MoFi speaks..sort of..

There's a short interview in The Absolute Sound editor Robert Harley's blog with MoFi president Davis over what will always be known as 'The Debacle'. You can read it here. It's not exactly an exploration of the major question concerning MoFi's misleading marketing. Is this what real journalism looks like?

The debacle keeps on giving

So, perhaps I was too understanding of MoFi's use of DSD in their much touted One Step releases. As the fall-out continues, am now reading customer service notices that buyers received which apparently assured them there was no digital step. MoFi seems to be making an effort to rewrite earlier social media postings, stating earlier messages or replies to customers were 'unauthorized' etc. This whole mess seems like a case study in mismanagement.   Meanwhile, folks are having a field day posting videos of claimed all-analog processes from a couple of years ago, or quoting 'expert' reviews that raved about the sonics being evidence of all-analog superiority, sharing promotional material that touted the MoFi process and in which there is not a single mention of a digital step. Ah, the internet, history is there if you know where to look.  Am even seeing  reports of price drops on the used market for some of the MoFi collection  (though given the asking prices from before the news broke, any adjustments are hardly at the fire sale level). 

It all has the hallmarks of a road crash. You hate to see it but can't look away. And in there are other nuggets -- like Analog Planet's tour of Music Direct's record storage where the company head not only pushes the party line on all analog goodness, but when Mikey Fremer mentions that he does not have a copy of one record there, the owner basically says he must have it as they send a copy of every release to him. Now that's music direct!  Not a dig at Mikey, he has been an advocate for good sound, and let's face it, who would say no to such a deal?   But I am less impressed with his response to the mess in this next video where he basically argues Mike Esposito, who exposed the story, did not sufficiently act "like a journalist" and was "rolled" by the MoFi team. That's not how I view it. And the comments about Esposito's background? That reveals more about Mr. Fremer's personality than it should. Mikey does admit on camera that he basically covered up for MoFi in some of his columns though! Oh dear. Is that how a real jourmalist should act? I suspect some rewriting of history is actively ongoing, and not just on the MoFi website.

In the end, I feel for the engineering guys at MoFi who are doing their best to release great sounding records. And I have sympathy for people who did spend tons of cash for a form of record they feel was misrepresented, often directly and in response to inquiries they made prior to purchase. This is not a scenario that makes the audio industry or even the press look good. I still feel that if you love the sound of your MoFi LPs, and many people do, then that's what ultimately matters but I don't expect everyone to feel the same. We can but hope that going forward, all releases will clearly describe what you are buying and maybe the pricing will adjust accordingly. I wonder sometimes if history will view the limited edition LP craze of our time as another tulip moment. In 50 years, will any of this seem more than a silly old guy's indulgence? Thoughts for another time...

Mobile Fidelity - just where is the debacle really?

Much wailing and gnashing of teeth happening right now on audio forums over the apparent revelation that Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs vinyl might actually not be quite as analog as imagined. What? You paid a shitload of money for the Santana One-Step or whatever (or you bought two copies in the hope of making a killing, er, I mean just to make sure you had a back-up) and now you find your prize product is not as 'pure' as you imagined? Hmm..many collectors seem to be taking to the forums to rant, to call it a 'debacle', to claim they were tricked into overpaying by promises of an all-analog production etc. 

I understand some of this purist-disquiet. The marketing of many releases certainly suggested you were paying a premium for an all-analog release, but how often have we heard analog fans saying something like 'I don't know why but I just find the sound of LPs to be better'?  So now it appears that some releases may sound better because of a digital step in the process. Does that make it sound less impressive? Apparently for some it does and it devalues in their minds their expensively curated collections. But what if one didn't know? Does a record by any other name sound as sweet? 

So confusing....see if this helps (clue, it won't much but at minute 41 you get some explanation). So is it all about the quality of sound at the end of the day, not the marketing? From the sound engineering side, it makes sense to go with what works. But, were buyers deceived intentionally? You have to wonder just what the marketing folks and management were thinking here. Who in the industry knew about this and kept quiet?  Welcome to 2022. Transparency is in short supply.