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

Why would a conversation move on from the central point anymore than from a central point in any other discussion in a thread that concerned a given activity at issue? The thread started when questions emerged about use of digital associated with the One Steps, records involving the GAIN 2™ Ultra Analog™ System process, and so forth. Since confirmation of the news that is cited in the thread title, discussion has continued as far as what was revealed in the thread, complete with varied reactions.

From what I’ve seen, the issue about people being misled comes up when other subjects that may not be as central to the thread emerge. At that point, someone usually has said some variation on “the point is they misled people“. That seems bound to happen as many times as a thread as lengthy as this is bound to move off topic. I haven’t noticed those discussions of that central point occurring at an undue rate in the other massive MoFi release thread and derailing it.

 

Tacking on to your excellent point, occasionally someone will decry the topic continuing, asserting it's talked out ad nauseum. "Close the topic down!" (Usually, the poster is someone who really likes the sound of the MOFI releases irrespective of the digital step).

My counter-reaction is always the same. As long as people are still processing/thinking through the implications of the MOFI Lie, the thread is a worthy one. There is also a pretty steady flow of new information and interviews being posted on the topic that I have found really educational. I even suspect the industry is course correcting for the better in certain respects as a consequence of this ongoing topic. So, Onward Ho with the posting!!!!!

 

What I find most astonishing abut this whole "scandal" is that MoFi's customer service has gone downhill since the news broke - the exact opposite of what you would expect a company to do in these circumstances. At this point, I find that the most troubling aspect of all this and it's not a good sign for MoFi's prospects going forward. This game is all about the product and customer service.

 

I am not sure what you mean by implementation, so maybe it merges into my point below.

For those of us who have both turntables and DACs/ CD players (or equivalent) : the difference in the quality of each of those systems would have an influence in how we hear the music being played by either system, and if there is a big difference in the quality between the two systems, presumably that will push the listener to have a preference towards format over the other.

 

This might go to the original business plan...fleece as along as possible and IF discovered, then basically bail. Wouldn't be the first time a company has acted this way.

 

So @Mazzy i listened to this and enjoyed it but I’m not sure how relevant it is to what I’m saying above.

Lets accept what Miles claims:
- running a tape degrades it each time (even though other engineers say this is incredibly minimal).
- some tapes particularly from the 80s need to be baked and you can only bake a finite number of times before the tape falls apart
- tapes just generally speaking can be difficult to play

My point still remains that if you play a tape *once* you can have 100k AAA copies produced. In working with reissue labels/licensees for decades, the majors in essence ensured that tapes would be played way more than necessary to produce far less because of the license.
In 2022 the market and demand is well-defined. They no longer need the middle men: run tapes & master in-house, maximize what can be produced from the metal work, and capitalize on the demand while it’s here because it will quite literally die off before they know it.

 

It’s funny to me that all this time the Silver series was this kind of slight of hand diversion. It made us feel like they were being honest about their sourcing. It turns out the Silver series was just what they’d admit were records cut from copies, when all the while with rare exception everything they put out was cut from a (dsd) copy.

 

That's one crazy album! It does sound amazing though.

 

I OWN the album in question and wanted a concrete answer as to what was different was all. I was wondering how something could be "Not even close"

I meant in terms someone into audio would get was all.

If the ORIGINAL MASTER TAPES are in bad condition, they will sound worse today, kind of no matter what is done.

It does NOT IMPROVE on the master, but simply makes a 1:1 copy of it.
If you do get that, my apologies.

Again I have the album, (Pretenders) and the original is certainly not some fantastic sounding great album, but I will save my money on the Mofi version, and FYI I do not work for them at all, if you read my posts, I am in the CLASSIC MUSIC WORLD.

 

Are you referring to the ACTUAL first generation (tape) Master, or to what they might normally give out usually called the 2nd gen (tape) master (or production master)?

 

What a great business plan - "Let's fleece the public by telling the truth, causing them to jump to incorrect conclusions and to draw incorrect inferences about what we do."

How has it gone downhill?

