Simple MQA poll.

[realhifi]

This a simple poll concerning MQA. Please just answer poll, NO comments. 

[realhifi]

Voting seems light. 

[Spacehound]

 

I'm going to make a 'not about how the voting goes' reply.

 

You do understand that with 100,000 plus 'members' here the small number of voters makes both those who vote  and  thus the result 'non-representative' don't you?

 

Ergo any conclusions drawn  from the result are automatically invalid.

 

Rest assured it's not just this poll. I've never  seen it NOT happen  on any forum.

[mav52]

1 hour ago, Spacehound said:

 

I'm going to make a 'not about how the voting goes' reply.

 

You do understand that with 100,000 plus 'members' here the small number of voters makes both those who vote  and  thus the result 'non-representative' don't you?

 

Ergo any conclusions drawn  from the result are automatically invalid.

 

Rest assured it's not just this poll. I've never  seen it NOT happen  on any forum.

Sure there might be 100K members but Chris might be able to tell us how many active members we have say in the last 6 months.  A lot of those 100k don't post.  It would be interesting to know about a % of activity this site actually has ( posters) not lurkers..

[realhifi]

1 hour ago, Spacehound said:

 

I'm going to make a 'not about how the voting goes' reply.

 

You do understand that with 100,000 plus 'members' here the small number of voters makes both those who vote  and  thus the result 'non-representative' don't you?

 

Ergo any conclusions drawn  from the result are automatically invalid.

 

Rest assured it's not just this poll. I've never  seen it NOT happen  on any forum.

I’m going to go on the assumption that whatever the numbers are that it’s a fair representation of this forum seeing as that’s how polls are done. It will be more interesting to me to see how many actually vote. 

[Spacehound]

15 minutes ago, realhifi said:

I’m going to go on the assumption that whatever the numbers are that it’s a fair representation of this forum seeing as that’s how polls are done. It will be more interesting to me to see how many actually vote. 

You cant under any circumstance rely on a 'self selecting' (people choose to post)  vote. Simply because only those that have a strong view will bother. And with such a tiny percentage of eligible voters  the result won't just be unrepresentative, it could well be  the  OPPOSITE of the general view - as below.

 

Do what you want of course, but if you base any comments on that poll it may be total nonsense.

 

We have a genuine 'scientist' here who as a result of his poll said Macs  were more popular for audio  than  Windows machines. Which is utter nonsense - it's that as Macs have only 4% of the market while Windows has 90% the Mac users are more vociferous where the Windows users don't feel the need to vote at all.

 

If you disagree  you just don't understand statistics at all. I don't mean to be rude, I'm just being factual..

 

As I say, it happens everywhere, so it's not just you.

[Spacehound]

Just now, Spacehound said:

You cant under any circumstance rely on a 'self selecting' (people choose to post)  vote. Simply because only those that have a strong view will bother. And with such a tiny percentage of eligible voters  the result won't just be unrepresentative, it could well be  the  OPPOSITE of the general view - as below.

 

Do what you want of course, but if you base any comments on that poll it may be total nonsense.

 

We have a genuine 'scientist' here who as a result of his poll said Macs  were more popular for audio  than  Windows machines. Which is utter nonsense - it's that as Macs have only 4% of the market while Windows has 90% the Mac users are more vociferous where the Windows users don't feel the need to vote at all.

 

If you disagree  you just don't understand statistics at all. I don't mean to be rude, I'm just being factual..

 

As I say, it happens everywhere, so it's not just you.

 

PS: I did vote, Yesterday. Long before I posted my first comment. Because I am strongly against MQA. See how it works?

[kumakuma]

3 hours ago, realhifi said:

Voting seems light. 

 

New comments are needed to keep a thread near the top of the active threads feed.

[Spacehound]

1 hour ago, mav52 said:

 I jSure there might be 100K members but Chris might be able to tell us how many active members we have say in the last 6 months.  A lot of those 100k don't post.  It would be interesting to know about a % of activity this site actually has ( posters) not lurkers..

