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MQA – The Praise from Proponents

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Bill Leebens interviews Bob Stuart

Part 3 – Bill Leebens Interviews MQA Founder Bob Stuart & Speaks with Other Supporters Who Remain Loyal

STRATA-GEE: This is the third installment of our series on the controversy engulfing MQA conducted in partnership with guest poster Bill Leebens. You can see Part 1 introduction, MQA Controversy – A True Audio Breakthrough? Or a Marketing Scam?; and Part 2, MQA – Voices Arise in Harmony with a Video Critique from ‘GoldenSound.’ In this post, we hear from proponents of MQA, most of whom remain steadfast in their support for the technology or the company (or both) – even in the face of often blistering criticism. Leebens scored an interview with no less than MQA founder Bob Stuart who calmly answered all of his questions in an interview that lasted more than two hours.

Read the praise from proponents of MQA

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How Big is Amazon in E-Commerce? Bigger Than You May Realize

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Amazon logo on sign

In new data from market researcher eMarketer, we learn more details on just how well e-commerce sales are doing both overall and for specific players such as Target and Amazon. It is pretty well known that as the pandemic rolled out in early Spring of 2020, Americans were thrust into quarantine and a 24/7/365 existence at home. This caused many to order their supplies from online retailers, even those consumers who had not previously ever purchased online before. Clearly, COVID was horrible for America (and the world) but good for the e-commerce business.

All online retailers did well, with companies like Walmart and Target seeing their e-commerce operations really gain some traction. But did some do better than others? Oh yeah…

See more on the current state of Amazon and e-commerce

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Leaders Heed This Warning: Employees Feel Empowered and Are Quitting

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Did you hear this statistic? Just this past April, a total of 4 million Americans quit their jobs, according to data recently released by the US Labor Department and reported on by the New York Times. Think about that for a moment. That April figure was the largest number of workers quitting their jobs in any one month…ever. Why? Ah…that’s a good question. I’m glad you asked…

See why workers are quitting their jobs in droves…

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TOLA Expo: Industry Groups Partner for Super-Regional In-Person Dealer Expo

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TOLA Expo logo

A group of industry manufacturer sales representatives in the Southwest has partnered with Samsung to produce one of the first in-person industry dealer events in more than a year called the TOLA Expo. The event, which takes place on June 29-30, 2021 covers a huge region – organizers refer to it as a “super-regional show” – drawing from the states of Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Arkansas…hence, TOLA.

Learn more about next week’s TOLA Expo

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Congress Prepares to Regulate Big Tech, Yet They Top ‘Most Trusted Brands’ Poll

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>Learn How to Improve Consumers’ Trust in Your Brand

Many political observers have declared the end of bi-partisanship, as the political right and left seem further apart than ever before in the history of the country. Yet there is one area where both parties agree, it is time to rein in the big tech players. Ironically, in a new poll of the 15 most trusted brands in the world, we find a lot of tech represented – including some of the Big Tech players. Is Congress out of step with the American people? And how important is “trust” to a company or brand anyway?

See the most trusted brands & how to improve yours…

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MQA – Voices Arise in Harmony with a Video Critique from ‘GoldenSound’

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Part 2 – We Go Deep into the World of Those Opposed to MQA & Bill Leebens Speaks with GoldenSound

STRATA-GEE: This is the second installment of our series on the controversy engulfing MQA, conducted in partnership with guest poster Bill Leebens. In this post, you will learn more about those who are critical of MQA, with some going on the record for the first time for this story. MQA has been controversial almost from the beginning – with an intense opposition that ebbs and flows over time. But as we told you in our introductory installment (see MQA Controversy – A True Audio Breakthrough? Or a Marketing Scam?), a recent YouTube video critique from an audiophile not involved in the audio industry, has spurred a huge resurgence of interest (that video had over 267,000 views!), in part because of the perhaps naive but seemingly earnest reasonableness of “GoldenSound” and the heavy-handed backslap from MQA.

Learn more on why some oppose MQA

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We Learn the Brand Positioning Strategy for Savant and GE Lighting

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Photo of a selection of GE Lighting by Savant Cync products

Savant Entering DIY? GE Lighting to Bring High-End Home Automation to Lowes?? Read On…

Recently I heard some concerning information on just what Savant was planning to do with their recently acquired GE Lighting division. Concepts like Savant entering the DIY market…and GE Lighting bringing high-end home automation to the Home Depot/Lowes channel…were confusing and not the typical Savant marketing strategy. So I reached out to the company for clarification. In a Zoom interview with Savant President J.C. Murphy, I learned much more about the strategy behind the company’s acquisition of GE Lighting, and how they intend to integrate – and cross-pollinate – the technologies, engineering, and capabilities between the two companies.

Murphy cleared up the confusion and revealed their smart, smart home strategy – with the GE Lighting and Savant brands well-positioned.

Learn what’s going on here…

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MQA Controversy – A True Audio Breakthrough? Or a Marketing Scam?

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MQA uses a process they call music origami
MQA utilizes a process they call “Music Origami”
[Photo: By Laitche – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3244373}

Part 1 – A Bill Leebens Guest Post

STRATA-GEE: For some time now, I have been hearing rumbles throughout the audio community, particularly the high-end audio community, about controversy surrounding MQA (Master Quality Authentication) – a U.K. company that claims to have created a proprietary technology that allows for the delivery of “better than lossless” audio via certain streaming services. At first, it seemed like the Holy Grail of audio – delivering music that is identical to the original master recording into your earbuds via streaming services such as Tidal. Then the whispers started – “It sounds like it is too good to be true because it IS too good to be true.“

Recently, a YouTube video appeared that blew the doors of MQA dissent wide open and seems to show that MQA technology is NOT doing what the company claims and leaves many to conclude that MQA is little more than a thinly veiled marketing scam. The company pushed back…hard. I asked Bill Leebens to investigate the swirling whirlwind of controversy now engulfing MQA.

See more on our investigation into MQA…

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ISE 2021 ‘Heralds’ Getting the Industry ‘Back to Business,’ But Did They?

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In a press release distributed Wednesday morning, Integrated Systems Events (part of Integrated Systems Europe) announced the conclusion of their annual ISE event, this year in Barcelona, Spain for the first time on June 1-2. It was a hybrid-style event, offering an online or virtual conference as well as an in-person event with exhibitors in the Fira de Barcelona exhibition center. The organizers heralded the event as helping “the industry getting back to business.”

But how successful was the ISE this year? See more…

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US Jobs Post-COVID: A Longer Slog Back Than Expected

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US jobs are taking a while to rebuild post-pandemic

Not long ago, I weighed in on whether I believed that the U.S. economy would “bounce back” after the impact of COVID-19 began to taper off. A vigorous debate had erupted at the time, with multiple market observers offering their opinions as to whether there would be a v-shaped, w-shaped, u-shaped (or another character) recovery. We all wanted a v-shaped recovery, which would mean that the economy would essentially snap back instantly to where it was before the pandemic.

I did not expect a v-shaped recovery because it seemed to me that reopening the economy would be less coordinated than when the entire country basically shut down at the beginning of the pandemic. The latest government data on U.S. job growth shows this to be the case.

See the latest US jobs numbers in our sloppy recovery

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