Tuttle et al v Audiophile Music Direct

[Rt66indierock]

50 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Perhaps describing any vinyl process as one-step, isn't the best marketing anymore. 

 

 

 

 

Probably true but the vinyl market last year was a billion dollars. Mobile Fidelities share was nine million dollars. The questions are how much revenue can someone a lot older than me produce in one year and how many all-analog records can be made annually with currently operational equipment?

 

[Rt66indierock]

A response to the complaint is due December 9th.

[Rt66indierock]

The due date fora response to the complaint is now due December 23rd. Civil litigation in America can be a long process.

[Rt66indierock]

The response to the Complaint is now !-23-23.

[Rt66indierock]

Tuttle et al is in the beginning process of settlement. Full refunds + shipping or a 5% refund of the purchase price or a coupon for 10% of the purchase price are the basic terms.

[Rt66indierock]

15 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Would love to see the final stats on this one. 

 

How many take the full refund w/return.

How many take teh 5% refund

How many take the 10% coupon

 

How much the returned copies are then sold for. 

 

My guess is the dog caught the car, for the most part. Now what. Many have the best sounding albums in their collections and they'll want to return those? Makes little sense.

 

Kroll Settlement Administration LLC should have the answer. This settlement involves 123 albums. Less than 20 are One Steps. 

[Rt66indierock]

One third of the albums are Billy Joel, Bob Dylan and Miles Davis. 25% were sold direct. The other 75% went to distributors who sold them to Best Buy, Walmart and independent record stores. Good luck finding those receipts from March 19, 2007 to July 27, 2022.

[Rt66indierock]

Well folks the plaintiff’s attorneys messed up and were admonished to review all of their materials carefully.  Motion must be resubmitted.

[Rt66indierock]

Motion to intervene and or stay the proposed preliminary settlement filed. 

[Rt66indierock]

Highlights from the latest filings.

 

The total retail value of the 630k albums sold is $33 million. Somebody bought over $20k of albums.

The Tuttle proposed settlement was negotiated over four months and based on the per record part of the settlement, the plaintiffs had input into the settlements.

 

It took Mobile Fidelity a month to assemble the records of sales. A reminder that Mobile Fidelity is a small business.

The Illinois counsel settlement offers were rejected because they added the cost of a mediator. And they were capped at $10 million including legal fees and mediator costs. They offered less and still argue collusion and Mobile Fidelity conducted at reverse auction.

[Rt66indierock]

The Illinois plaintiffs filed a reply to support their motion to intervene. The footnotes are fascinating. If the motion to intervene is approved, I am looking forward to hearing how a full refund does not protect the class adequately?

[Rt66indierock]

Hi Duncan (Turner plaintiffs attorney),

 

I sent this to the Bitterman and Stiles attorneys. I find it funny that I’m damaged worse by PACER overcharging me ($125 million class action settlement) than Mobile Fidelity.

 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

 

It is a possibility that Gregory Bitterman enriched himself by purchasing the One Steps listed in the complaint.  Based on completed eBay sales in the last three months he would be over $2,000 ahead if sold them on eBay.

 

There is no consensus that an all-analog chain of reproducing a record has superior sound or is better quality than a chain with digital steps.

 

And footnote 2 in the Bitterman complaint lacks substance. The Nightfly was used as a reference to set up live systems. I personally have used it as a reference since 1982. If the Mobile Fidelity One step was polluted by a second digital step it would not command a $369 premium in the last quarter.

 

Damages in the Mobile Fidelity cases should come down to actual losses not implied premiums.

 

Stay safe,

 

Stephen

(contact details omitted)

[Rt66indierock]

On 2/22/2023 at 1:49 PM, PeterG said:

 

This is an interesting notion.  There is consensus among typical One Step buyers and journalists that all analog is ideal.  But the best experts on this issue would be drawn from the extremely small group of people employed by MoFi and similar companies to engineer high end vinyl reissues...the people who have added the digital steps!

 

Not really a notion. See Mark Waldrep’s book Music and Audio a User’s Guide chapter 4.

 

You missed I generally don’t care about what the audio press has to say about anything. The One Step buyers are having a food fight on the Steve Hoffman forum. It is a rain wreck you can’t stop watching. Embarrassing everyone how cares anything about high performance audio.

[Rt66indierock]

18 minutes ago, Jud said:

Not quite sure why there is such a desire to save folks from themselves. These people were told they were buying one thing, it wasn’t what they were told, they want their money back. It’s not complicated.

 

Except the Illinois and California lawyers don't get paid that way. And based on my Gregory Bitterman comment why would you return something worth more than you paid for it in unopened condition?

[Rt66indierock]

15 hours ago, Jud said:

Because you want to listen to the analog recording you thought you bought?

