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

Bait and switch.....naw
First, customers are "baited" by merchants' advertising products or services at a low price, but when customers visit the store, they discover that the advertised goods are not available, or the customers are pressured by salespeople to consider similar, but higher-priced items ("switching").

 

It's not a $125 record anymore, is it? Most of my followers on TikTok aren't members here. There's a whole internet out there...

 

Yes what MFSL isnt exactly a bait and switch, I agree. I will attest from experience that bait and switch does happen but, believe it or not, isnt exactly held in high regard even among salespeople(or those with ethics). Customers can smell that a mile away. You come in with a loss leader as the bait and then you do the switch and, I'm sorry, a customer isnt going to fall for it. They know more than many give them credit for.

This was more straight up false or misleading advertising. You bought the thing thinking it was one thing that it was not.

 

Mobile Fidelity didn’t use bait and switch tactics. Here’s a product, we are making X amount of it and sell you a record in fancy packaging. They stand up and say this is the best product we can make. Whether it is or not is not a legal issue. You wanted a record they sold you a record, if the middle is a meat grinder why should any court care?

 

You carnt live down the road from me,that would put you in Oddmorden or Bacup,your certainly not from Bacup as you can can spell,and context isn't king Charles is.......................
All confused,wait to the next episode.

 

I don't know that it's "mostly this way" but it is well and truly out there.
I'd rather not name names but one person owned and ran a very, very, high end DAC company here in America. Think $30,000 - $100,000 range. When sales were slow he'd just jack up the price to increase business because the more expensive it is the better it should be, right MoFi?
The other gentleman also ran a high end DAC company and also active speaker line amongst other things. I met him at an audio show where he was exhibiting across from me. Every time he mentioned the word audiophile you could hear the contempt in his voice.
Now granted like any hobby there are some complete and utter tools that inhabit the space but still and all when you livelihood depends upon them...
And yes, to my mind MoFi's conduct is the perfect example of an industry's contempt for its customers.

 

We have talked bout using music direct, but one of the distros we use has a decent margin in them, we found the sweet spot of one steps to be about 3 copies. most people already balk at $125 let alone at suggested retail of 153.99 they move slow unless the title is already sold out. You are absolutely right about new vinyl, it's pretty much a loss leader unless you are moving big volumes and it's always gambling with low odds you never know when amazon or AEC under 0ne 0f its many guises is going to undercut you and then you are lucky to break even. All the money is in used and equipment.

I miss Colorado Springs, Independent Records is where I cut my teeth as a record buyer. I see The Leech Pit is still hanging in there, and What's Left opened giving shoppers some more variety. Is Earthpig hanging in there? That was my honey hole for collecting, any minor issue and they put it in the $1 bin when I was living there, got a lot of hard to find records there like Gang of 4, multiple Cocteau Twins records, and a ton of quality classic rock titles.

 

You can’t correct a reviewer. That would violate many unwritten rules of audio story telling. What you refer to as reviews. And Mike Esposito is a record store owner just down the street from my CPA firm in Phoenix Arizona.

 

In the one complaint I read, the guy thought it was AAA, so he paid more. So it will come down to whether the customer could have "reasonably assumed" that the record was all-analog even though none of their literature explicitly said it was all analog.

IOW, as always, who has the better lawyer? I know who i'd retain

 

I get the sarcasm, but I've seen manufacturers send corrections to reviewers many times. Fremer should have been notified since he was on the promotional records list. Yet, Mofi just let the false narrative continue.

 

No? I’m keeping mine and playing them obviously.

 

Yeah, I saw the circle wank video with Mike E. haha.

 

That reminds me. The state of MA had ethic training courses for state employees, including the teachers.

 

Do you mean paying MoFis higher prices over normal releases ? Paying more on the secondary market is on the buyer imho.

 

Yeah, we have two issues here. 1. Mofi lied about the provenance of their records which was no small thing considering what they charge for those records. No argument here, IMO.
2. We now have the 256 DSD record vs. the AAA record. Mofi has proven that those DSD mastered records can sound really good, see Abraxas. I personally believe AAA is the way to go, but I won't totally dismiss Mofi DSD offerings, if it's a title I like.

I'm not totally boycotting MD or Mofi, but I understand the people that are. I'm in Mazzy's camp when it comes to that. I will not be buying as many records from Mofi that I would have if they were AAA, not because they lied, but I would rather find an AAA of the same title.

I would have ordered the Randy Travis Mofi already had it been AAA, now...meh.

 

I sent off about $1k worth of returns to MoFaux today... That will cover my Bill Evans box that just shipped!

 

So, they are accepting returns on opened records because of the misleading descriptions?

 

Not for me. 9o% of people in this thread accept digital sources can sound phenomenal. I would like to think 100% frown upon companies intentionally lying to their customers.

 

We've had quite a number of MFSL apologists in this thread who specifically did so... unfortunately.

 

Nice!

 

Yes, they are.

 

Is that the Chad reboot of the complete Bill Evans on riverside? That would be nice to own. I missed it the first time around.

 

A little side trip on the thread. I stopped by The 'In' Groove shop for the first time today and briefly met and spoke with Mike the owner. My bad for not having sought out this shop before. A very nice place with wonderful selections. Though its focus is vinyl it has a decent selection of CDs and is to my knowledge the only local store to stock MFSL, Analogue Productions, Intervention Records and Impex SACDs.

 

I'm not sure. I only returned sealed items. I don't have the actual refund yet. You definitely have to ask for Zach. He's apparently devoted 100% to MoFaux returns. I tried to get an extension number for him but failed. They are now definitely accepting sealed returns more than 60 days out, but you must have the order numbers to mention. I think your question is important, and I'll find out, because if they will now accept open items, I'm sending in another $1.5k of records.

 

Yes it is. If you want it you should order immediately. There are only 3,000