The MoFi predicament

The fallout from the MoFi/Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab/Music Direct debacle is far-reaching. It affects not only audiophiles and vinyl enthusiasts, but the entire HiFi industry if not directly, then by association.

Let’s be clear: if indeed MoFi is now transparent after coaxing to publish the provenance and digital step(s) in its releases, they could/should have done so beginning in 2015 when their much-vaunted GAIN System was introduced. Having pored over the now transparent (sic) online MoFi catalogue it would appear that in their lexicon GAIN = DIGITAL. I was disheartened to learn that my recent acquisition of MoFi’s Miles Davis Kind of Blue 2-LP 45RPM set contained a digital step making use of a DSD 64 transfer. I would have been content purchasing the set, even with the digital step, had MoFi been upfront about it.

I waited to write this commentary because rather than dogpile on the issue and work from assumptions and conjecture, I wanted to give those in the middle of this controversy at MoFi/MFSL/Music Direct the benefit of the doubt. I did write to their newly placed Director of Marketing and Communications with a set of interview questions and, when I did not hear back for almost a week, I wrote to Jim Davis, the President of MoFi/MFSL/Music Direct to get some answers. His response to me was to read his public statement and for me to know that, moving forward, MFSL will be transparent in providing the provenance and source information for all of its releases.

What we now know is this:

• Not all MoFi releases are 100% analog
• MoFi is indeed going to document their releases retroactively and moving forward
• The GAIN System of 2015 and onward does indeed incorporate digital steps in processing
• My Miles Davis Kind of Blue 2-LP 45 RPM contains a DSD 64 digital step.

The TRUST model between MoFi/MFSL/Music Direct has been broken. Now that they are admitting the misstep, the question is why would they hide this from the audiophile community and the public for so long? Why does it take public humiliation to bring about this newfound transparency? It is not only MoFi/MFSL that need to be transparent but Music Direct and all of its employees and representatives who engage with audiophiles and the general public. As a reviewer and correspondent for Dagogo I have attended numerous HiFi shows all over since 2017, well after 2015 and the launch of  MoFi GAIN System. At these shows, I sat through presentations and seminars touting and lauding the latest and greatest MoFi re-issues and not once did any Mofi/MFSL/Music Direct personalities, self-proclaimed analog aficionados, or dealers (online and/or brick and mortar) mention anything about digital steps in the process.

Whatever we, as audiophiles and vinyl enthusiasts, may have wanted to believe about the re-issues being 100% analog, the onus was/is on MoFi/MFSL/Music Direct and its representatives/agents to come clean and not, by omission, allow their customers to believe otherwise. But they did not. There is no getting around this fact. It makes me wonder what else did they know and not share internally with their staff. Were their representatives at HiFi shows knowingly or unknowingly spreading the MoFi gospel?

In the past few weeks, there have been folks online pondering lawsuits against Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab for fraud and misrepresentation, not to mention class-action filings. And there were those who have decided that they would not only stop buying MoFi re-issues but boycott parent company Music Direct as well.

Discogs and eBay serve many purposes for many people. For this commentary, I set up alerts for various MoFi re-issues to track their prices on the secondary market in the wake of this debacle. I can tell you from this limited research that prices are indeed dropping, not precipitously yet, but meaningfully. I managed to track down consistent sellers of sealed MoFi re-issues (these are probably speculators), and they are looking to steadily diminish their stocks/inventory.

Am I going to sell my sealed Miles Davis Kind of Blue 2-LP 45 RPM?  No. I did think long and hard about it, but I am going to crack it open this coming weekend. I have come to terms with this purchase over these past few weeks, and it’s not something I ever thought I would have to do with a MoFi release.

Now, where does this leave other purveyors of audiophile re-issues/releases? Analogue Productions, for example, saw fit to create a YouTube video to address this issue concerning their processes. How many others will do likewise? I wonder how they feel about all this and about being placed in such a position? And re: YouTube, who at MoFi/MFSL/Music Direct thought that the best media vehicle to initially respond to this debacle would be a YouTube video in response to the claims made by an independent YouTube channel whose claims (up to that point) were not rooted in fact until Jim Davis of MoFi/MFSL/Music Direct made his public statement and proclamation of transparency.

How many of you are going to purchase/acquire MoFi re-issues? Or re-issues and releases from any of the other myriad of companies/labels? And what are your feelings in all of this?

Copy editor: Dan Rubin

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