The arguments here seem pretty persuasive. The issue is not so much whether the DSD step introduces artifacts. The fact is, MFSL sells digital recordings at a lower price than its analogue offerings, and they knowingly misrepresent digital recordings as analogue so that they can charge a premium. This is like wineries that misrepresent their wines on their labels. In Burgundy, for example, a village cru from Chambolle-Musigny might sell for $50, whereas the grand cru Musigny sells for more than $500 (from the cellar. Sometimes much more at auctions !). Some winemakers (e.g. from the negociant Labouré-Roi) are in jail now for doing exactly this. Whether the consumer can tell the difference (and those who cannot should not be buying expensive wines) is moot.Mobile Fidelity Lawsuit #2: -> STILES v MOBILE FIDELITY SOUND LAB, INC.
The complaint in this second class action lawsuit is different inasmuch as the plaintiff resides in North Carolina and the laws being cited as having been breached are:
• Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act
• North Carolina Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act
The latter best known as the NC UDTPA can be interpreted very broadly proving both Judge and if it comes to it, Jury with rather a wide latitude.
Moreover, the complaint filed in this lawsuit is far more detailed and informational than the initial class-action lawsuit filed in Washington State's 9th District. It is rather thorough providing the court and readers of the complaint with graphics: photographs, charts and tables.
I am linking to the complaint below:
stiles-v-mobile-fidelity-sound-lab-inc.pdf
drive.google.com
Do Mobile Fidelity Vinyl Re-issues Have a Digital Step in the Process?
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
- Start date
Somehow, I actually can see you haul the AS-2000 into court for the demo. Lol
I saw the "sonic artifact" statement too. This doesn't strike me as important to the case. Certainly we can think of various tape artifacts that will survive the ADC process and remain audible. And then lack of digitization "artifacts", I think, would be easy to argue away with simple sample rate theory. The "but... but... I can hear the difference" from us audio geeks isn't really relevant There's better evidence of deliberate misleading.
I really don't understand why the prosecutorial approach would have anything to do with a lot of what most ordinary people would see as 'audiophile mumbo-jumbo'.
Rather than trying to fight out in court what is the best mastering process etc, isn't this just about proving that the records were mis-sold as something that they are not without getting into semantics about whether this is material or not?
Rather than trying to fight out in court what is the best mastering process etc, isn't this just about proving that the records were mis-sold as something that they are not without getting into semantics about whether this is material or not?
That’s pretty funny Brian. No, I don’t think I will move my turntable. I also suspect Michael Fremer would want a turntable that he’s more familiar with for the comparison.
Brian, I go to court a lot and they don’t allow me to bring my iPhone, not even to call parties late to the case.
Don’t you think there would be a lot of interest on this forum, even from those who declare videos suck, in watching such a proceeding even on a YouTube video? Come on man, it certainly would be difficult to resist. High drama for such a hobby. I don’t think it would ever happen.
Irving happy birthday, enjoy Kind of Blue. I'm off to Cabo for five days. My only audiophile thoughts during this time will be how I'm going to lure Andy Quint of The Absolute Sound to Arizona. I want to show him the Grand Canyon, Grand Canyon Caves and little of Rt 66. If we see any wild horses, wild burros, coyotes, bobcats and the odd land tortoise so much the better.
Clapton’s UNPLUGGED… UN-ANALOGUE????
The Magic Vinyl vs Digital website made an exhaustive comparison of the Eric Clapton ?– Unplugged (Vinyl, CD, DVD stereo, DD 5.1, Streaming, MOFI One Step and SACD)
The link can be found here: https://magicvinyldigital.net/.../eric-clapton-unplugged.../
From their section entitled Ed9: Vinyl MOFI One Step ref UD15 2-020 -2022
“Presentation: MOFI UltraDisc One-Step Edition, Original Master Recording with 2 LPs in 45 rpm, presented in a very nice box. For this vinyl, there is no ambiguity about the origin of the master which is indeed digital (as shown by the response curves).”
And taken from their Spectrum section for the same MoFi One Step:
“The mastering between the MOFI vinyl version and the MoFi SACD version is a bit different. There is a bump of more than 5 dB between 15 kHz and 20 kHz for the vinyl compared to the SACD (yellow area). There is also a small difference in the bass (green zone).
For both versions, we find the 22 kHz limit of the original digital master (with a 44.1 kHz sample rate).”
And then from MoFi’s own website where on July 28th of this year we were informed that source/provenance information would be backfilled. To be fair the folks at MoFi may have not gotten to it yet, but here’s what it reports for the Eric Clapton Unplugged One Step:
https://mofi.com/.../eric-clapton-unplugged-ultradisc-one...
