Audio Video News

The music-loving public may be finally coming back to the notion that sound quality matters after years of putting convenience over quality and accepting whatever’s offered, including plenty of bad sounding MP3 files.

Qualcomm’s just-released “State of Play” report on consumer audio, found that 84% of consumers are concerned about compromised sound quality. More specifically, more than half (54%) say they recognize that sound quality varies across their devices and two-thirds believe they can discern the difference in sound quality between technologies. Not surprisingly, sound quality is particularly important to nine out of 10 headphone shoppers.

Asked to rate sound quality among different devices, survey respondents gave the highest ratings to wired speakers and headphones (18% each) and the lowest to wireless headphones and speakers (5 and 3%, respectively). Qualcomm said the research shows that 58% of consumers want to use Bluetooth for music listening but do not think sound quality is good enough, while only 23% are “very satisfied” with the sound quality of wireless headphones.

Other key findings of survey include:
• 81% of consumers listen to music on their smartphone, making it the most popular platform for music consumption
• 33% cite streaming as the preferred way to listen to music
• 83% consider streaming to be the normal way to listen to music—compared with 62% in 2014
• 89% say sound quality is important when streaming music, with 78% drawn to wireless audio devices that support HD
• 78% say compatibility with other brands is important and expect all music devices to work together

When asked which format they listen to most often, the breakdown in order of popularity was:
• MP3 (40%)
• Streaming services (33%)
• Radio, analog, digital, or streamed (17%)
• CD (9%)
• Vinyl (1%)

The survey is based on interviews with 3,600 consumers in five countries who own a smartphone and identified themselves as being music lovers or listeners.

For more information, visit qualcomm.com.