MQA is Vaporware

[firedog]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

If you really want to see something:

 

 

HDTracks started checking that albums aren’t fake hi-Rez after they were caught selling upsampled stuff they were provided with. Other than that, and barring some obviously defective file, you are on your own - just as you are with any other music purchase from anyone else. 

Last years Lost Album from Coltrane was a great example. Somehow the 24/192 is substantially volume compressed, and the CD version isn’t. So the CD version sounds better. But that’s what the label put on the market. 

[Al M.]

8 hours ago, botrytis said:

 

I don't think they will admit anything. I think they will obfuscate and deflect, like they have been doing. They think they know what is best in this situation.They don't realize the cat is out of the bag.

 

This is how anti-vaxxers react and why they really never admit they were wrong (very few do really).

 

Indeed. Very few people are willing to admit mistakes. It's a sign of insecurity and false self-protection. If you are really sure of yourself, you should be proud of having the ability to admit mistakes, frankly, because it won't diminish you. After all, everyone makes mistakes, and the self-awareness that you do should count for something.

 

Of course, in this case the inability to admit mistakes helps continue the damage to the industry. But what do they care?

 

Or perhaps they are still on Bob Stuart's payroll, who knows.

[Jud]

1 hour ago, lucretius said:

 

Jud, did HDtracks.com ever respond to your last post in the thread above?

 

The silence has been deafening.

 

19 minutes ago, firedog said:

HDTracks started checking that albums aren’t fake hi-Rez after they were caught selling upsampled stuff they were provided with. Other than that, and barring some obviously defective file, you are on your own - just as you are with any other music purchase from anyone else. 

Last years Lost Album from Coltrane was a great example. Somehow the 24/192 is substantially volume compressed, and the CD version isn’t. So the CD version sounds better. But that’s what the label put on the market. 

 

[Emphasis in firedog's message above is mine.]

 

Funny they only started checking after they got caught, eh?  And you saw the response in that topic regarding the obviously defective Miles Davis album - hey, it's 192/24, so what if someone took out a chunk of the music with some sort of notch filter?  So not even obviously defective files purchased from HDTracks will necessarily result in replacement or refund.

 

A while ago I bought the DVD-A of Tommy.  Weirdly, when I ripped it, 3 of the tracks showed up as being on another "disc."  Around that time, there was a thread here where people who had purchased the hi res of Tommy from HDTracks complained those same 3 tracks were missing from the download.  So not only was (is?) there no checking for defects beyond file resolution/upsampling, the labels and HDTracks didn't check to see that all the songs were there.  I think this was eventually corrected, though my vague memory is perhaps not immediately.  This lack of checking, combined with what in my experience has been the difficulty of getting mistakes (mine or theirs) rectified, has made me reluctant to purchase from HDTracks.  (Most of the other download sources I purchase from have a page with my orders and links allowing me to re-download at any time, a great convenience and reassurance.)

 

Years back my dad had ridden in a friend's Honda and liked it, so he considered buying one the next time he looked for a car.  He wound up buying a Pontiac, though he knew they had a worse repair record, because it had room for three in its back seat.  One day he drove the Pontiac too fast over a speed bump and it crimped shut the fuel feed line, which was routed under the chassis.  My dad asked how anyone could make such a stupid design mistake, and I replied, "Because people buy their cars."

 

How can the industry (not just HDTracks - have a look at the 2014 Acoustic Sounds 192/24 download of Never A Dull Moment vs. the 2009 CD: http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/album?artist=rod+stewart ) continue to sell crap, perhaps reaching its apotheosis in MQA, an entire format that with mathematical certainty cannot reproduce the master as well as losslessly compressed files made with competent filtering?  Because people buy it.

 

At a minimum, downloads ought to come with DR ratings and the specific masterings they were taken from displayed just as prominently as the file resolution.  But of course that will not happen unless we vote with our wallets.

