Anyone catch the recent drama w/ Mobile Fidelity Labs?

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The audiophile world has been set ablaze recently, when Mike Esposito, the owner of a Phoenix record shop called "In" Groove, exposed Mobile Fidelity, a Californian record company.

In a YouTube video, the music aficionado said that "reliable sources" reported to him that MoFi had been using digital files on their expensive re-issues that are branded as only using the original analog tapes.

Esposito's video generated controversy, with many high-profile audiophiles denouncing his claims as "illegitimate". Shane Buettner, owner of Intervention Records, even mentioned that he knew the MoFi re-issuing protocol from a staff engineer, calling the process "legit".

However, the record store owner was onto something, and shortly after he posted his incendiary video, he was invited by MoFi's executive vice president of product development John Wood to travel to California and visit the company.

Esposito's tour resulted in a second video, from July 20, when MoFi's engineers confirmed that the company had, indeed, not been transparent about its practices.

This follow-up video sparked a wave of outrage among audiophiles, taking into account MoFi's longtime support of analog qualities over digital recordings.

Several reactions showed disappointment in the company's policies, with audiophiles saying:

"They were completely deceitful. I never would have ordered a single Mobile Fidelity product if I had known it was sourced from a digital master."

"It's the biggest debacle I've ever seen in the vinyl realm."
MoFi and its parent company, Music Direct, recently reacted to the controversy in an interview with The Washington Post. The record label claimed that it used Direct Stream Digital technology (DSD) for the first time in 2011 on a re-issue of Tony Bennet's "I Left My Heart in San Francisco", with the technique encompassing 60% of all vinyl releases in MoFi by the end of that year.

MoFi's chief marketing officer Syd Schwartz apologized to fans in the name of the company, saying:

"Mobile Fidelity makes great records, the best-sounding records that you can buy. There had been choices made over the years and choices in marketing that have led to confusion and anger and a lot of questions, and there were narratives that had been propagating for a while that were untrue or false or myths. We were wrong not to have addressed this sooner."
Part of the marketing appeal of MoFi records is that most releases include a banner revealing an "Original Master Recording". And for the company's One-Step production chain, which reportedly gets the sound closer to the original tape, even includes a step-by-step explanation sheet of the whole process.

However, in this guide, MoFi omitted a digital step. Doubts about the legitimacy of the One-Step process started to arise when earlier this year MoFi announced a re-issue of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" using this method.

Due to the high number of predicted copies, which was estimated on 40,000, a German audiophile wondered on his YouTube channel how the label could allow this when it would mean a huge degradation rate of the original master tape (You can see a summary of the reported One-Step process below).

Esposito claimed that he never intended to cause such a controversy, his main aim was to raise awareness for the need of accurate labelling regarding recording sources at a time when vinyl is making a comeback:

"The problem is 'analog' has become a hype word, and most people don't know how records are made. And you can very factually say this record was sourced from the original analog master tape, and you're not lying. But that doesn't disclose to the consumer what's going on between the beginning of it and the final product."
Regardless of the morals behind it, this issue sparks once more the topic of the quality of analog vs digital recordings. Jamie Howarth, who has earned praise for his sound restoration on Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen re-issues by using digital technology, discussed the stigma of including a digital step in the process of re-issuing:

"One of the reasons they want to excoriate MoFi is for lying. The other part that bothers them is that they've been listening to digital all along and they're highly invested in believing that any digital step will destroy their experience. And they're wrong."
MoFi has now added a DSD step on their upcoming One-Step sheets, in hopes of making their process more transparent to all audiophiles.

How about you? Do you prefer analog recordings, digital, or do you believe that it doesn't make any difference? Let us know in the comments below.

Interesting. Does this mean many listeners got their bubble burst?

“Man, listen to this analog and tell me that digital could possibly sound better! You can really feel the warmth.”

Ive read there hasn’t been a true analog record cut in decades, since Neumann came up with the digital step in their cutters. So I’d never expect new stuff to be.

Oh man that’s so sad from the consumer’s perspective. Being told it’s true to the art, but it’s just more putting the money before the art. They could have explained themselves but that’s not what people want! They want a true analog experience, warts and all in my experience.

All they had to do was make a few tape copies of the master tape, which would be preferred from the consumer aspect. Not exactly the easiest thing these days with tape machine health being what it is.. but for the price they charge, seems reasonable! Then they could cut from the copies worry free.

Makes me wonder if they even have 1 working deck to pull the digital file from. If the deck can only get halfway through a song, you can digitally edit together a full track in PCM and later convert to DSD. smh

Ok that makes sense, if they are only gonna give you a short window to grab a copy. Although for me, if I’m selling audio as analog, I’d bring in my own deck and mult the output… DSD, and Mara machine for example.. and probably one more backup, nagra? You got one chance to preserve the past, new tape is available, Mara machines are there.. I don’t get it.

Except I DO get it if it’s just a phone call “hey send me the file of xxxx track”

Oh wow 🥳


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Edit… this topic reminds me of video I came across last year. Kind of long but it shows how different Mastering changes things.. I grew up “knowing” the Wally Traugott pressing. I remember the first time my stepdad played it for me on his HiFi, and the bass being the most smooth thing I’ve ever heard. I was probably 11 years old, it blew me away. As soon as I heard this, even through YouTube, I could tell right away which one I know.

Shocked I tell you shocked, ok not really, but people will believe what they want to and honestly did anyone believe any recording since say 87 didn’t have DSP somewhere in the chain? It’s funny, I can’t name names but I remember a well known AE talking about his all analog recording so I asked what did you do to get that reverb, it sure sounds like a PCM70 tiled room? It was.

What infuriates me is that nobody seems willing to admit that tape deteriorates over time.

Yet go look at what people are paying for The Tape Project real to real transfers! Of course Bob maybe what we need to do is start selling virtual analog transformers in the metaverse!

Ironically, I used to have a tape and an acetate I'd cut from it that started out sounding remarkably identical. After 40 years, the tape sounded quite a bit muddier and worse overall. This was Scotch 201 that has no sticky-shed issue requiring baking and is considered one of the best sounding tapes by many of us. I've long suspected this may be why vinyl has often sounded better than CD reissues made from the same master tape.

One of the most sobering experiences I ever had was hearing an acoustic record player playing acoustic recordings.

As for the green pen, it only works on CDs played on early CD players. According to an engineer at Philips, marking the CD throws it out of balance which makes the servo heat up more causing the crystal to run at a slightly faster speed.

You know what I do since I’m such a recording nerd? I go to the dollar bin at the record store, pick up literally any vinyl from the 50’s-70’s, could be a musical, soundtrack, or whatever. Usually it’s in absolutely pristine condition. I take home a few of these, the guy at the counter gives me some side-eye ringing up $3. I go home and imagine all the gear used

^ I remember this came up ages ago with the Pet Sounds stereo mix, where someone asked Mark Linnett why they were releasing it in hi-res when the remix was 48/16 digital. He replied that he used tube gear during the mastering process, and the hi-res would capture that more accurately. [Corrected above, but I was mistaken: the multis were transferred to 48/16 and he mixed them down on the Western UA tube console with other gear.]

Billy Joel’s Nylon Curtain was recorded to digital but the MoFi for that one used an analog safety master that had been made at the same time as the digital master.