I was a lurker for years, I wouldn't have got started with computer audio in 2012  were it not for this site. I joined recently  because of MQA.

 

But if you are a member, there is no reason for you not to vote. People just don't care about much of this stuff is all. So drawing any conclusion from the self-selecting few that do vote  is nonsense.

 

I'm in the UK. Only 30% of the eligible voters voted to leave the EU. But we are leaving. The rest either voted stay or were happy with the status quo so didn't bother to vote.

 

Now imagine what might happen if we here  took 'action' on the result of RealHiFi's poll.

 

[realhifi]

4 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

New comments are needed to keep a thread near the top of the active threads feed.

I did realize that after I posted that!  Thanks for reminding me and by all means, comment away!  ?

[realhifi]

5 minutes ago, Spacehound said:

I was a lurker for years. I joined because of MQA.

 

But if you are a member, there is no reason for you not to vote. People just don't care about much of this stuff is all. So drawing any conclusion from the self-selecting few that do vote  is nonsense.

 

I'm in the UK. Only 30% of the eligible voters voted to leave the EU. But we are leaving. The rest either voted stay or were happy with the status quo so didn't bother to vote.

 

Now imagine what might happen if we here  took 'action' on the result of RealHiFi's poll.

 

Calm down. It’s a poll. It’s just for my own curiosity. If it bothers you put it on ignore. 

[pkane2001]

19 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

New comments are needed to keep a thread near the top of the active threads feed.

 

While I'm not strongly for or against MQA, it appears to me to be a marketing ploy more than any real improvement in streaming audio. I found no real explanation of what it does to improve sound quality, other than a lot of hand-waving and marketing-speak. For this reason, I voted against it.

 

[Spacehound]

25 minutes ago, realhifi said:

 Calm down. It’s a poll. It’s just for my own curiosity. If it bothers you put it on ignore. 

I'm perfectly calm. But people often draw nonsensical  conclusions. If  you draw any, yours will be too. If that doesn't bother you, fine.

[mansr]

Just now, Spacehound said:

I'm perfectly calm. But people often draw nonsensical  conclusions. If  you draw any, yours will be too. If that doesn't bother you, fine.

Audiophiles are rarely bothered by nonsense.

[Norton]

Now comments are allowed...I'm not that surprised by the number voting nor the result.  I voted "neutral" both because I'm unconvinced about MQA, and because I find it hard to be "pro"or "anti" something  that's  just a music format when all's said and done.  Maybe non voters felt the same and more nuanced options might get different results?

 

 

[Musicophile]

I haven’t seen anybody forcing me to buy or not to buy MQA, that’s why I voted neutral. That said, I’ve never seen any true end customer benefit of MQA, so Im very comfortable it will be gone in some years from now.

[kumakuma]

I'm against it primarily because it's a proprietary format that limits what folks can do with the music that they have purchased.

[mansr]

8 minutes ago, Musicophile said:

I haven’t seen anybody forcing me to buy or not to buy MQA, that’s why I voted neutral.

Their stated goal is for all music to be distributed in MQA format. No more high-res studio masters. No more CD quality. That's not a future I wish to see.

 

8 minutes ago, Musicophile said:

That said, I’ve never seen any true end customer benefit of MQA, so Im very comfortable it will be gone in some years from now.

Don't get too comfortable. Complacency begets defeat.

[MarkS]

Interesting pole.  I think the pole might have been even more interesting if there had been a second question for those voting: Have you actually heard MQA?

 

While I voted neutral, I’ve heard MQA at 4 demos and thought MQA sounded pretty good at 3 and very good at 1. Generally, I’m trying to keep an open mind and consider myself presently in the “MQA seems to sound subtly better” camp  (I’m sure sceptics will have comments on my preceptions, the validity of the demos, etc.)

