2022 AXPONA Show Report: Catching Up with Josh Bizar

SHOW
by Jeff Wilson
May 08, 2022

As the music editor of The Absolute Sound, I’m constantly in touch with people who are connected in one way or another with the music industry. Many of our conversations focus on making sure that an upcoming release ends up in the hands of a reviewer in time for an upcoming deadline. Together we arrange interviews with musicians, labels, producers, engineers, and anyone else who has anything to do with recording, releasing, and distributing music. I’ve chatted on the phone and bounce emails back and forth with people in England, Germany, France, Norway, Canada, Lithuania, South Korea, Hong Kong, all over the United States, and elsewhere.

I enjoy that part of my work, as it gives me a better perspective on the music world. That said, nothing beats talking to people in the music industry in person, and that’s one reason I enjoy AXPONA as much as I do. During this year’s event I was able to sit down with Josh Bizar, the Vice President of Music Direct, which describes itself as “the world’s largest online retailer of high-end audio, audiophile music, and accessories” and is the parent company of Mobile Fidelity. In 2010 I started writing a series of articles for The Absolute Sound that documented a sudden and substantial increase in vinyl sales that caught everyone off guard, and in those articles I always checked in with Josh Bizar, as Mobile Fidelity helped lead the charge. During AXPONA, while sitting in a room where music lovers pawed through hundreds of boxes of audiophile LPs, compact discs, and reel-to-reel tapes, Josh again expressed amazement at the vinyl renaissance.

“No one would have predicted that vinyl would have been this big,” he said. “It’s great to see so many young people and older people getting into it for the first time or coming back to it. It’s that single-mindedness that allows you to push all these other thoughts out of your head and luxuriate.

“It’s such a different kind of musical experience, unlike the streaming world we live in today. Even the people who’ve been screaming about the sonic benefits of vinyl wouldn’t have predicted this.”

Covid threw a huge curveball into the economy, and at first Music Direct was nervous about the impact it would have on their business.

“When the pandemic first started to scare everybody,” Josh explained, “we had to have some discussions on what was going to happen if we were shut down and who we would have to let down and who we would furlough. We were so fortunate to be able to stay open, helping people with their audio and video systems and their streaming setups and things like that.”

Interestingly, demand for newly remastered Mobile Fidelity titles only increased during the Covid lockdown.

“When the pandemic first started, there was a lot of fear out there,” Josh explained. “People were locked in their homes. What really stunned us was how much music meant to everyone. People got their records out of their attics and their garages and brought them inside and played them. It’s like walking into a time machine and remembering when you bought that record during the pandemic. It elevated that to such a profound level.”

When it comes to remastering music, Josh explained, experience matters—that and a tradition of aiming for the next level.

“Mobile Fidelity’s cutting system has made so many improvements over the past twenty years,” he said. “There’s no question that we’re making the best records we’ve ever made. They are so dedicated, these guys in the mastering studio. These guys are lifers. They drank the Kool-Aid decades ago.

“I don’t think anyone else has the luxury of the time and the effort that we put into each record that we make. We give our engineers enough time to make sure that we get as much off the master tape as possible. With our modified gear, the pressing plant we use, and the kind of vinyl we’ve been using later, we’ve gotten to the point where we’ve lowered the noise level dramatically. There’s a lot more detail coming to the forefront, and the sonic signature is really like listening to the master tape.”

Eventually the discussion turned toward new and upcoming titles, and albums that Josh praised included one that has long claimed a place on the Super LP List.

“There have been some new titles that we’ve been very excited about,” Josh said. “Personally for me, I’m very excited about the Crosby, Stills, and Nash One-Step box set of their first record. It’s going to be really exciting. Also, David Crosby’s If Only I Could Remember My Name just hit. We’re selling it at the booth today. It’s always been a record that I’ve loved. Your own Harry Pearson, that was one of his favorite records too. It’s been a real pleasure for us to get this record out.”

Readers interested in learning more about Mobile Fidelity’s remastering process should check out the next issue of The Absolute Sound, which will include interviews with Mobile Fidelity’s Executive Vice-President John K. Wood and Senior Mastering Engineer Shawn R. Britton. The article also includes a sidebar in which Shawn discussed the musical and sonic merits of his favorite album—a title that, after twenty years of waiting and hoping, he was finally able to remaster for Mobile Fidelity.

Tags: AXPONA MUSIC SHOW REPORT

By Jeff Wilson

This will take some explaining, but I can connect the dots between pawing through LPs at a headshop called Elysian Fields in Des Moines, Iowa, as a seventh grader, and becoming the Music Editor for The Absolute Sound. At that starting point—around 1970/71—Elysian Fields had more LPs than any other store in Des Moines. Staring at all the colorful covers was both tantalizing and frustrating. I had no idea who most of the artists were, because radio played only a fraction of what was current. To figure out what was going on, I realized that I needed to build a record collection—and as anyone who’s visited me since high school can testify, I succeeded. Record collecting was still in my blood when, starting in the late 1980s, the Cincinnati Public Library book sale suddenly had an Elysian Fields quantity of LPs from people who’d switched to CDs. That’s where I met fellow record hawk Mark Lehman, who preceded me as music editor of TAS. Mark introduced me to Jonathan Valin, whose 1993 detective novel The Music Lovers depicts the battles between record hawks at library sales. That the private eye in the book, Harry Stoner, would stumble upon a corpse or two while unraveling the mystery behind the disappearance of some rare Living Stereo platters made perfect sense to me. After all, record collecting is serious business. Mark knew my journalistic experience included concert reviews for The Cincinnati Enquirer and several long, sprawling feature articles in the online version of Crawdaddy. When he became TAS music editor in 2008, he contacted me about writing for the magazine. I came on board shortly after the latest set of obituaries had been written for vinyl—and, as fate had it, right when the LP started to make yet another unexpected comeback. Suddenly, I found myself scrambling to document all the record companies pressing vinyl. Small outfits were popping up world-wide, and many were audiophile-oriented, plus already existing record companies began embracing the format again. Trying to keep track of everything made me feel, again, like that overwhelmed seventh grader in Elysian Fields, and as Music Editor I’ve found that keeping my finger on the pulse of the music world also requires considerable detective work. I’ve never had a favorite genre, but when it comes time to sit down and do some quality listening, for me nothing beats a well-recorded small-group jazz recording on vinyl. If a stereo can give me warmth and intimacy, tonal accuracy, clear imaging, crisp-sounding cymbals, and deep, woody-sounding bass, then I’m a happy camper.