 

It isn't that we somehow don't want quality.  How popular are JoshM's articles on the best versions of famous recordings, and how long does it take for the masterings he likes to sell out?  But so far we haven't demanded quality strongly enough, and/or we've trusted people who've shown they can't be trusted.  That will only change if we change it.

[The Computer Audiophile]

12 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

The silence has been deafening.

 

 

[Emphasis in firedog's message above is mine.]

 

Funny they only started checking after they got caught, eh?  And you saw the response in that topic regarding the obviously defective Miles Davis album - hey, it's 192/24, so what if someone took out a chunk of the music with some sort of notch filter?  So not even obviously defective files purchased from HDTracks will necessarily result in replacement or refund.

 

A while ago I bought the DVD-A of Tommy.  Weirdly, when I ripped it, 3 of the tracks showed up as being on another "disc."  Around that time, there was a thread here where people who had purchased the hi res of Tommy from HDTracks complained those same 3 tracks were missing from the download.  So not only was (is?) there no checking for defects beyond file resolution/upsampling, the labels and HDTracks didn't check to see that all the songs were there.  I think this was eventually corrected, though my vague memory is perhaps not immediately.  This lack of checking, combined with what in my experience has been the difficulty of getting mistakes (mine or theirs) rectified, has made me reluctant to purchase from HDTracks.  (Most of the other download sources I purchase from have a page with my orders and links allowing me to re-download at any time, a great convenience and reassurance.)

 

Years back my dad had ridden in a friend's Honda and liked it, so he considered buying one the next time he looked for a car.  He wound up buying a Pontiac, though he knew they had a worse repair record, because it had room for three in its back seat.  One day he drove the Pontiac too fast over a speed bump and it crimped shut the fuel feed line, which was routed under the chassis.  My dad asked how anyone could make such a stupid design mistake, and I replied, "Because people buy their cars."

 

How can the industry (not just HDTracks - have a look at the 2014 Acoustic Sounds 192/24 download of Never A Dull Moment vs. the 2009 CD: http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/album?artist=rod+stewart ) continue to sell crap, perhaps reaching its apotheosis in MQA, an entire format that with mathematical certainty cannot reproduce the master as well as losslessly compressed files made with competent filtering?  Because people buy it.

 

At a minimum, downloads ought to come with DR ratings and the specific masterings they were taken from displayed just as prominently as the file resolution.  But of course that will not happen unless we vote with our wallets.

 

It isn't that we somehow don't want quality.  How popular are JoshM's articles on the best versions of famous recordings, and how long does it take for the masterings he likes to sell out?  But so far we haven't demanded quality strongly enough, and/or we've trusted people who've shown they can't be trusted.  That will only change if we change it.

Another gem in the new series, "Jud says what we all would've said if we we that smart."

[John Dyson]

1 hour ago, firedog said:

HDTracks started checking that albums aren’t fake hi-Rez after they were caught selling upsampled stuff they were provided with. Other than that, and barring some obviously defective file, you are on your own - just as you are with any other music purchase from anyone else. 

Last years Lost Album from Coltrane was a great example. Somehow the 24/192 is substantially volume compressed, and the CD version isn’t. So the CD version sounds better. But that’s what the label put on the market. 

Wrt 'fake' high-res  My project had to support at least 40kHz audio bandwidth (not really a bad thing) one reason because of places like HDtracks looking for 'stuff' above 20kHz. Of course, there is good material out there (especially in the actual recording environment) where supporting above 20kHz is a matter of good signal hygiene.  (The DHNRDS has a switch that enables a 21.5kHz filter that removes nonsense above 21k if the user wants, in fact there is a user-selectable limit.  Likewise, there is a carefully shaped below 20Hz filter for the same reason -- that is, beyond the DC removal.)

 

As mentioned before (only being informative, not argumentative) -- much of the 'stuff' above 20kHz is control signals and splats.  Sometimes there IS recorded 'music' up there, but very often on pop (esp at the distribution level), you'll get more control signal and splat than anything else.