“MASTERED FROM THE ORIGINAL MASTER TAPES AND LIMITED TO 10,000 NUMBERED COPIES”
No mention of digital. And if The Magic Vinyl vs Digital website indeed got this right, then this One Step took a step down from DSD to the land of Red Book CD, 44.1 kHz for its source.
What does this portend? Will all of MoFi’s assertions of provenance require proofing and validation from a 3rd party?
The Magic Vinyl vs Digital website made an exhaustive comparison of the Eric Clapton ?– Unplugged (Vinyl, CD, DVD stereo, DD 5.1, Streaming, MOFI One Step and SACD)
The link can be found here: https://magicvinyldigital.net/.../eric-clapton-unplugged.../
From their section entitled Ed9: Vinyl MOFI One Step ref UD15 2-020 -2022
“Presentation: MOFI UltraDisc One-Step Edition, Original Master Recording with 2 LPs in 45 rpm, presented in a very nice box. For this vinyl, there is no ambiguity about the origin of the master which is indeed digital (as shown by the response curves).”
And taken from their Spectrum section for the same MoFi One Step:
“The mastering between the MOFI vinyl version and the MoFi SACD version is a bit different. There is a bump of more than 5 dB between 15 kHz and 20 kHz for the vinyl compared to the SACD (yellow area). There is also a small difference in the bass (green zone).
For both versions, we find the 22 kHz limit of the original digital master (with a 44.1 kHz sample rate).”
And then from MoFi’s own website where on July 28th of this year we were informed that source/provenance information would be backfilled. To be fair the folks at MoFi may have not gotten to it yet, but here’s what it reports for the Eric Clapton Unplugged One Step:
https://mofi.com/.../eric-clapton-unplugged-ultradisc-one...
“MASTERED FROM THE ORIGINAL MASTER TAPES AND LIMITED TO 10,000 NUMBERED COPIES”
No mention of digital. And if The Magic Vinyl vs Digital website indeed got this right, then this One Step took a step down from DSD to the land of Red Book CD, 44.1 kHz for its source.
What does this portend? Will all of MoFi’s assertions of provenance require proofing and validation from a 3rd party?
MoFi Sued Over Claims Its All-Analog Albums Were Actually Made With Digital Mastering Tech
MoFi, the label at the center of an audiophile controversy, is facing a new lawsuit over claims that some of its albums weren't made from all-analog tapes.
www.rollingstone.com
My impression from the Magic Vinyl page is that the original recording was in digital. Unless it was recorded on digital tape, which I doubt, being 1992 (for example, Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms was recorded on digital tape), there could not have been a "master tape" in existence. MoFi probably uses the term "Master Tapes" very loosely to mean all "original" materials.
On this Eric Clapton Unplugged 1step, it looks like there is EQ attenuation from 10kHz onwards, of around -5dB cut.
But then that is immediately followed by a sharp rise going towards 20kHz.
(Blue=original pressing. White=1step)
Not sure what the mofi engineers were trying to do there.
Might they had been attempting first to "hide" the sonic signature of its pcm origins by reducing the upper frequencies???!?
And then it seems they also tried to restore some loss of details by boosting the very top octave with a narrow peak flter by as much as +5dB boost.
Some people have mentioned they found Unplugged to sound darker and closed-in compared against original pressings, but some other people had said they perceive greater micro details. Might both these be explanable by the above 2 EQ processes?
Then as already pointed out, the bass below 400Hz was also raised a few dB.
This sort of "tampering" will have an impact on the sound balance, especially on the guitar.
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All audio magazines have editorial and sales arms and there is a “Chinese wall” between them. We can debate whether the questions were hard or soft, but we are not influenced by whether or not a company advertises with us.
JV/RH: “Why does MoFi limit the number of copies it produces, particularly when you can cut as many lacquers as you want when you are cutting from a DSD file, and wear on the precious original mastertape isn’t an issue?”
JD: Like many things in the more-complicated-than-it-appears music business, limits on production runs can be based on numerous factors, such as licensing agreements, paper management (jackets, boxes, etc.), and even material shortages. As some may be aware, the only factory in the U.S. producing lacquer blanks burned down several years ago. In the case of our One-Step releases, we based our limits on our estimates of demand. . . .Why no follow-up question such as: “So there is no natural cap due to, for example, a limited number of lacquers or dubs from the original analog tape, and the limited edition numbering scheme is arbitrary and serves only to foster the illusion of scarcity value, as you simply set the edition size just above the maximum number of albums you think you can possibly sell?”
JV/RH: “The revelation that MoFi cuts from digital masters has suggested to many that the advantages of a purely analog chain are imaginary. How do you reply to that line of thinking?”
