Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab has been cutting vinyl from digital since a long, long time ago...

For me, The Cars S/T SACD sounds great. Perhaps a reverse example of the digital sounding better than the AAA?

 

MoFi lied for over a decade. They only stopped because they were caught. I will never purchase anything again from MoFi or Music Direct. If they go under as a result of their deception, good riddance. There are plenty of honest reissue and hifi companies who deserve to succeed instead.

 

This exactly. Not sure if you saw the video I made (cut down from a much longer one posted) when a MFSL exec called a Youtuber and couldn't help bashing Fremer and their customers. It's comic in tone, but it illustrates your point.

youtube.com/watch?v=17qVmjz_ZkY

 

I feel for their rank and file employees like the customer service reps and sales people that have usually been professional and helpful over the years. Jim Davis will probably let them go first. The scum that lied will probably be the last to go. If they had any honor the marketing folks and engineers would resign or take drastic pay cuts to save the jobs of the people their dishonesty is hurting.

 

So with a quick look of timeline and refresh my memories MFSL got out of doing records and went full force in CDs around 1987. They came back with a lot of record titles in 1994-1996, ANADISQ 200 then out again from 1997-2000 doing only CDs. Only two record titles from 2000 -2002, in 2003-2006 they didn't put very many record titles out but better than the first two years of 2000s.

In 2007 we got the Santana S/T, but also interesting is they mastered half speed for Metallica a number of their titles in both 33.3 and 45rpm series in 2008. From that point they really started to get involved again putting records out.

However I'm thinking in 2000 they started GAIN 2™ Ultra Analog LP 180g Series and more vague info on the mastering. I would not be surprised if a very large majority of the Gain 2 are all actually digitally mastered. It's clearer to me today, that was the whole point in building the Gain 2 system was to master from custom made DSD files of master tapes.

That said I don't think they started to do this because it was cheaper, they are audio geeks. They were and I think have come up with a way to copy masters accurately as well as master equally as accurate and be able to control all of that. I think MFSL was just trying to get records to sound/perform like CDs in the technical aspects while retaining the warmth and fun of records.

But anyway out of seeing the digital record list they have already put out, I'll just consider all my Gain 2 records to be digital.

However I think a lot of people like the analog inaccuracies that come with records.

 

“mastered half speed for Metallica a number of their titles in both 33.3 and 45rpm series in 2008.”
I have the Master of Puppets and it’s terrible.

 

I voted No on buying MoFi LPs, but it's kind of a cheat as I have never bought LPs made by MoFi, with the exception of the Stones' Sticky Fingers back in the 80's. Other MoFi product I have bought are CDs and SACDs. I've never bought their LPs because for one thing I was not overly impressed with the CD and SACD titles I have bought from them, and their LPs have always been way too expensive for me to take a chance on. And One Steps are completely out of my budget, I've never paid $100 for any one album in any format and I was never going to start with anything MoFi. The only two MoFi LPs titles I really wanted in the past were Bob Dylan Bringing It All Back Home and Jefferson Airplane Surrealistic Pillow, and for me the draw was, 1) 45 RPM, 2) mono, and, 3) ALL ANALOG. I have many LPs that are digitally sourced and I love them but I don't like it when products, especially very pricey ones, are represented as being something other than what they are. Ultimately I never was in a position to pay what was being asked for either, so it just never happened.

Would I buy from them in the future if they owned up to digital sources on all relevant titles and even cut prices? Nah, almost certainly not, because I don't trust them. If they drop prices in the future, I will only suspect that they've done something to cut corners somewhere else. I've never seen a company cut prices on a product without diminishing it significantly in some way. So they haven't really lost a customer in me, because I never bought a significant amount of MoFi product, but that isn't going to change in the future either. I am completely in sympathy with the people here who have literally spent thousands of dollars on MoFi LPs over the years and are now disappointed and angry. If I had done so, I'd be livid - not because I'd bought digitally sourced LPs, but because I would believe I had been tricked into spending the top of top shelf prices for a product that was not as advertised.

 

Silence sometimes can say a lot more than words and this is one of those cases. People might be furious about being sold DSD256 for analogue masters. I am afraid that what we don't know yet is a lot worse.
I don't expect many titles since the company changed hands to get the AAA tick, some might but with dupes instead of originals and then there is the big question mark hanging over everything else.