 

Regarding the part of your comment I didn’t quote above, about paying lawyers: Who should pay for them, the business that lied to consumers about the product they were getting, or the consumers who were lied to?

 

Would a reasonable consumer return a record worth more than the retail price? I don’t believe collectors should be compensated for anything but the retail price. That’s where the anger is. Paul Simon’s One Step is worth $40 less than retail, compensate people for that. And if someone is stupid enough to return Santana’s Abraxas for the full retail price, Mobile Fidelity should do it and resell it on a secondary market and profit more than a $1,000 on each album.

 

In class action lawsuits like the PACER case, lawyers and administrators get 20% of $125 million paid by the people who overcharged us, the US Government. If the Tuttle case settles as proposed, the Washington lawyers get $290k from Mobile Fidelity. Mobile fidelity pays the administration costs and their own legal fees. The Illinois and California lawyers get nothing because Tuttle was filed first. They are not happy about that at all.

[Rt66indierock]

33 minutes ago, Jud said:

If they want to listen rather than collect, I’m not sure what problem you’re finding when what they were sent isn’t what they wanted to listen to.

 

I'm also not seeing the relevance of the fact that these LPs, though they aren't what consumers wanted to listen to, would be valued by collectors who don't want to listen to them, just have them sit on shelves in plastic wrap and warp. (I knew a record collector. Shelves full of unplayed and eventually warped and unplayable records still unwrapped whose prices he checked on Goldmine. Struck me as a quite asinine hobby.)

 

Jud, fair market value is what it is. Collectability and rarity are part of the complaints. The cases don’t seem to be about the guy buying them at Walmart, Target and Best Buy.

[Rt66indierock]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

 

So if the folks who've been eating this stuff find a connoisseur of donkey meat willing to pay, it's all OK, right? 😉

 

https://apple.news/ADRBko6G0THS-M7LDNWcsSw

 

Nice try in my home state right next to New Mexico burros are federally protected and tourist attractions. If I ever get Andy Quint to visit, he will feed some of them.

[Rt66indierock]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

 

Just to be thorough about this, the measure of damages isn't what it's worth as a collectible vs. what you paid, it's what it would be worth as a collectible if it were indeed all-analog (thus presumably attracting people who are big on an all-analog chain) vs. what it attracts now as a collectible without that all-analog market. Of course there would have to be sufficient evidence provided in support of a higher value for an all-analog version.

 

Jud, the Tuttle case preliminary settlement was negotiated because the plaintiffs could not prove any damages. Everything now is just about legal fees.

[Rt66indierock]

Only 1,486 claims were received in the class action suit.

[Rt66indierock]

5 minutes ago, PYP said:

any idea what percentage this is of the total number of owners?  just curious.  

 

Less than 2% at best.

[Rt66indierock]

12 minutes ago, Jud said:

That equates to something like 75,000 people with such recordings.

 

60,000  was kicked around early in the  case. Many on SHF had more than thirty. Could 300 reailers, Walmart etc have reached 75,000 customers themselves? Add about 27,000 direct customers and you get to 100,000 easily.

[Rt66indierock]

On 10/13/2023 at 3:03 PM, Jud said:

That equates to something like 75,000 people with such recordings.

 

The latest information is claims were filed on about 11,400 albums. 60% took the 10% discount.

[Rt66indierock]

Now the fun begins. The judge just asked for an estimate of the monetary value of 2,643 records class members opted to return. And an estimate of the value 1,913 claims for a 5% refund.

[Rt66indierock]

The estimated claims for a 5% refund or a full refund are about $301,000. Refunds of sales tax and shipping are estimated to be $48,000.

Plaintiff’s attorneys are asking for $290,00 in legal fees. Defendants’ legal fees are unknown.

Some class members filed more than one claim, so the actual number of class members is 1,002. The average number of albums per class member was 13.

[Rt66indierock]

14 hours ago, PYP said:

all in all, do you think this is a good result?  Did plaintiff's get a fair deal and did the company suffer sufficiently for being naughty?  

 

Yes and no.  This was a typical result for a class action lawsuit. The few hundred class members who felt they were lied to and were willing to do a little paperwork got their money back. The remaining class members who cared enough to fill out the claim forms got a little compensation for their efforts.

 

Mobile Fidelity got about the right amount suffering from this and probably learned an important lesson. The most profitable customers are Superfans and Fans not audiophiles.

 

Lawyers on the forums haven’t suffered enough for all stuff they were wrong about in Mobile Fidelity cases.  Especially on the Steve Hoffman Forum.

 

Finally, people like Michael Fremer who heard the same rumors as Mike Esposito did nothing have not been held accountable. I hope to ask him and others in about it in a month at the LAOCAS Annual Gala.