Many thanks. This will be a great thread. I have four labels - but my guess is that you already know them ….
Do Mobile Fidelity Vinyl Re-issues Have a Digital Step in the Process?
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
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Many thanks. This will be a great thread. I have four labels - but my guess is that you already know them ….
Ok, I was looking for someone selling six UD1S ...
Yes; two sealed copies X three titles = six
And all of a sudden there's this other step but not a step to be counted...
This flow chart now looks correct to me! (As I described in my video (Post #337 hereof) I thought that the original flow chart (which this new flow chart corrects and replaces) was Mobile Fidelity’s single most misleading statement.)
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Sorry to be pedantic. This flow chart is still deliberately misleading. They aren’t all DSD256. There are multiple that are cut from DSD64. Once again bs from the company.
I don't think this scenario of misrepresenting information and products is limited to Music Direct, although it seems to be singularly ubiquitous in the audio industry.
According to the FTC, there are 3 criteria that should be met before they will investigate deceptive advertising:
1. Was a claim made?
2. Is the claim likely to mislead a reasonable consumer?
3. Is the claim material?
Several years ago, I noted a particular Music Direct advertisement that IME, met all 3 criteria and was rife with inaccuracies, so I brought it to the attention of the mfr of the product in the ad. They claimed no responsibility for the verbiage in the ad and said it was marketing hyperbole from Music Direct. I contacted Music Direct and pointed out the demonstrably false statements and offered them a chance to correct or clarify their statements before I took the matter up with the FTC. They never responded, so I filed a claim of deceptive advertising with the IL state Attorney General. Music Direct did respond to the AG's inquiry, but stated the ad verbiage "has not only been approved by the mfr, but substantiated and improved (sic) by the designer himself". The AG responded to me: "Since formal enforcement action by this office is not warranted, we are closing your file at this time."
The verbiage in the ad has since been slightly modified, but remains IME, misleading and false. Nothing will change in this industry until there is a penalty for violating the rules, and at present, it appears there isn't any interest to pursue these types of claims, at least not from the AG of IL .
Until then, Caveat Emptor. I used to purchase products from MD on a regular basis; I no longer do so. Elusive Disc and Acoustic Sounds now get my business.
According to the FTC, there are 3 criteria that should be met before they will investigate deceptive advertising:
1. Was a claim made?
2. Is the claim likely to mislead a reasonable consumer?
3. Is the claim material?
Several years ago, I noted a particular Music Direct advertisement that IME, met all 3 criteria and was rife with inaccuracies, so I brought it to the attention of the mfr of the product in the ad. They claimed no responsibility for the verbiage in the ad and said it was marketing hyperbole from Music Direct. I contacted Music Direct and pointed out the demonstrably false statements and offered them a chance to correct or clarify their statements before I took the matter up with the FTC. They never responded, so I filed a claim of deceptive advertising with the IL state Attorney General. Music Direct did respond to the AG's inquiry, but stated the ad verbiage "has not only been approved by the mfr, but substantiated and improved (sic) by the designer himself". The AG responded to me: "Since formal enforcement action by this office is not warranted, we are closing your file at this time."
The verbiage in the ad has since been slightly modified, but remains IME, misleading and false. Nothing will change in this industry until there is a penalty for violating the rules, and at present, it appears there isn't any interest to pursue these types of claims, at least not from the AG of IL .
Until then, Caveat Emptor. I used to purchase products from MD on a regular basis; I no longer do so. Elusive Disc and Acoustic Sounds now get my business.
One interesting observation arising from this controversy is the change in philosophy and perspective of the record labels about the value and importance of their original analog master tapes. For many years my father was Senior Vice President of Business Affairs at Atlantic Records. In the late 1980s he and I organized Resnick Records LLC to borrow original master tapes from record labels and to pay the labels a licensing fee in return for using their tapes to re-issue some of my personal favorite rock and pop titles. A contract was drafted, and we received a licensing fee schedule from Atlantic. I couldn’t afford to pay the licensing fee in advance, so the project never went forward.
This was when CDs were exploding in popularity and, after their titles were converted to digital, the labels didn’t assign much value to the original master tapes. Can you imagine record labels even entertaining the idea of just turning over their priceless original master tapes to my father and me in Manhattan so we can FedEx them to some remastering studio in Los Angeles?
Nowadays it appears that the records labels don’t even want to allow a well-known company like Mobile Fidelity to take custody of the tapes!
This was when CDs were exploding in popularity and, after their titles were converted to digital, the labels didn’t assign much value to the original master tapes. Can you imagine record labels even entertaining the idea of just turning over their priceless original master tapes to my father and me in Manhattan so we can FedEx them to some remastering studio in Los Angeles?
Nowadays it appears that the records labels don’t even want to allow a well-known company like Mobile Fidelity to take custody of the tapes!
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I think that the days of master tapes being allowed out of the label's premises let alone shipped all over the world are very much numbered.
Whether people like it or not I can see DSD transfers increasingly becoming the standard for producing reissues, that is if that hasn't already happened without everyone noticing...
Whether people like it or not I can see DSD transfers increasingly becoming the standard for producing reissues, that is if that hasn't already happened without everyone noticing...
Yup. And it looks like my Blood On The Tracks is DSD64.
So you are not selling all your Mofi, just the ones they said have a digital step? I don't understand. If this was about their dishonesty you should sell all. Otherwise if initially you couldn't tell these two were not good sounding, you shouldn't sell them now either just coz they have a digital step.
I want only AAA vinyl. You don’t have to understand.
Ok, so this has nothing to do with if they represent correctly or if you can tell it sounds good or not
My personal policy preference about wanting only AAA vinyl has nothing to do with Mobile Fidelity’s misrepresentations, or if I can tell if these LPs sound digital or not. I thought these Mo-Fi LPs were AAA. Now that I know they are not AAA, I do not want them in the collection.
It is my personal belief that converting analog to digital does not improve the sound of an analog recording.
These three albums are three of my favorite albums of all time. I have numerous original pressings and several AAA re-issues by different re-issue labels of each of these three titles. I have bought Tapestry and Bridge Over Troubled Water and Eagles LPs so many times over so many years that I’m literally a bit afraid of how many copies of these albums I’m going to find when I finally open up my LP boxes.
I simply am tossing the digital re-issues out of the nest.
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i think this is an understandable approach. it's not one i choose personally.
my wife insists we only buy organic food at the grocery store wherever possible. and we surely do about 99% of the time. it's rare when she goes outside of that approach. lots of food is grown organic but not certified. or is not yet certified. so that's a grey area.
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