Simple MQA poll.

[Spacehound]

8 hours ago, Norton said:

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?

 

 

He might not like what I posted, but if you look at the numbers since  (anti-MQA gone from 9 to 54) he cant say I  didn't light the blue touchpaper.  But meaningwise it's still not got off the ground.  , 

[Spacehound]

6 hours ago, mav52 said:

 Have the 30% left yet ?

 

members that vote will and like anything its a choice

They say the 70% should leave and take their too young to vote offspring with them. Syria looks nice.

[realhifi]

Poll says 91 members have voted and when you total up the votes it comes to 79. 

[Spacehound]

7 minutes ago, realhifi said:

Poll says 91 members have voted and when you total up the votes it comes to 79. 

Even more proof  it's a waste of space   

[eclectic]

The pro MQA votes have had 20% or so taken away to reflect the lossy compression of the codec. 

[Teresa]

9 hours 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.

 

8 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 now have enough SACDs and high resolution PCM and DSD downloads to keep me happy the rest of my life. So if MQA is the only format in the future I can refuse to purchase it.

 

I currently have zero items on my want list, and I listen to streaming audio samples of new high resolution releases every week to hear if I want to buy them. What I buy in the future will be new to me music that I discover at these download sites.

 

Also, I am happy with the sound quality of the music I own and don't automatically upgrade just for higher resolution. For example I have the 2.8MHz DSD download of Cat Stevens' Tea for the Tillerman and didn't buy the upgrade to 5.6MHz DSD download when it came out.

 

While I can't see MQA in my future, MQA must surely be superior to MP3, in which case it should be good for the masses. The sad thing (as you noted) will be if MQA replaces all downloads and physical products, in which case those with better audio systems who have music that was never released in another format on their want list will be forced to purchase the MQA version or go without.

[Spacehound]

25 minutes ago, Teresa said:

 

 

I now have enough SACDs and high resolution PCM and DSD downloads to keep me happy the rest of my life. So if MQA is the only format in the future I can refuse to purchase it.

 

I currently have zero items on my want list, and I listen to streaming audio samples of new high resolution releases every week to hear if I want to buy them. What I buy in the future will be new to me music that I discover at these download sites.

 

Also, I am happy with the sound quality of the music I own and don't automatically upgrade just for higher resolution. For example I have the 2.8MHz DSD download of Cat Stevens' Tea for the Tillerman and didn't buy the upgrade to 5.6MHz DSD download when it came out.

 

While I can't see MQA in my future, MQA must surely be superior to MP3, in which case it should be good for the masses. The sad thing (as you noted) will be if MQA replaces all downloads and physical products, in which case those with better audio systems who have music that was never released in another format on their want list will be forced to purchase the MQA version or go without.

I feel much the same, and only look for new stuff (Tidal is good for that)  because  I think I ought to, being an audiophile an' all.

 

But PLEASE don't talk about the "masses". You ARE one all the time you  aren't playing with your toy airplane, listening to music,  trying to catch a fish, or looking at your stamp collection.

[Spacehound]

PS: I don't do the stamp collection part  

[Musicophile]

4 hours ago, tmtomh said:

 

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.

So you're telling me I'm not an average customer. Guess what, with me having a Qobuz Sublime subscription AND purchasing highres files in parallel, I, like 95% of the readers here, am a total niche audience. Fully agree here. And I believe as long as we in our little niche are willing to fork out $15-25 per album, somebody will sell it to us in whatever format we audio nerds want. Why wouldn't they? Really?

 

But now, let's take that famous customer that doesn't care about SQ, which I agree probably makes about 98% of the consumer market. 

 

Let's really play this through.

 

Where do you see the industry player that has a strong incentive of using MQA?

 

Right now, the market is moving to streaming exclusively. This market is dominated by Spotify and increasingly Apple Music. Why would Apple or Spotify try to impose a proprietary file system for their streaming offer that they don't control, when their customer base is clearly happy with MP3/AAC streaming? I mean, Apple started with DRM files on the Itunes store but moved away from it after a while. 

 

So who else is out there who has the market power to impose a certain format? The record labels? That market is getting increasingly fractured as well, as more and more artists move to produce and release their own albums, or use smaller labels (what is the point of a big label these days if you're not Beyonce anyhow?). So again, I don't see a dominant player that could impose MQA here. 

 

Finally, the equipment manufacturers? Well there is nothing more fragmented than this market, so I don't see anybody even halfway powerful to impose this, when even half decent bluetooth audio codecs are still having a hard time imposing themselves. 

 

My advice: relax about this, in 10 years MQA will be the next SACD.

[Spacehound]

10 hours ago, realhifi said:

Back off. 

I could say something with the same number of letters in both words but I wont.

[firedog]

19 minutes ago, Musicophile said:

And I believe as long as we in our little niche are willing to fork out $15-25 per album, somebody will sell it to us in whatever format we audio nerds want. Why wouldn't they? Really?