 

Anyway, it is *SO* easy to fake the HD indicators -- it is really not a reliable determination if someone wants to subvert them.

 

John

[gdpr]

Some weeks ago I have complained at Qobuz about 2 highrez albums I bought 

 

After some email exchanges, I received a final response this week, acknowledging issues with these albums. They announced they would resume sales of these downloads (but as far as I checked yesterday, they are still on sale)

Apart from that I received a nice commercial gesture

Dirk

 

[firedog]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

 

The silence has been deafening.

 

 

[Emphasis in firedog's message above is mine.]

 

Funny they only started checking after they got caught, eh?  And you saw the response in that topic regarding the obviously defective Miles Davis album - hey, it's 192/24, so what if someone took out a chunk of the music with some sort of notch filter?  So not even obviously defective files purchased from HDTracks will necessarily result in replacement or refund.

 

A while ago I bought the DVD-A of Tommy.  Weirdly, when I ripped it, 3 of the tracks showed up as being on another "disc."  Around that time, there was a thread here where people who had purchased the hi res of Tommy from HDTracks complained those same 3 tracks were missing from the download.  So not only was (is?) there no checking for defects beyond file resolution/upsampling, the labels and HDTracks didn't check to see that all the songs were there.  I think this was eventually corrected, though my vague memory is perhaps not immediately.  This lack of checking, combined with what in my experience has been the difficulty of getting mistakes (mine or theirs) rectified, has made me reluctant to purchase from HDTracks.  (Most of the other download sources I purchase from have a page with my orders and links allowing me to re-download at any time, a great convenience and reassurance.)

 

Years back my dad had ridden in a friend's Honda and liked it, so he considered buying one the next time he looked for a car.  He wound up buying a Pontiac, though he knew they had a worse repair record, because it had room for three in its back seat.  One day he drove the Pontiac too fast over a speed bump and it crimped shut the fuel feed line, which was routed under the chassis.  My dad asked how anyone could make such a stupid design mistake, and I replied, "Because people buy their cars."

 

How can the industry (not just HDTracks - have a look at the 2014 Acoustic Sounds 192/24 download of Never A Dull Moment vs. the 2009 CD: http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/album?artist=rod+stewart ) continue to sell crap, perhaps reaching its apotheosis in MQA, an entire format that with mathematical certainty cannot reproduce the master as well as losslessly compressed files made with competent filtering?  Because people buy it.

 

At a minimum, downloads ought to come with DR ratings and the specific masterings they were taken from displayed just as prominently as the file resolution.  But of course that will not happen unless we vote with our wallets.

 

It isn't that we somehow don't want quality.  How popular are JoshM's articles on the best versions of famous recordings, and how long does it take for the masterings he likes to sell out?  But so far we haven't demanded quality strongly enough, and/or we've trusted people who've shown they can't be trusted.  That will only change if we change it.

Not trying to defend HDT, but they seem to have many fewer fuckups than they once did. And my memory is they did make good on that Tommy weirdness. But one of the problems with them is they only make good if you complain: There's never an email to everyone who bought a defective album that they are getting a replacement version. Don't complain - live with the defective one. 
 

In general the specialist classical, world, and jazz labels (even those like Bluenote, that are corporate owned) do a pretty good job - good recordings, and they don't add in tons of volume compression. 

The bigger labels - a crapshoot. What kills me is when they put out an "audiophile version" with substantial volume compression added. Not a couple of db - a moderate to heavy crush.

Except for modern stuff like hip-hop where it is part of "the sound" that should be forbidden.

But it just proves that it's all about making a buck - SQ has NOTHING to do with it. 

I've stopped buying hi-res pop and rock unless I already know - or have some reason to think - it will be a good version. Acoustic Sounds own stuff is usually good and they give you a description of how it was done; and the stuff coming from Abbey Road branch of EMI seems to be uniformly well done. 
One of the great things about Qobuz is that you can hear before you buy. 

