Even Spotify with its large user base is not making money from streaming and requires investors to inject hundred millions of dollars. So what should they do according to you ? Close shop, calling it a day and have everyone go back to good old CDs ?

No, read what I've posted. If Qobuz don't put forward a viable business plan to the investors then they won't get any money and they'll go bust. Hard but that I'm afraid is business. So what do you think they should do? 

I would have thought that the best thing to sign, to save Qobuz, would be a contract to stream from them. If they can't get enough signatures for their service i very much doubt that a petition will get sufficient numbers to save them.  I like Qobuz and buy downloads from them but business is business and if the model doesn't make money it won't survive

As already mentioned I like them , but a petition will not help them. Perhaps crowdfunding but it's too late for that and like others already said - if they don't have a viable business model it's bad luck but that's it.

I am currently downloading stuff I had bought before, the downloading speed is awful.

Crowdfunding = new way of separating fools from their money.

Accountability = 0

I've just bought three albums, which downloaded as quickly as ever. Qobuz is a wonderful thing, let's hope they survive this. Their latest messages on the website sound pretty positive. Fingers crossed. 

Well done, you've won idiot statement of the week. 

Very +1

• why those who crowd fund know more about investment returns than professional businessmen
• what auditing and business accountability there is for where the money goes after it has been passed to the lucky recipient, rather than just into his or her pocket

You may also wish to consider which crowd funded investments have proved long term economic successes and give examples

Streaming services are paying the record companies between 87-93% royalty on their sales - figures from Deezer when they reported they reduced their cost of sales to 87% last year). So its actually the record co's who are squeezing the streaming markets. They have not learnt anything from their fight against pirating!

I think Qobuz is great and hope they survive.  I love being able (mostly) to download single tracks in CD or hires quality.  I have had occasional problems with downloads failing. The only significant one was when I bought the collection of all The Doors studio album which was too big and they had got errors in the zip file and (after a Twitter complaint) they gave me another free download.

Forgive me responding in my own way, but hopefully I will cover the points you've listed, but possibly not inter allia (thank god for google as I'm not a football fan and assumed that was an Italian Club. I had the presence of mind to double check my presumption as I thought it an odd place for you to show your support for a fictitious football team).

I have somewhat of an issue with sweeping statements - I find that they are generally (not always) borne out of ignorance that leads to intolerance. To give some measure, I obviously appreciate that a sweeping statement about forms of financing are not as damning as those of race or religious beliefs. Non the less, I find it lazy and ill informed.

As with most things in life, there are good, bad and indifferent examples of crowdfunding opportunities. For example, if a young man in a cheap nylon suit presented himself at my front door asking me to invest in his crowdfunding venture to corner the market in buying up the pots of gold he believes to be at the end of every rainbow, I would suggest that I would indeed be rather foolish to back such a proposition.

At the other end of the scale are many great ideas, products and services that have been successfully backed through the likes of Kickstarter. Within this frame work I have "invested" a number of times in something I believe in and or would like to see go into production. On each occasion my "investment" has effectively been the purchase of a product at a (sometimes only slightly) reduced market rate. On each occasion I have received the product (and been very happy with it), along with information on the people behind it - what future plans they might have etc.

A couple of years ago I "invested" through kickstarter in a product from Lunatik - a watch casing for an iPod nano. It was a great product, created long before the apple watch. I do not have access to their accounts, but from the product releases they continue to launch, I can only assume things are going well for them.

The below is taken from their website - 

"It is the dream of every designer not only to imagine products, but to build and sell them. LUNATIK burst into the spotlight in November, 2010 when designer Scott Wilson launched TikTok+LunaTik Watch Kits for the iPod nano on Kickstarter, long before the platform was widely utilized by designers. The TikTok project raised a record-breaking $1M in 30 days, launching LUNATIK as a global brand overnight and ‘kickstarting’ the DIY product development revolution for designers and entrepreneurs around the world. The crowd funding pioneers are now 3 for 3 on Kickstarter, making the LUNATIK brand a disruptive success on many levels."

In terms of their accountability - my investment was secured against the initial (limited edition) run of watch cases and I realised my investment.

Now somewhere between the above and my young friend's attempts to corner the gold pot market are indeed questionable investments. I myself am a film producer, and would feel very uncomfortable financing a film through crowdfunding, even if it is wrapped up in a tax efficient scheme, as I know that with the current distribution model, it is very difficult to return money to those in a straight equity position (especially when a film is fully financed through private equity). 

Again though, as we I do not live in a black and white world, I understand that there are other creative endeavours that work well as crowdfunding projects - both for those seeking finance and those "investing". One example that comes to mind is Marillion (not everyone's cup of tea I know). I believe they were the first band to realise the potential of crowdfunding and have been financing their albums in this way for many years. They have recently launched a campaign that asks fans to purchase the album before it has been written or recorded - in many formats from basic CD through to fancy box sets. This will not only finance the album but also enable them to fund tours to parts of the world that a traditional funding model would not allow. One could ask the question of "why should I pay for them to visit South America when I live in the UK" - but again - If my investment is secured against an album it is up to me to decide whether that investment is worthwhile, further to this, some people would probably like the idea of helping a band they love play to a wider audience around the world.