Total shame but it was a business decision to dupe the customers and now it is time to pay the piper.

 

Man, I hope you are wrong. Id hate to find something else they are hiding that I cant hear.

 

According to the Discogs entry for Mofi's version of Foghat - Fool for the City, LoVerde mastered and Britton did the cut. I don't think it sounds good at all. Maybe amongst the three amigos, Krieg is the golden boy for vinyl.

 

Hey! This is a totally black-and-white issue! Don't confuse me by getting into perfectly logical grey areas. You're muddying the waters!

Obviously, it's a great question, though it's separate from MoFi's business practices.

I love vinyl, and generally prefer it, but have CDs that sound great to me, and have no interest in duplicating every CD I have with an LP version. I'd go broke. I regret not getting into SACD, but not enough to do anything about it now. I still listen to cassettes now and then. I don't know how I'd go about making my CD playback mirror my analog playback. Even if I could afford it, I don't think I could ever care enough to actually bother.

 

Well they stopped half speed mastering around 2012, or stopped lying about it, either way they never announced it or said anything about doing that. I didn't hear any difference one way or another.

 

Why”
Tower Records used to sell them for $30 bucks.

 

Polls surprising.
Looks like Mofi has survived.

 

LOL. My point is that you dismiss the album by only mentioning the two hits. I wouldn't pay that myself, but I did acquire one for $400. It's value shot up because of it's extremely limited pressing number and the FACT that it sounds fantastic, irregardless of it being mastered from 4x DSD, which has yet to be shown as a negative.

 

In what world is only 36% of your customers buying one steps considered surviving?

 

Yes, because digital has been used in the chain for making the apology.

 

why are we giving Mofi a poll so they can decide how much farther they can fleece the flock?

They didn’t care enough to get better sources

1. Now let them know we will still buy their product despite their actions

 

I guess we could also say..in what world is a poll in one forum representative of all of audiophile.

No doubt Mofi will take and has taken a hit. How much? Dont know we can judge that from a single poll in one forum.

Im fine with them ditching the One Steps if they are going to remain at $125.00. But if they can modify with the mess they created and get the same sound for cheaper? Thats what Id hope for.

 

Come on, man. We’re talking about the poll. Obviously it’s not representative of their entire customer base. But the people on this website are certainly part of that base and I certainly would not be happy with those numbers if I were MoFi. Even just the 300 no votes and no one steps votes that’s almost 40k revenue lost per album.

 

not what i remember reading about that post but thanks!

 

Bring back the Gold CDs.. fine with SACDs. One -Steps are too rich for my blood, and since they're not AAA, why bother.. kinda defeats the purpose.

 

losing about 1/2 their customer base (of course, extrapolating results from forum to real world).... maaaaaybe...​

 

Im not disagreeing with you that Mofi is taking a hit. I think I said that? I was just pointing out a bigger picture.

Not only that but the 3rd part of the poll is kind of hard to judge.

How many of those folks were purchasing regular Mofi 45's and never planned on purchasing any one steps anyway? A non-purchase that was never going to happen isnt a loss. Some of those bottom votes may indeed be from those folks.

So yeah poll may be a little skewed. But again, I agree if I were Mofi I wouldnt be thrilled with the poll.

Would be interesting to see a similar..or even more dialed in poll 3-6 months from now when the tempers calm. Many here, that Ive seen, havent decided what they are going to do.

 

It's the dead-enders now, eh?
My not so hot take? Until there is more "news"- either MoFi continues to correct source info and "conversions" or it leaves that hanging; we don't know if management is getting the message that this problem may be more serious than they think (but in reality, we don't know either- that's why I said upthread, the market is going to dictate all of this).
Given how this "reveal" unfolded, and how MoFi has responded so far, I don't think they are suddenly gonna get religion, reveal all, and make accommodations to customers. They've sort of done the bare minimum, and it may stay that way.
I also don't think this is the end of this, but for the moment, we are kind of twiddling our thumbs.
The poll might actually be useful to MoFi. You know how much corporate polling costs if you hire somebody competent? Yeah, I think we are an echo chamber, but we are also the only place on the entire Intra-Web that has all the details.