[Jud]

24 minutes ago, firedog said:

Not trying to defend HDT, but they seem to have many fewer fuckups than they once did. And my memory is they did make good on that Tommy weirdness. But one of the problems with them is they only make good if you complain: There's never an email to everyone who bought a defective album that they are getting a replacement version. Don't complain - live with the defective one. 
 

In general the specialist classical, world, and jazz labels (even those like Bluenote, that are corporate owned) do a pretty good job - good recordings, and they don't add in tons of volume compression. 

The bigger labels - a crapshoot. What kills me is when they put out an "audiophile version" with substantial volume compression added. Not a couple of db - a moderate to heavy crush.

Except for modern stuff like hip-hop where it is part of "the sound" that should be forbidden.

But it just proves that it's all about making a buck - SQ has NOTHING to do with it. 

I've stopped buying hi-res pop and rock unless I already know - or have some reason to think - it will be a good version. Acoustic Sounds own stuff is usually good and they give you a description of how it was done; and the stuff coming from Abbey Road branch of EMI seems to be uniformly well done.

 

Now compare this to how a company that's come to dominate the retail world does it.  Before they accumulated the market power to essentially do whatever they want, Amazon had to grow enough to get there.  Amazon automatically lowers your price for an item you pre-order if there's a reduction while you're waiting.  They make it ridiculously easy for you to order (patenting "1-click" - whatever you think of the patent system aside, it's a great idea for online retail); usually very easy to know just what you're getting, and if you're disappointed, very convenient to get a replacement or refund.  So you're just about completely at ease if you want to buy something from them, rather than thinking "I got shafted or hassled the last couple of times, no way I want to go through that again."  I mean, how hard is this really?

 

Of course the problem is that it's never the industry's fault. If you've stopped buying, it's not because you've been burned by the crappy product they put out, it's because "There's no market for hi res/good quality."  Just like it wasn't that the industry wanted you to pay $15 a month a couple of decades ago for a restricted list of songs downloaded through horrible buggy software, it was piracy.  Then after Apple created an industry worth billions from the "pirates" just by making everything convenient, the industry wasn't wrong, it was that Apple had too much control and was taking too big a cut.  Because no VP is going in front of the board to say "We were throwing these people in jail, now someone else is making billions from them, and it was my decision, I'm sorry."

 

24 minutes ago, firedog said:

 
One of the great things about Qobuz is that you can hear before you buy. 

 

I agree that's a great thing, and I've been very happy with Qobuz.  I hope they might want to put the money, time and effort into the kind of prominent DR and mastering labeling that I mentioned upthread.  But that would take cooperation from the labels that the labels likely aren't ready to give.

[Jud]

1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Another gem in the new series, "Jud says what we all would've said if we we that smart."

 

If I was that smart, I'd have thought of this forum.  

[Archimago]

On 8/29/2019 at 8:40 AM, crenca said:

 

 

Therein lies the problem.  If the culture of audiophiledom has just such a blase attitude and understanding (which is not really "libertarian" in the strict sense), then it deserves MQA, magical digital cables and grounding boxes.  In other words, it's not about high fidelity, it's merely about luxury sales and a confidence game of "high end".

 

This is why @Archimago & @Doug Schneideroptimism is probably just a little (or more) naive.  Not because I want them to be wrong, but because it is obvious that your attitude towards the status quo is the prevalent one.

 

It should then be obvious that Audiophildom is not a hobby about high fidelity - that's just a sales bullet point.

 

Can't speak for @Doug Schneiderof course, but while I might be a bit optimistic, in the big picture of all who enjoy music and want good hardware, "high end" is such a small niche that I don't think it's too difficult to change in time now that we are all connected to the information stream.

 

At work, when I tell people that for fun I write about hi-fi audio, very few will recognize AudioQuest, Wilson, Magico, Focal, Dynaudio, Chord, Audeze, etc... Even fewer will know about stuff like Synergistic or MQA, or even care about expensive cables. All of us here are already part of the 0.01% club of audio enthusiasts and there aren't that many of us who need to be swayed to create significant changes in the zeitgeist of this hobby.

