The MoFi Mess and TAS rolling over for them

My Cannonball Adderley One Step is pre-sold out and not even shown to be able to be preordered anymore. Mofi is overwhelmed with demand and every One Step ever made in the last 5 year has sold out. Maybe this nonissue (to me) will cause the resale market to drop, which I would certainly welcome.

I only care about sound quality, and even Analogue Productions is making some of their highest end records with digital tapes involved. They had a major announcement today that they are releasing all Steely Dan studio albums on 45RPM UHQRs at $150 a pop. A few are not totally AAAAnalogue. I couldn't care less. Make the best sounding records you can. Luckily, I have almost all their albums on Speakers Corner, Mofi, or Japanese pressings, so I won't be buying any UHQRs (unless I have a really weak moment and go for Royal Scam or Pretzel Logic).

The packaging drives the prices WAY up. Luckily, they will be releasing them all on 33 1/3 with digital files from Bernie Grundman that I am sure will be excellent with original packaging. No word on pricing for those, but hopefully they will be similar to other AP pricing - $40 for 33s and $60 for 45s.

For those who care more about whether the sound is 100% complete analogue than how it sounds, enjoy paying more for less and thanks for staying out of the resale markets.

I left a comment  on Micheal Fremer's YouTube site about how much  I was disappointed  with MoFi deceiving its customers and he shot back in a very rude fashion and in so many words said I was full of it. I was taken aback to say the least. 

In the October Stereophile Industry Update, it also rolls over on the issue.  Evidently both mags' vested interests are pretty much the same.

I don’t understand why Jonathan attempts to create a balancing equation such that the apparently knowingly misleading statements by Mobile Fidelity (Jonathan: “Indeed, Mobile Fidelity‘s publicity has, I think, deliberately left the impression that everything is accomplished in the analog domain.” “Anyway you look at it, this was not full disclosure.“) somehow are offset because, or should be forgiven because, Mobile Fidelity profited from the business of re-mastering, pressing and selling LPs to consumers through the 1980s to the present day (Jonathan: “MoFi spent decades keeping the LP alive and kicking — releasing many, many sonic triumphs over that span . . . it would be worse than ungrateful of audiophiles not to show some charity here.”). I don’t think this proposed equation nets out to inculpability.

Jonathan appears not to consider that if consumers had known the truth about the digital step, then perhaps Mobile Fidelity would not have been as successful in business for decades selling its records and “keeping the LP alive.” I am not sure Jonathan should encourage Jim Davis to break his arm patting himself on the back for building a business, and even for helping to sustain an industry, based on a misrepresentation.

Is Jonathan suggesting that the end of keeping consumers buying records through the dark days of digital justified the means of the misrepresentation to sell re-issues? Numerous other companies were manufacturing and selling re-issues during the years in which Mobile Fidelity was selling its digital step vinyl records.

I see the misrepresentation issue as completely separate from the issue of “keeping the LP alive,” and as completely separate from the issue of the sound quality of Mobile Fidelity’s digital step vinyl records. I think that the former issue should not be conflated with, or means/ends justified by or excused by, either of the latter issues.

I give Jonathan credit for making the same point I made upon reading Jim Davis’ answers to Jonathan and Robert’s written questions: “If MoFi is as convinced of the sonic superiority of digital duplication and mastering as Jim Davis claims it is . . ., why conceal the fact?”

Great point yoyoyaya! If these recordings become digitized anyway, why then go to the trouble to "store them" on vinyl at all? It's probably the worst medium to do so that can add nothing but distortion. I guess it's all about appearances & perception.......