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MQA and the Sponsor Wars


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Let me tell you how you market any product. Rule number one is you TARGET people who WANT the solution you are offering. Has anyone noticed that roughly 50% of the sponsors of Computer Audiophile are MQA partners? These are the BEST companies in audio that are offering bleeding edge products to sophisticated music lovers.Looking at the banner on the right side of the home page and in sponsored circles there is: dCS, Auralic, Lumin, Pro-Ject, Mytek and iFi. Then you have the number one hirez content site which will soon be offering MQA streaming HD Tracks.

What the WD sees on CA is largely a bunch of members that HATE all things MQA. The MQA is Vaporware thread is not exactly an MQA love fest shall we say? :) 

Now that is all good, the members here are certainly passionate in their opinions. This thread is about sponsor wars.

Does it make any sense for companies that have embraced MQA to market to a bunch of people that hate MQA? 
If the answer is yes will those sponsors have success? Will those marketing dollars actually be spent wisely marketing on the malcontent members here to convert them to MQA?

Will those sponsors move on to a more friendly audio crowd? 

If YOU were an MQA partner would how would you spend YOUR sponsorship dollars? Where members dislike MQA or on a resource like Stereophile or Darko which have embraced MQA? There are tons of publishers that are fighting for the sponsorship dollars spent by MQA partners. 
I don't know the answer, would anyone like to chime in? 

 

 

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Just now, witchdoctor said:

This is EXACTLY why I started this thread. Why would an MQA partner spend good sponsorship money to market to this vitriol?

 

Because MQA represents an infinitesimally small part of their business?

Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby
Edgy and dull and cut a six inch valley
Through the middle of my skull

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6 minutes ago, witchdoctor said:

So you admit they are basically wasting their sponsorship dollars but should basically just eat it?

 

Look at the marketing campaigns of these companies and it is clear that MQA is not a priority for them so whether or not the readers of a particular marketing medium have a stance vis-a-vis MQA is simply irrelevant. 

Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby
Edgy and dull and cut a six inch valley
Through the middle of my skull

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2 hours ago, Miska said:

 

I assume they would be much happier without having to pay MQA licenses for each and every product they sell, regardless if any of their customer is ever going to use it.

 

They just wanted to play safe and tick all the possible feature check-boxes. And in the end, maybe their customers want pay for just that. It is just like home theater amplifiers that have a looong list of all kinds of obscure logos and features printed on top of the box. While quality of the electronics and actual sound quality has been going downhill due to higher percentage of sales price going to license costs of all kinds of technologies.

 

 

Post of the day award + +

In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake ~ Sayre's Law

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Thanks everyone for your responses. As far as the posts go kumakuma said that marketing dollars for MQA is a small part of the budget so its inconsequential, miska and nombedes shared that these companies prefer to "check off the boxes" and let the customer decide how they want to listen even though they need to pay another licensing fee. Norton made a claim that if these companies removed MQA they would not lose customers which is the exact opposite of the "check all the boxes so we don't lose customers" approach. The rest of the posters didn't really answer the question and kind of confirmed my opening post about  members not liking MQA.

Anyone else going to weigh in? Do you think the MQA discussion here will be attracting MORE MQA partners to become sponsors as well? If a thread has the initials M-Q-A in it will it still attract the haters who can't help the turds flying from their fingertips into the keyboard before they flush... I mean hit send? The bitchdoctor-  I mean witchdoctor wants to know.
 

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6 hours ago, witchdoctor said:

So you admit they are basically wasting their sponsorship dollars but should basically just eat it?

iFi, Mytek etc are hardly wasting their sponsorship dollars. Their products are discussed and well regarded on CA. I for one bought an iDSD Micro based not only on positive reports here but measurements posted by eg @Miska. The DAC does have many features and stickers that I don’t use, nor care about as long as they don’t make the music worse.

Custom room treatments for headphone users.

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3 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

Your use of the word haters is juvenile and shows your lack of understanding of the issues around this technology.

 

If you'd bothered to read the threads devoted to the subject, you will see that people object to MQA for very well-thought-out technical and economic reasons that have nothing to do with whether they "love" or "hate" MQA.

But the people who "love" MQA do so for well thought out and technical reasons as well. We can both create a list of posts by people with either perspective. This brings up my original question, how would you advise an MQA partner to spend their marketing dollars? They didn't license it to lose money did they? I am not an MQA partner/sponsor so can't answer that question, can you?

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2 hours ago, jabbr said:

iFi, Mytek etc are hardly wasting their sponsorship dollars. Their products are discussed and well regarded on CA. I for one bought an iDSD Micro based not only on positive reports here but measurements posted by eg @Miska. The DAC does have many features and stickers that I don’t use, nor care about as long as they don’t make the music worse.

I plan on buying the new iFi MQA Black Label DAC, if you go to their sponsored circle I posted a question for them and am waiting on an answer. 

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3 hours ago, Miska said:

It all boils down to how much customers are ready to take actual performance hit for the MQA check box. You don't gain any quality with it, but you may lose some due to the added licensing cost when you want to hit a certain price point so you need to shave it off somewhere else.

 

Miska you need to change one word in your post.

You don't gain any quality with it,   should be

I don't gain any quality with it,

 

Many sponsors, vendors, artists, MQA partners, major labels and of course consumers feel they DO gain sound quality with it.
As for the price point both my Tidal subscription and my Blue Sound Node are the same price as they were pre MQA. I think the company took the licensing hit (hooray for Tidal and Bluesound).

In fact I don't know even one company that charged a premium for MQA, do you?

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