 

If the forums have been any indication, since I started publishing stuff in 2013 to now, whereas I received much hate mail and massive opposition in the early days on places like Audio Asylum and Steve Hoffman Hardware Forum (thankfully no death threats 😉 though someone warned me about this on the Squeezebox Forum), things have been much more civil in the last 2 or 3 years. I think audiophiles gradually will continue to recognize that more objective analysis makes sense... That some "predictions" like Pono and NY's rhetoric was bogus. That the promise of "hi-res" audio was bound to fail in light especially of poor mastering. And of course, that the hoopla around MQA did not make any sense regardless of who was pumping it (including BS and the traditional audiophile magazines). I would also add this current chapter of the AudioQuest Cobalt reviews as part of this story where advertising claims, the name of designer-gurus for selling a product, the voice of online reviews and people like "The Audiophiliac" are being challenged when faced with objective realities. Don't for a minute think that reviews of the Cobalt like what @mansr wrote or the subjective opinions of more measured folks like @The Computer Audiophilewill not affect sales (I've seen it already).

 

It will be interesting to see what RMAF this year looks like with the presentations. Sure, Synergistic will be there. So be it. This is the "long game". Just like how long-lasting this thread has been, MQA will not die overnight. Likewise, the hobby will not change from being the domain of multiple fraudulent claims to championing verifiable truths without time to digest and members to accept such changes.

[Jud]

37 minutes ago, Archimago said:

things have been much more civil in the last 2 or 3 years

 

Ooohh, don't say 'civil' around @crenca!

[Rt66indierock]

6 hours ago, Jud said:

Depends what you mean by scrutinize. If you mean technical knowledge of how the thing works, who among the writers had the chops to do what people here have done? And even if they did, or had the capacity to ask others to do so, that level of analysis would have been considered at least impolite, and perhaps might even have been met with discussion of legal action.

 

I think a very nice example of how subjective and objective, technical reviewing can live together with equal billing is given by the Dragonfly Cobalt reviews here at AS. Nothing to that extent  was done anywhere for MQA. And if it had been, my guess is that MQA and various manufacturers would have been royally PO’d.

 

The writers considered the technical analysis impolite to say the least. And I was attacked for pointing out nobody did due diligence before they signed licensing agreements or started promoting MQA. 

 

And I think I can safely guess AudioQuest  is probably not too happy about the folks who pointed out the build quality of the Cobalt and then measured it. 

[marce]

4 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

And I think I can safely guess AudioQuest  is probably not too happy about the folks who pointed out the build quality of the Cobalt and then measured it. 

Well at least the jitterbug section is in line with the signals instead of just plugged in a remote socket! A link to the thread would be appreciated.

[Rt66indierock]

4 hours ago, Jud said:

How can the industry (not just HDTracks - have a look at the 2014 Acoustic Sounds 192/24 download of Never A Dull Moment vs. the 2009 CD: http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/album?artist=rod+stewart ) continue to sell crap, perhaps reaching its apotheosis in MQA, an entire format that with mathematical certainty cannot reproduce the master as well as losslessly compressed files made with competent filtering?  Because people buy it.

 

It isn't that we somehow don't want quality.  How popular are JoshM's articles on the best versions of famous recordings, and how long does it take for the masterings he likes to sell out?  But so far we haven't demanded quality strongly enough, and/or we've trusted people who've shown they can't be trusted.  That will only change if we change it.

 

When I started researching CA/AS as place to my MQA stuff. One of the things I noticed was you. I concluded I could trust you and branched out. 

[Rt66indierock]

2 minutes ago, marce said:

Well at least the jitterbug section is in line with the signals instead of just plugged in a remote socket! A link to the thread would be appreciated.

 

You should know I don't post links by now. But feel free to look at what Amir and the guys have written. 