MoFi is continuing with their new "open" policy, for example, the details about the new vinyl OMR LP of Elvis' Blue Hawaii soundtrack:

 

Maybe staff have left or even let go?

 

Have you been following this thread at all?? MoFi lied about their process...so where do you get the idea that they told the truth?? You don't happen to work with Davis do you??

 

Could be.

Could also be low wage frontline workers emotionally exhausted and at their wits end from an inundation of undoubtedly rude and abusive customers misdirecting their negative feelings on them.

Just a thought.

 

Could be---or, maybe it is a Fwatty described above, and the customer service has simply vanished. I haven't personally contacted them, so I do not have first hand experience, but I do find it a little odd that people come in and rush to their defense.

 

Just because a person is a customer service representative for MFSL doesn't mean that they had any knowledge of a digital step in a process. They're job is to deal with customers, not mastering. It's a tough way to collect a paycheck.

 

Nobody said they did. Where do you get that from?? But they do get direction from the Admin staff as to how to respond to customers...or not.

 

I will defend people who make peanuts to do customer service work until my last breath.

I’ve done that job and not only is the customer not always right, they’re often abusive jerks.

Based on the behavior and commentary in this thread, I have an incredible amount of empathy for the people who answer phones and reply to customer emails there.

 

FWatty- could you be more specific about how MoFi's service has gone downhill? I usually only ever dealt with Music Direct on occasion, and thought they did a good job for an online store.

I hear that, but I've been on this thread since the beginning and didn't see anybody laying blame on them-- my speculation is that the customer service people were as much in the dark about the DSD step as the rest of us.
But, in general, agree. I've found being nice usually works so much better than being a *rick and if it is beyond the scope of what the customer service person can handle, I escalate to a higher tier of "management." This is not such a big operation that they can hide behind an anonymous "Music Direct" team.

 

This thread is not about the merits of DSD.

It's about the morals of MOFI.

 

Even when they don’t respond to 5-6 emails for over one month (other than “sorry for delay, the so and so department will get you a return label” followed by another 10 days of silence)? That’s UDiscover quality customer service and it wasn’t like that before the scandal. To top it off, I ordered the Billy Joel The Stranger when it came in stock a week ago and it’s still an open order. I don’t recall an order for an in stock item ever taking that long to ship. There’s no way their orders have increased, so it’s not like they’re overwhelmed and can’t hire fast enough.

It’s Business 101 that when you have a PR disaster then you up your customer service game. MoFi is failing in that regard and I don’t think that is what you want to see in a business trying to weather a storm like this. Slinging Randy Travis and Elvis Blue Hawaii albums out from behind their curtain isn’t exactly a substitute for managing customer relations.

Either people have quit and they haven’t hired anyone else or their operation is so small and incompetent that they are still scrambling and are grossly disorganized. I think many mistakenly believe that MoFi is a “company” so they have hundreds of employees and a bunch of corporate jets. A man with $300 can set up a “company” and start a business. MoFi is closer to that than a serious corporate structure covering all their bases and capable of managing a scandal that impacts an entire market.

There being meanies on the phone doesn’t change or excuse any of the above, nor does the rate of employee pay. If the rate of pay affects the quality of their performance, then maybe that’s why they’re working in a job that pays whatever it pays.

I hope MoFi comes out of this stronger and better (and more honest), but they have a leadership problem.

 

Is this only if you got them through MOFI, or Music Direct as well?

 

Yeah I don’t agree with much of what you posted but I also don’t care enough to argue.

I’d agree they have a leadership problem (lol obviously) and that their smallish CS dept did likely lose people who haven’t been replaced.

I still stand in support of the remaining CS reps regardless.

 

Actually it is about everything related to the MoFi revelation. I don’t see anything specifically about morality in the thread title. So it’s a free for all. Like most conversations.

 

Consider this, there is no excuse for rudeness on both sides of the aisle..certainly many times the customer is unreasonable and rude, BUT, there are also many times when that is not the case. Instead, we have the CS dept being rude and unreasonable…both are wrong,IMHO.