AFAIK there’s currently no legal liablity, but it wouldn’t take much for a $50 lawyer to seal a pretty major class action, they’d simply need to get a jury to see the UD1S or Gain2 marketting material as misleading which by anyones standards it undoubtedly is.
I definitely agree Jim Davis should have immediately made a video statement.
If executed well, Mofi could have taken control of the entire narrative.
I would love to know how many people have contacted Mofi directly so far and see transcripts of the conversations.
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I’m sure there’s still more to come of this, I don’t think this will be it.
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The damage goes beyond legal liability. MoFi is in the business of manufacturing and selling premium vinyl reissues. This particular consumer base has been patronizing MoFi for many years, trusting the product and the company behind it. Keeping it alive during the ‘perfect sound forever’ CD/pick your digital format revolution when MoFi could have died. Breech of that trust has the potential to crater sales and shut down MoFi. I don’t take kindly to being hoodwinked as part of that customer base. A reasonable guess is that is what Jim is really worried about. MoFi is on my do not buy blacklist until trust is restored. A twitter ‘apology’ doesn’t cut it. I’m looking for concrete action and I’m also butt hurt over the prospect I’ve already spent my hard-earned dollars on vinyl records from digital transfers. Heck, I wanted to be free of CD ‘perfect sound forever’ BS when I spent my greenbacks. MoFi may have lost me permanently.
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In the past I’ve had to resort to magazine reviews for that information, if it is even published. At one time Stereophile did that, not sure whether they still do. Absolutely agree it shouldn’t be up to the audio/music review press to provide that information to consumers.
Maybe they’ll open the floodgates of partial refunds / substantial discounts but I rather doubt it unless sales plummet.
Identifying who should get refunds or discounts would be a horrible mess; except perhaps at the dealer level. But don’t hold your breath.
I’ve no dog in this hunt, just want to say that DSD 256 is a very different resolution than “perfect sound forever” Redbook cd.
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The whole MoFi thing is much ado about nothing. With all that is going on in the world today it is sad that many would waste energy on something like this. Funny how no one complained about how they sound only that they were touched by digital during the process of making them.
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Other things happening in the world do not lessen the impact of morally ambiguous issues, this is lying to long term loyal customers, and in any normal business there would be recourse.
There seems to be a lack of care for moral issues these days which leads to major upset all around the world. Morality is imperative in modern society, otherwise we’re lost.
You’re entirely missing the point of the argument and I’m assuming don’t understand mastering techniques. It’s like saying analysing a car OBD scanner is the same as physically deconstructing an engine. There’s a very valid reason why 100% Analogue chain cuts cost substantially more than digital.
I feel somewhere in the middle ground between these last two posts. Not unlike how I feel about a lot of what is going on these days. Sometimes seems to me that what has changed lately is that it is necessary for things to be depicted as either black or white for some reason. Reality isn’t like that in my experience.
Again, I blame the Interwebs. Well, not the interwebs per se, but the motivational and monetization structures that have evolved along with it.
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I don’t think there is a legal remedy. That would require Mofi “intended” to mislead customers. Intention in this case would be very difficult to prove and I doubt it would stand.
NO LAWYER HERE, but by advertising the records as something they are not, what could possibly be MOFI’s intention other than to mislead?
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I think their only chance to maintain vinyl sales figures is, to release titles which only they offer at the time. Even then it will be harder for them to sell digitized analog sourced records at the price of such a one step I assume. As long as there are all analog producers I see them running into some problems within the next years, even though their sound may be great for certain releases.
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I understand mastering techniques enough to know that they do not own the original masters and that there is no lossless way to make and analog copy of the original master. DSD 256 is the only lossless way they can still say it is made from an original master. Any other way the second generation analog would be an inferior copy. It seems the analog fans fall on the side of anal.
Dunno who owns what, but an A to D conversion is not lossless.
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Compared to the amout of loss any analog type copy it is!
The issue at hand is that they are inserting an A to D and a D to A conversion into a process most assumed was a single A to A “One Step”. If they owned the masters, they would do it without the format conversion to and from digital.
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How do you assume that they own the masters?
Maybe, Beef. One of the problems they face (even if they owned the masters) is that with each play of the master tape there is a loss. For them to do their one-step process requires 1 play of the tape for each 1,000 vinyl copies they want to produce. They typically produce 5,000 to 7,000 copies depending on the release. That means degrading the analog master 5 to 7 times, something John told me they were unwilling to do.
In fact, I agree with him. That’s unconscionable. Those masters are treasures. Like defacing the Mona Lisa a little bit with every view.
The responsible thing to do is what they in fact do. A single pass captured on 4X DSD. There’s zero loss. They can make as many copies as they need.
They are doing the right thing.
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