The MoFi Mess and TAS rolling over for them

It was one of MoFi’s engineers on YouTube. You can find it if you want.

Aja and Gaucho from analogue productions will be all analog. In Chad we trust.

The engineer is Shawn Britton, who has been at MoFi a long time. In this video, circa 2017, he talks about their all analog mastering chain at 1:30:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-td3Uk5TIQ&t=115s

The heavy stock inserts that accompanied the One Steps showed a reel of tape going to the "convert"- their term for the lacquer that gets electroplated and used as a stamper without going through the additional "father/mother" duplications to create additional stampers. I gather that records are now being shipped without those older inserts- the MoFi website, containing roughly the same diagram, has since been modified to show DSD below the tape reel, before the convert step. And the packaging now has a DSD hype sticker. 

There were also various emails and messages to customers who asked the question and were told "all analog" (except where the underlying recording was itself digital). 

But, I wouldn't rely simply on these. They were crafty by omission and that's not good, especially when you consider that they were charging a premium for these records. Saying "wait, they still sound good" doesn't address the misleading marketing.

To me, the issue isn't whether these records would sound better if they had used a 1:1 tape dub or whether 4xDSD is transparent.  It has everything to do with truthful marketing and the goodwill of a company that claims to be the leading audiophile reissue house since 1977. 

They engaged in a pattern of deceptive conduct for years and this sort of conduct not only harms MoFi's prestige, but is a virtual invitation for others to do the same if it is not addressed meaningfully. (Many do-- "sourced from the tapes" is meaningless). 
I find their conduct appalling given their claim to being a leader in this niche, and setting market for reissues at $125.
There is some level of trust that develops between companies and their customers--"goodwill" is one term for it-- that allows a company a certain latitude based on customer experience.
I'm also disappointed in the industry press for what amounts to a stunning silence--apart from the press release type interview published by TAS and a few other online magazines that did address it. Valin's comments, to the effect that MoFi kept vinyl alive and you owe it to them to continue to patronize the company are nonsense. MoFi was not meaningfully issuing vinyl in the '90s and really didn't resume until late in the oughts. We don't "owe" MoFi anything. They have to clean up their act-- which they are now doing and strive to regain customer trust, which isn't easy. 

Personally, I never relied on a diet of MoFi. I have a bunch of the old Stan Ricker era product, most of which sounds fiddled with and typically bettered by OG copies. 

I don't wish MoFi ill will but this hurts the credibility of the niche audiophile record industry as well as the legacy press in my estimation. You may take a different view and are free to do so. 

Wow.  Anytime someone says to me, “you should be grateful for…” my hackles go up.  Terrible way to frame an argument.  The fact that it is an excuse for misrepresenting expensive products, exploiting the ignorance of customers…again, wow.

In Chad’s video announcing the Steely Dan UHQR:s, he says Aja and Gaucho are based on digital, not analogue because of analogue tape availability. Like I said, i doubt if it will impact sales of those titles, and when he said the numbers being produced, it certainly didn’t. Audiophiles care about SQ  after all, above all else, or at least that’s what I thought.

@whart said it all!

By the way, some of the MoFi LP’s made in the past 15 years WERE "cut" (the lacquer) from analog tapes (presumably a "production"/aka "safety" copy---usually 1/4" 15 IPS---of the 2/ch mix master, though some original studio master tapes are made available by some companies, particularly WEA), amongst them a couple of Ry Cooder albums, as well as the debut by David Crosby.

For those who don’t already know, the Analogue Productions Kind Of Blue was made using the metal parts made by Bernie Grundman back in 1997 (for Classic Records), using the actual 3 channel master tape fed directly into Grundman’s mixing console, no intermediary 2/ch tape made or used! Grundman was the one who discovered the original master mix---from which all releases of Kind Of Blue had been made---was made with the songs on one side of the LP having been recorded in the studio with the 3-track machine running at the wrong speed, causing the music to be heard slightly off pitch and tempo. He of course corrected that in his mastering.

In his mastering of Tea For The Tillerman for AP, Grundman discovered the original release had been mastered assuming Dolby noise reduction had been employed in the recording. It had not; with Dolby engaged in playback, the recording was subjected to a considerable degree of high frequency roll-off, resulting in the sound of Cat Stevens’ plastic-bodied Ovation acoustic guitar/guitar strings/etc. to be drastically changed, as well as that of the drumset cymbals and any and all other high frequency sound producers (the upper harmonics of the acoustic bass strings, etc.). The AP reissue of TFTT was the first that sounded anywhere close to that of the master tape. Thank God for Bernie Grundman!