[Rt66indierock]

1 hour ago, Archimago said:

Can't speak for @Doug Schneiderof course, but while I might be a bit optimistic, in the big picture of all who enjoy music and want good hardware, "high end" is such a small niche that I don't think it's too difficult to change in time now that we are all connected to the information stream.

 

It will be interesting to see what RMAF this year looks like with the presentations. Sure, Synergistic will be there. So be it. This is the "long game". Just like how long-lasting this thread has been, MQA will not die overnight. Likewise, the hobby will not change from being the domain of multiple fraudulent claims to championing verifiable truths without time to digest and members to accept such changes.

 

It will be fun especially the presentations and discussions about objective parts of the hobby. 

[Archimago]

5 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

It will be fun especially the presentations and discussions about objective parts of the hobby. 

 

Any specific presentations you're looking at @Rt66indierock?

 

I assume no MQA presentation this year??? 🤔

[marce]

15 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

You should know I don't post links by now. But feel free to look at what Amir and the guys have written. 

Will do a search, cheers.

[crenca]

2 hours ago, Archimago said:

 

Can't speak for @Doug Schneiderof course, but while I might be a bit optimistic, in the big picture of all who enjoy music and want good hardware, "high end" is such a small niche that I don't think it's too difficult to change in time now that we are all connected to the information stream.

 

At work, when I tell people that for fun I write about hi-fi audio, very few will recognize AudioQuest, Wilson, Magico, Focal, Dynaudio, Chord, Audeze, etc... Even fewer will know about stuff like Synergistic or MQA, or even care about expensive cables. All of us here are already part of the 0.01% club of audio enthusiasts and there aren't that many of us who need to be swayed to create significant changes in the zeitgeist of this hobby.

 

If the forums have been any indication, since I started publishing stuff in 2013 to now, whereas I received much hate mail and massive opposition in the early days on places like Audio Asylum and Steve Hoffman Hardware Forum (thankfully no death threats 😉 though someone warned me about this on the Squeezebox Forum), things have been much more civil in the last 2 or 3 years. I think audiophiles gradually will continue to recognize that more objective analysis makes sense... That some "predictions" like Pono and NY's rhetoric was bogus. That the promise of "hi-res" audio was bound to fail in light especially of poor mastering. And of course, that the hoopla around MQA did not make any sense regardless of who was pumping it (including BS and the traditional audiophile magazines). I would also add this current chapter of the AudioQuest Cobalt reviews as part of this story where advertising claims, the name of designer-gurus for selling a product, the voice of online reviews and people like "The Audiophiliac" are being challenged when faced with objective realities. Don't for a minute think that reviews of the Cobalt like what @mansr wrote or the subjective opinions of more measured folks like @The Computer Audiophilewill not affect sales (I've seen it already).

 

It will be interesting to see what RMAF this year looks like with the presentations. Sure, Synergistic will be there. So be it. This is the "long game". Just like how long-lasting this thread has been, MQA will not die overnight. Likewise, the hobby will not change from being the domain of multiple fraudulent claims to championing verifiable truths without time to digest and members to accept such changes.

 

Well shucks Archi, when you put it like that perhaps there is some hope! 😉

 

I am somewhat optimistic myself.  Digital and modern computer audio came from outside of the culture of Audiophiledom, first and foremost because it requires a technological and industrial expertise that artisan Audiophiledom does not (and cannot) have.  I live down here in southern New Mexico in the proverbial heart of the military industrial complex.  I wish I could post the pics of the faces of some friends of mine (who are competent in theory/application of signal processing), when I explained the “post-Shannon” claims of Bob Stuart.   The simple fact is that the Robert Harley’s and JA’s of this world never had and never will have the technical competence to evaluate even relatively minor claims about digital audio, to say nothing of a second incarnation of Copernicus like Bob Stuart.  This is healthy in that anything digital in Audiophiledom has to be borrowed from the outside – the more general consumer electronics world where the con game is not first, second, and third, but somewhere further down the list.

