By: Bryan Li

Mike Esposito, the owner of the ‘In’ Groove record shop, accused MoFi of pretending its digital albums were analog ones.

Esposito posted a video on his Youtube channel, claiming that “pretty reliable sources” tipped him off that Mobile Fidelity (MoFi) had been using digital files instead of original master files for its reissues, The Washington Post said.

Soon after the video was posted, people started voicing their doubts. Shane Buettner, owner of the Intervention Records company, saying that he had met an engineer at MoFi. “I know their process and it’s legit,” he said in a text.

But MoFi posted its own video saying that Esposito was correct. They had claimed to use analog but in reality used digital files. This confession was greeted with shock by many customers, with some expressing outrage.

“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,” said Richard Drutman, a filmmaker in New York City.

MoFi’s executive vice president of product development John Wood invited Esposito over to MoFi headquarters for a tour, in which Esposito interviewed three engineers. Jamie Howarth, a person who uses digital technology to make records, said that MoFi could have said they were using digital technology years ago, but they didn’t because they didn’t want to be criticized by supporters or analog audiophiles.

The Washington Post claims that Wood said that MoFi only started using digital files because they thought it would improve their records, and that from now on MoFi will correctly label its records and how they were made.