That sucks. Normally, I would wait for the items to be in stock, but these titles will likely be gone before the are in stock.
That free shipping may be gone before we know it, these online sellers seem to follow whatever the others are doing.
I just cancelled my Simon and Garfunkel 1 step preorder. Gave my father a sealed copy of Billy Joel's Greatest Hits for Father's Day, disc one is defective and MFSL won't replace it without me sending it to the retailer, then the retailer sending it to them to 'check it'. I am done with their overpriced product and their poor customer service. You would think in this day and age a company would grok Customer Service. Never had a label do anything but jump through hoops to get me a replacement for a bad pressing.
Sorry to hear that, but I'm really confused as to why they would do this now. I mean, they have been sending replacements for previous defective 1 steps and not requiring the purchaser to send back the bad copies, as far as I know.
Never had a Label refuse before. Had some ask me to send the defective disc back first, but never a 'deal with the reatiler' type of response. Just annoys me all the more as it was a Father's Day Gift. Add into it the fact that the discs are now back in press and a replacement HAS to be at hand... I buy a lot of Vinyl, but never again will I buy from Mobile Fidelity. Nor will I miss an opportunity to trash their Customer Service in the future.
Did you just call the "800" number and speak to whoever answered - or call a sales rep? I have gotten different results in the past from those options.
Damned if I remember where I bought it. Probably Elusive. Maybe soundstage? Really, who knows? It sat on the shelf sealed for a while. I figured it would make the old man happier than me since I gave him a restored B & O system this past year and his collection isn't very big... I'll just give him originals of all the early Billy Joel LPs, instead.
This is the problem, he didn’t buy it from Music Direct. If you brought from say Amazon you have to return it to Amazon. Most stores are not going to replace a product purchased from somewhere else.
Nope. Shouldn't matter. Mobile Fidelity is the Label. They shouldn't only honor returns via their retail presence. Not a single Label has ever refused to replace a defective disc, regardless of their Retail stance. I buy a Merge LP from a local shop and have a problem, Merge solves it. Numero, Rhino, MM, AP... all of them have never once been anything but 'on it' when I have contacted them. Hell, even RSD has went out of the way to correct a pressing flaw and they aren't the Manufacturer.
I know from first hand experience that AP does not send replacements without going through the original retailer. I've pretty much come to the point that AP is purchased from Acousticsounds, MFSL is purchased from MusicDirect. This way there are no problems with replacements and or returns.
Did you stop to think why it's June and we still haven't seen Bridge Over Troubled Water? It could be that MoFi is having trouble making them. Maybe they raised the price just because they could. That is a distinct possibility and you express that point of view. But a reason for both the price increase and delay may be they are having production problems in making them perfectly, which they have to be to justify both the cost and the one-step technique of making an LP. They have to throw away a lot of bad records along the way and that costs money. Neither of us know, but I have enough respect for Mobile Fidelity to not just pejoratively call them "clowns."