MoFi controversy

DSD is now included in the description under the Technologies tab as well as posted with each individual UD1S album.  NOTE:  There are a few albums without the DSD statement added.  I'm not sure if that means the album was created from the original tape without the use of a DSD file or if they (hurriedly) missed a few albums in the description upgrade.  Either way, they seem to have felt the heat and have complied with better transparency.

My opinion, though, is they should further update their Technology statement with a detailed description as to why they do it in this manner.  While they have gone to great lengths to describe and market the UD1S process and purpose, this new reveal about DSD should also include a full and complete disclosure of the technological details and why it serves purpose.  Maybe sometime soon?

@twoleftears Interesting article. Plenty of opportunity to mention that their modified Studer contains an analog to digital converter and why they do the transfer this way, but no mention of it at all.

In the youtube video with the MoFi mastering engineers after the story broke, they say they get a better source to work with by converting to a 4x DSD file than they would if they made a tape to tape copy.

I think the reason this is such a big deal to some people is their almost religious conviction that digital is bad and that if it so much as touches the music, it contaminates the music irredeemably.  The fact that many of these people were "fooled" by the MoFi releases makes it such a betrayal to such belief.  

I don't care how they achieve a nice sounding release.  I find decent most, but not all, of the MoFi reissues I've heard, and that includes both their CD/SACD releases and vinyl albums.  Is it their mastering, or their technology, or access to decent source material, or quality manufacturing, or a combination of all these factors?  I would bet it is the combination.

I could not care less about this brouhaha, as I have already said, but tomcy quoted the following above, from the MoFi website. "First and foremost, we only utilize first generation original master recordings as source material for our releases."  If I were a lawyer (g*d forbid) arguing this issue in court, I would take the position that DSD-encoded music is in the category of "recordings".  Therefore, there is no deception surrounding tape vs SACD or 4XSACD.  The deception is around the definition of "first generation original master recordings". I am actually quite confident that they are getting better results with their technique than they could hope to achieve with a true first generation master tape, where the music was captured on tape 20 and much more years ago. And that's why they do it.

I'm a huge digital fan. I have tons of SACDs and Digital Hi-rez files. I'm also a vinyl collector. I think MoFi is now doing the right thing and all should be good. 

MoFi can change the narrative about digital since so many find their versions of LPs are the best. For myself, an owner of many Mofi regular and One Steps, it's a mixed bag. However, that, I'm sure has more to do with the sonic "flavor" from the mastering tweaks and my taste vs the quality of the master transfer. 

In my opinion, before all the hubub, I was starting to think MoFi was turning into a "Monster Cable" of audiophile record producers. Tons of pre-order announcements (sometimes years ahead of time), and tons of major, one-step releases. "We'll put the MoFi name on many things, records, gear, record cleaning...you name it....people will buy it all up". I think this controversy will make MoFi stronger in the long run and rethink placing their name on just anything.