Bogus Ratings for MOFI SACD's


I wonder if anyone else has had this experience?   A friend of mine and myself both recently received a new MOFI SACD of Blue by Joni Mitchell.  We both have excellent highly resolving systems capable of hearing what is on a disc.  I probably own about 35 MOFI SACD's and they range from good to excellent and were all an improvement on the original redbook disc.  Blue on the other hand was terrible and when i wrote a review they would not publish it.  They said "With regards to us not posting less than 5 star reviews – reviews 3 stars and below do not auto publish".  So as the old Latin phrase goes,  "Caveat Emptor".   I find my level of trust in Music Direct and MOFI has decreased greatly since this incident.  Thoughts anyone?

128x128ronkent

I once wrote a very polite but negative review of a remastered Chicago Transit Authority LP. They never published it. Oddly, it even mentioned that a previous Mo-Fi release of CTA was among my favorite LPs. I never submitted another review to Music Direct after that.

You can post your review at HRaudio.net. it's a decent repository for high-res audio reviews.

I still trust Mofi and Music direct.I’ve known many workers there. Jim Davis the owner is very humble.

Jayctoy:  i think they are a great company,  but their response to myself and my friend is very sad.  I think our copies may be flawed but they do not seem interested in looking into that.  What bothers me is the censoring of reviews that do not give four or five stars.

I do need to be clear about something.   MD was very gracious about allowing me to  exchange the disc for something else.   My gripe is that they are not letting negative music reviews on their site.   Now i have to wonder about all those four and five star ratings

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Have you heard the Bernie Grundman mastered cd that is part of her recent box sets?

It’s hard for me to imagine it sounding much better.

I always take reviews on company websites with a large grain of salt.  Similarly, I don't put much stock in reviews on retail store websites that are selling the product under review.  Better to look elsewhere.

This happens with everything.  We had some issues with a place that we stayed at via Bookings.com, and my wife (a very temperate individual) wrote a review that mentioned 5 good things and the one negative issue.  They published the review and deleted the one one negative sentence 

@Mahler123:  that really shows how those things are so bogus as @walt8489 stated above.   At least on Amazon as far as i can tell,  they let all reviews come through  good or bad.

I had the same thing happen to me, but with a purchase from Acoustic Sounds. I had no idea that, that is how they operate, It sucks cause I made a purchase based on reviews.

For example, I read all these wonderful reviews about an reissue of Tres Hombres. Even though my 1973 original was still in excellent condition, due to the reviews I got sucked into purchasing the reissue. I wondered what this reissue would sound like without 50 tears of needle wear.

First time I played the reissue, it sounded like I had a ball of crud was built up on my needle. I did a side by side, and the reissue lacked the micro details of the original on the guitars , and the edginess of my original. With the original, on Jesus Just Left Chicago, the simple two chord strumming rings beautifully, the vocals were edgier, and the drums snapped, where as the reissue was just lacking all around. I gave the new copy to an local used record shop.

I left an review stating that you’re much better off finding an excellent used copy than buying this new one.

My opinion was never published. From that purchase forward, I try to gleam reviews from Google.

I left a review of a MOFI OneStep with a 2star rating, they published it and I got a call directly from Music Direct offering to send me a new pressing, and told me to just keep the first one. My complaint was that the MOFI quality control was crap, as I had a few of the OneSteps the came with smudges, bad surface noise, etc. So I didn't just bust them on the one title but the whole company! They posted it, and it's still on their website.

I had a honest review, not published on Acoustic Sounds site years ago and never tried again.

The SQ of their recent vinyl (past 3 years) pressings has been disappointing to me, so much so that I no longer seek them out 

I don't care what album it is.  If it was originally recorded in analog, the digital reproduction sounds flat to me.  I'd much rather toss on a 50 year old scratchy LP.