 

Negatively however I think we all understand that the very presence of this level of ignorance and fraud in Audiophiledom (Synergistic Research being but one representative symbol) has its own kind of weight – it drags down and hampers real knowledge, progress and enjoyment of the hobby as a whole.  In my opinion this situation (which I call “cultural”) has to be acknowledged and addressed forthrightly and honestly if real high fidelity is to be pursued and enjoyed.

 

You know Archi, I have recently fired my audio guru and shaman and I am looking for a replacement.  Send me your full name and address and I will make an earnest deposit with you… 😋

[The Computer Audiophile]

56 minutes ago, marce said:

Well at least the jitterbug section is in line with the signals instead of just plugged in a remote socket! A link to the thread would be appreciated.

 

 

[Rt66indierock]

47 minutes ago, Archimago said:

 

Any specific presentations you're looking at @Rt66indierock?

 

I assume no MQA presentation this year??? 🤔

 

The speaker room / room interface and Spatial acoustics seminars. How speakers and rooms interact is my primary interest.

 

i don’t know of any MQA presentations, still looking and have my ear to the ground for any room presentations.

[esldude]

3 hours ago, Jud said:

 

Now compare this to how a company that's come to dominate the retail world does it.  Before they accumulated the market power to essentially do whatever they want, Amazon had to grow enough to get there.  Amazon automatically lowers your price for an item you pre-order if there's a reduction while you're waiting.  They make it ridiculously easy for you to order (patenting "1-click" - whatever you think of the patent system aside, it's a great idea for online retail); usually very easy to know just what you're getting, and if you're disappointed, very convenient to get a replacement or refund.  So you're just about completely at ease if you want to buy something from them, rather than thinking "I got shafted or hassled the last couple of times, no way I want to go through that again."  I mean, how hard is this really?

 

Of course the problem is that it's never the industry's fault. If you've stopped buying, it's not because you've been burned by the crappy product they put out, it's because "There's no market for hi res/good quality."  Just like it wasn't that the industry wanted you to pay $15 a month a couple of decades ago for a restricted list of songs downloaded through horrible buggy software, it was piracy.  Then after Apple created an industry worth billions from the "pirates" just by making everything convenient, the industry wasn't wrong, it was that Apple had too much control and was taking too big a cut.  Because no VP is going in front of the board to say "We were throwing these people in jail, now someone else is making billions from them, and it was my decision, I'm sorry."

 

 

I agree that's a great thing, and I've been very happy with Qobuz.  I hope they might want to put the money, time and effort into the kind of prominent DR and mastering labeling that I mentioned upthread.  But that would take cooperation from the labels that the labels likely aren't ready to give.

It isn't hard at all. Give the customer what they want, and give the customer more.  Put yourself in the customer's place.  Amazon is an excellent example as far as the customer is concerned.  It is easier to return things to Amazon than the brick and mortar stores now.  You request a return.  They email you a QR code.  Go to the nearest shipping center.  Hand them the item, and show them the QR code from your smart phone and walk away.  You don't even have to repack it or address it.  By the time you reach your car, you'll get a notice Amazon has credited your return on your phone. 

 

Most established industries are all tied up in greed and creating false scarcity.  And obviously that works or it wouldn't be so prevalent.  How I wish cable and phone companies could change tact even a little bit toward meeting the customer's needs more than lassoing and shearing the customer in an area penned off from competition.  

[mansr]

54 minutes ago, esldude said:

It is easier to return things to Amazon than the brick and mortar stores now.  You request a return.  They email you a QR code.  Go to the nearest shipping center.  Hand them the item, and show them the QR code from your smart phone and walk away.  You don't even have to repack it or address it.  By the time you reach your car, you'll get a notice Amazon has credited your return on your phone.

Over here they'll even pick it up from your house.

[esldude]

19 minutes ago, mansr said:

Over here they'll even pick it up from your house.

They'll do that here as well.  

[mansr]

45 minutes ago, esldude said:

They'll do that here as well.  

Can we get them to collect Bob Stuart?