Perhaps our terminology of crowdfunding is askew, but if that is the case then I would suggest you revise your use of the term. For absolute clarity, if your point was in response to someone suggesting people club together to save Qobuz then I would be with you. One would be a lunatic (not lunatik) to throw money into some virtual pot in the hope of rescuing a company we have no financial visibility of whatsoever. Never mind one that operates in a market that I (for one) have no experience or expertise in.

As it happens, I believe the points above have covered your second (bullet) point, in terms of the first - in all the crowdfunding campaigns I have bought into and or looked at, I have never witnessed anyone making statements about how they know more about investment returns than professional businessmen. Although that said (sadly) I'm not sure the term professional businessmen is always synonymous with words such as honesty, integrity, transparency or trust. 

To end on a positive note, you should have a further look into some of the crowdfunding sites - there are some great ideas from passionate, intelligent people and I enjoy being part of helping them realise their ideas.

I also admit to acting like a complete fool on many occasion, my slightly abrasive post last night, after one too many Margaritas perhaps may be a nod in that direction. But I do not believe any of the crowdfunding investments I've made are.

Personally I have used a Qobuz Hifi subscription for nearly a year now, primarily through a plugin for Logitech Media Server on my music server (and a great Android app called Squeeze Ctl). I found this approach to be simple but effective for searching and streaming albums, saving favourites, adding to personal pkaylists, etc. It does not allow download so I use the Qobuz Windows desktop app for that purpose (only).

I have also used Spotify and Deezer (both for about a year prior to the launch of the higher quality services). I also tried Tidal for the trial period alongside Qobuz, but found it had big gaps in the type of music I wanted to access (quite varied across popular rock, jazz, classical, indie and more)

I have found the numerous emails Qobuz send out on new releases, curated play lists, etc to be useful, partly because they are sectioned by genre. 

Since the announcement I have retried Tidal and been equally dissatisfied on content (eg didn't have Beth Orton's 2014 album Sugaring Season whereas Qobuz had both normal CD and Studio Master to stream). The influence of JayZ and his team is evident in what they seem to promote in the front end on Windows and Android clients. My biggest criticism is that they do not have clear genre divisions or sections to aid browsing. The LMS plugin is quite poor too but that is possibly not Tidal's fault.

I really hope Qobuz are rescued as for me, they are the best offering at the moment. If they are, I also hope Naim get it working on their streamers as I would buy one then! Personally I think Qobuz matches the typical Naim owner demographic far better than Tidal but what do I know? !!

Fingers crossed! 

+1

excactley my thoughts 

I like the streaming medium, even though it's not my primary source and as I stated, I much prefer Qobuz so I hope they mange to get some funding.

I had been in email contact with their CEO a few months ago. I did ask why they had not got their service taken up by Naim or that Scottish outfit (or any other serious hifi manufacturer) given their capabilities on high quality content. Not surprisingly I didn't get a reply to that particular question.

If they had got Naim on board, it would not necessarily helped their subscription revenues particularly but it would have been good low cost PR in the magazines.

I wonder why Naim chose Tidal (if it was a Naim decision)?

I suspect it was based on market reach as opposed to anything else. Kind of understandable but a shame none the less

The Steve Wilson remaster of Jethro Tull Aqualung is superior to any other digital version I've listened to at 44.1/16 via TIDAL or UnitiServe rip of whatever copy I have on the NAS Interesting?

M 

For those who are confused about crowd funding, here is a simple explanation.

Note that as with most investments, crowd funding is risky - i,e, it does not always succeed.  Sometimes when it does, it succeeds massively.

Crowd Funding

What Is It?

Over the past few years, a new way of funding ideas and projects has emerged; crowdfunding uses the collective cooperation of a group of people (the “crowd&rdquo to pool resources together in support of a specific project. There are two main crowdfunding models: equity-based crowdfunding where people contribute funds to a business or project in exchange for equity and donation-based crowdfunding where people donate to a project in exchange for tangible, non-monetary, rewards.

Note that the donation model in return for goods as more akin to a marketing model than an investment model.

David

I hope they come through this tough time ... i love thieir service via my Linn streamers .. Much better than tidal .. Which I also subscribe to 

Is this the version made available more recently from HDTracks?

Quite - hence my use of "investment" - but non the less it all falls under crowdfunding, whether it be parting with money for equity in a company or in return for a (yet to be made) product / walk on part in a film / thank you note on a CD cover etc etc.

Could be, I'll check into it Harry. On TIDAL there are several versions with the Steve Wilson remaster blowing away all others to my ears. 

M

Harry,

Indeed it it is at 96/24. With the Christmas season approaching HDT will certainly offer discount codes so I plan to pick this one up. I have a couple of first issue LP's that can't with Steve's digital mix. Thanks for the tip.

Cheers

M

The re-master of Benefit is also absolutely fantastic by the way. Really transformative.

Referring to TonyM posts etc earlier I decided to do a back to back comparison this weekend of one of our favourite albums; Leonard Cohen, 'Ten New Songs'. 24bit/44.1hx vs HDX CD rip. The high res file is a clear step forward. It passed the wife test-she spotted it straight away. Cleaner, better resolved and integrated details, crisp.  That was a 7digital download by the way.

Bruce