JD: That’s a debate that has and may continue to go on for years. I can only speak for our process. We did extensive evaluations of all aspects of the mastering process and found that using our proprietary gear with these steps yields the best sonic results. In the end it’s up to each individual listener to make his or her own decision as to what sounds best. We feel the excellent reviews from so many of our customers and the press support our point of view. For that, we are grateful.JV/RH’s question sounds like something asked of Vladimir Putin by Izvestia: “Many have suggested that decrepit, evil, Americansky capitalism may not offer a perfect life to every American. How do you reply to that line of thinking?”
Why no follow-up question such as: “If you preferred the sound of the digitally-converted vinyl all along, why didn’t you lead with sonic superiority in your marketing material as a competitive advantage of your digital conversion process?”
Seriously, Lee, why such softball phraseology, and why no blinkingly-obvious follow-up questions?
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Dear Lee,
I am not asking you to speak on behalf of any audio magazine other than the absolute sound.
Between what and what — between who and whom — has a Chinese Wall been erected at the absolute sound?
Are the business management people, and are the reviewers, walled off from knowing who advertises in the magazine? Obviously not, because everyone sees the advertising.
Are the people in the advertising department walled off from knowing which brands are the subject of reviews? Probably not. (Even if people in the advertising department are walled off from knowing which advertisers are the subject of reviews being published that particular month, what does that even matter, because often the same advertisers have products reviewed every few months over and over, and often the same brands advertise month after month. So, inevitably, everybody learns which brands butter the magazine’s bread.)
A Chinese Wall requires rigid and auditable information barriers between individuals and between departments. It is much more than a memorandum in the file which says that reviewers should not be biased in favor of advertisers.
So who is Chinese Walled off from whom? What Chinese Wall procedures are in place?
What does it even mean to have a Chinese Wall in the context of the absolute sound’s business?
Thank you.
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There is no Chinese Wall at WBF.
Don't have the balls go to the TAS site and attack Harley and Valin directly -- instead of shooting at Lee's feet? Lee is not an editor - he does not tell those editors what to say. Then you can run back here and tell everyone what you said at TAS. Like you did to Paul McGowan.
@Lee - I don't think you have to be accountable to him. I would not dignify this obnoxious hectoring with a response. Ginning up indignity within his own forum at a less-than-straightforward manufacturer is one thing, but then attacking another publication for insufficiently meeting his own level of self-righteousness in conversation with that manufacturer seems, in the battle for readership, highly self-interested.
not sure what’s wrong here this was a very fair thread started by Ron and until people started repeating the same arguments, which happens on most threads, was a very good and different discussion that brought out MoFi’s lies too many who would otherwise have not paid attention to the news.
Lee is the business lead at TAS, he made a comment that there is a Chinese wall in all publications, Ron asked him a fair question. Lee can choose whether he wants to be part of the discussion or not. He has a valid question why TAS soft balled MoFi is it because they are advertising
If you want to have a go at Ron do so for all the silly Paul McGowan said this what do you think stuff he puts up
This isn't about Mofi.
There are two messages. And you're getting them mixed together.
Resnick's issue is about the questions of Harley and Valin, not Lee. Resnick is hectoring him instead of his targets. Lee is not an editor. He should ask Harley and Valin but he doesn't have the wherewithall to do that, so he goes after Lee.
Then he impugns the line between editorial and business - though he'll play "innocent questions". One doesn't follow the other for no reason. The Chinese Wall issue goes both ways.
Don't you understand there is competition between TAS and WBF?
Ok I see Lee, Harley, Valin as part of TAS though Lee himself is not a reviewer or the person asking the questions. In that case he should not be making statements there are Chinese walls in all publications etc, he should have simply said I will ask H and V or invite them to respond.
I don't see review publications and forums as exactly competitions. on forums we posts reviews from TAS, PF, Stereophile etc and discuss them. Just like we did Roy Gregory's articles.
Forums allow a back and forth and access to non-industry users which is why we come here. Review publications publish what they do and we read them and that's it. Yes there is a comments section which is not really active because it is not a forum. I also don't see how Ron can benefit from discouraging readers from reading TAS. Reading reviews encourages more discussions on the forum. And if he really wanted to do so he just needs to encourage Caesar more.
What's the motivation for attacking TAS ?
Magazines and Forums.
- Both exist because of their advertisers.
- Both have reviews - reviews are the strength of the magazine.
- Both have commenting - comments are the strength of the forum.
- Some magazines have blogs or forum-like entities.
- It is the same audience and advertisers for both.
They do co-exist. But the audience is not that big.
Don't get me wrong -- it is not by accident that I contribute here. Steve has created the best audio forum on the planet.
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