 

What I find interesting about  MQA is that, IMHO, it arises from the fact that pretty soon there will be no more cd’s (pressing plants in the USA are closing), and record companies are loathe to permit master quality files loose in the wild. A “controlled” (I’m not getting into the whole DRM controversy) streaming format is all the record companies would ever realistically allow, so MQA seems to me like a natural outgrowth of the record companies fears and the reality that steaming is the future, which will come without some of our current concepts of ownership.  Indeed, these days, I find that I only actually buy high resolution downloads or rippable SACD’s.  I typically stream material unavailable in high resolution material (even though my local files tend to sound better than streaming on my system, but I’m working on that). 

 

Seems to me that MQA is first and foremost about the practical realities of the music resale/distribution marketplace, with sound quality as completely secondary. I will continue to keep my fingers crossed that the sceptics are wrong on sound quality because MQA seems, realistically, like the only game in town to me for “audiophile” sound quality, at least until someone comes up with something better that is acceptable to the record companies (or figures out a way around them).

 

 

 

 

[Musicophile]

59 minutes ago, mansr said:

Their stated goal is for all music to be distributed in MQA format. No more high-res studio masters. No more CD quality. That's not a future I wish to see.

 

Don't get too comfortable. Complacency begets defeat.

I still stand by the simple fact that if you don’t offer a tangible customer benefit you will never succeed. That’s why I’m not concerned. 

[mansr]

14 minutes ago, Musicophile said:

I still stand by the simple fact that if you don’t offer a tangible customer benefit you will never succeed. That’s why I’m not concerned. 

They offer (the illusion of) something the record labels desperately want. If the labels decide to stop distributing non-MQA content, you'll have the choice of taking it, despite the downsides, or not listening at all. They don't need you to want MQA, they only need you to tolerate it.

[mav52]

4 hours ago, Spacehound said:

I'm in the UK. Only 30% of the eligible voters voted to leave the EU. But we are leaving.

 Have the 30% left yet ?

 

members that vote will and like anything its a choice

[realhifi]

3 hours ago, Spacehound said:

I'm perfectly calm. But people often draw nonsensical  conclusions. If  you draw any, yours will be too. If that doesn't bother you, fine.

Back off. 

[MarkS]

5 hours ago, mansr said:

They offer (the illusion of) something the record labels desperately want. If the labels decide to stop distributing non-MQA content, you'll have the choice of taking it, despite the downsides, or not listening at all. They don't need you to want MQA, they only need you to tolerate it.

 

I agree, but if the alternatives are tolerate or nothing at all, then are those really alternatives?

[tmtomh]

6 hours ago, Musicophile said:

I still stand by the simple fact that if you don’t offer a tangible customer benefit you will never succeed. That’s why I’m not concerned. 

 

I will never understand why people continue to spout this oversimplified fantasy of consumer choice. The customer for MQA is the record industry, not the end-user, similarly to how the customer for Facebook is the advertiser, not the user.

Even putting that aside, MQA is marketed as lossy high-res custom-tuned for the needs of streaming music. That's an easy to understand, attractive sounding benefit to lots of consumers. The fact that MQA might sound modestly inferior to high-res PCM or DSD (and perhaps slightly inferior to redbook) on highly resolving systems will be irrelevant to the majority of streaming customers because their systems likely are not resolving enough to hear the difference - and also because if MQA does bring lots of new people and titles to the party, then there won't be a lot of people around who have the high-res PCM/DSD baseline to even compare to the MQA version sonically.

 

To put it more simply, just look at your own equipment, as listed in your profile here. You've got a $1000 outboard DAC, and your interconnects cost more than the entire playback systems of probably 90-95% of streaming customers. The entire point of this thread is that the average member here is very much not the average customer - people who value truly lossless music, and who can hear the difference between MQA and truly lossless formats, are in the minority and their interests will be irrelevant compared to the larger purchasing public.