The alternative exists that MQA will become a streaming standard, and they will also offer downloads of "hi-res" MQA for sale at $15 per album, while simultaneously removing the actual hi-res from distribution. Why would they do that? Simple: to prevent distribution of actual master quality files, which is one of (perhaps the major) reason the labels are in favor of MQA - they've never been comfortable with the idea of the real "master quality" files being available for distribution and copying. One of the reasons many albums are not available in some form of hi-res, even 24/44.1.

The small classical labels might be an exception, but they are irrelevant in the big picture (although clearly not for you). 

How would you feel if in 2 years the only downloads available from ECM are so called 24/96 MQA versions of their albums? 

[Musicophile]

29 minutes ago, firedog said:

The alternative exists that MQA will become a streaming standard, and they will also offer downloads of "hi-res" MQA for sale at $15 per album, while simultaneously removing the actual hi-res from distribution. Why would they do that? Simple: to prevent distribution of actual master quality files, which is one of (perhaps the major) reason the labels are in favor of MQA - they've never been comfortable with the idea of the real "master quality" files being available for distribution and copying. One of the reasons many albums are not available in some form of hi-res, even 24/44.1.

The small classical labels might be an exception, but they are irrelevant in the big picture (although clearly not for you). 

How would you feel if in 2 years the only downloads available from ECM are so called 24/96 MQA versions of their albums? 

Sorry but please be specific, who is “they”? The labels are more fragmented than you might think. 

 

And sorry for MQA to become a streaming standard somebody needs to adopt it first. As said above both big streaming players really don’t have an incentive. 

[firedog]

50 minutes ago, Musicophile said:

Sorry but please be specific, who is “they”? The labels are more fragmented than you might think. 

 

And sorry for MQA to become a streaming standard somebody needs to adopt it first. As said above both big streaming players really don’t have an incentive. 

the big three control about 90% of the market acc'd to Wikipedia. That doesn't sound like fragmentation to me. The fact that each big corporation owns multiple "labels" doesn't mean much in this context. 

 

Both big streaming players can only stream what they are provided with...

[Musicophile]

25 minutes ago, firedog said:

the big three control about 90% of the market acc'd to Wikipedia. That doesn't sound like fragmentation to me. The fact that each big corporation owns multiple "labels" doesn't mean much in this context. 

 

Both big streaming players can only stream what they are provided with...

With all their combined strength it took a California tech company to build the platform and distribution system for the first 10-15 years of the new millennium, with the iPod and iTunes Store, and a Swedish start-up to develop the distribution system for the streaming age. 

 

Content companies have been notoriously bad at introducing new standards (remember Sony trying to back Betamax?), as their only strategy was to fight a losing battle against illegal downloads instead of focusing on something the customer actually wants (they are often terribly disconnected from their final audience).

 

Anyhow, we can only speculate now. I personally remain unconvinced that MQA will stick around long term.

[mansr]

2 hours ago, firedog said:

The alternative exists that MQA will become a streaming standard, and they will also offer downloads of "hi-res" MQA for sale at $15 per album, while simultaneously removing the actual hi-res from distribution.

This is also their stated goal.

[realhifi]

5 hours ago, Spacehound said:

I could say something with the same number of letters in both words but I wont.

Same here but I was trying to be polite. 

[realhifi]

I hope you don’t mind Chris but I’m going to keep commenting on this unless there is some other way to keep this poll up in front of members?

[NOMBEDES]

On 2/11/2018 at 7:12 AM, Spacehound said:

 

 

 

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?

 

 

 

 

Where did you get the 100K "members" number?    

 

Are there 100,000 people with User Names and Pass Words?"   

 

 

 

[mav52]

Well as of right now it shows 

 

114 members have voted

[mansr]

20 minutes ago, NOMBEDES said:

Where did you get the 100K "members" number?

Good question. It appears that accounts get assigned sequential ID numbers on registration, the most recent being 33336. A blank search for members returns 31184 results. The difference could be explained by deleted accounts.

[realhifi]

20 minutes ago, mav52 said:

Well as of right now it shows 

 

114 members have voted

Strange that votes add up to 100. 

[realhifi]

It looks to me like MQA is not as interesting to as many people as all the uproar has made it out to be. 

[Spacehound]

43 minutes ago, mansr said:

Good question. It appears that accounts get assigned sequential ID numbers on registration, the most recent being 33336. A blank search for members returns 31184 results. The difference could be explained by deleted accounts.

There's always a lot of churn on forums. And some don't delete users even when asked, as it makes the numbers look good.

[mansr]

4 minutes ago, Spacehound said:

There's always a lot of churn on forums. And some don't delete users even when asked, as it makes the numbers look good.

My point was that the number is very far from 100k, even including dormant accounts.

[Spacehound]

19 minutes ago, mansr said:

My point was that the number is very far from 100k, even including dormant accounts.

I just vaguely remember Chris saying it in a reply to someone and I had no reason to disbelieve it at the time.

 

We could ask of course,  but who cares anyway?  And he might not now want to say, with the present  'controversy'.  "Quite a  lot" is fine. Numbers are only made up stuff anyway. They don't exist in 'reality'.