Audiophile Neuroscience

I think its just about trying to eliminate variables that may confound the outcome.

This captures my feeling about it

No worries, i do completely agree that picking one's battles in life is important but I am in no battle with JRiver or anyone else. OTOH pointing out what I consider to be morally questionable behavior in a vendor is always worthwhile in my book.

I will let others talk about the measurements. If you are finding the passive mode arguably better than the tube preamp mode it is possible that you do not need to add a preamp at all (solid state or other kind) eg if not addressing impedance mismatching or whatever.You would have to try a very good quality active SS preamp to see what if any improvements occur. Subjectively, for me , it has been mainly improvement in 'body' and texture sounding more lifelike, less signature which is counterintuitive when adding something. You must be careful to volume match when doing comparisons.

I think you will only find out by adding the various pre-amps and listening. There will be technical arguments for and against adding a pre-amp (active or passive) vs digital volume control. You can also trial tube vs solid state pre amps. Interesting you describe "natural and organic" sound with tubes out of the system (if understanding correctly). In the past I think many would have found the opposite. I have all solid state now and do find it natural and organic and do not miss the tubes from yesteryear. FWIW I have always preferred active (with gain) preamp in the system over passive or digital volume control. The caveat is it must be a good quality unit that does whatever it does (impedance matching or source output or signal/voltage gain...) without degrading the signal through its power supply etc ie less distortion. Some will say that is not possible, others swear by it. You must decide. It will also depend on implementation and circumstances but thus far I prefer with active preamp.

As, said it's not for me about how much. Principles still apply. making extreme unrealistic examples may be more unreasonable

If so, IMO the "poll" should have been an email to all MC owners, not just to the devoted on their website.

Exactly, the principle is important and shouldn't be tied to the $ quantum no matter how much some may want to rationalize it. Being "out of step" with majority opinion will depend on where (who) you poll. People will leap to the defense of their favorite cable, technology, brand etc. Apart from audio fora I recently saw this in car forums when I recently bought an expensive Landcruiser. There are those that revere them, defending against all comers, and those that insist they are overpriced mediocrity. As said they are expensive which brings me full circle. For me, money to upgrade to MC32 is inconsequential, it is the principle that counts. Like you, I am not convinced otherwise by the reasoning offered so far in defending the move. That said, $30 is significant for some. I am thinking of a now deceased dear friend who was a pensioner that I gifted a copy of MC because he couldn't afford it. The only people this move would likely piss off would be the folks unwilling to upgrade or unable to upgrade and therefore of no immediate financial consequence to JRiver. I just don't like it. IMO there would have been more ethical ways of going about this than a punitive tactic and NOTWITHSTANDING servers are expensive to run or even...there is a threat we will go out of business....or we are good guys with a wonderful product. As said I supported the team for over 10 years with every upgrade until MC27. basically I just got lazy. You mentioned asking for donations as an alternative but I doubt this would be an attractive alternative. Perhaps some kind of patron model. Perhaps B) and C) Or just perhaps a totally honest email along the lines - Hi , we notice you haven't upgraded your MC in over 5 years. We do think you are missing out on some great new features like xyz. We also rely heavily on regular paid updates to run our very expensive servers and wonder if you would consider upgrading at $X dollars. We understand this is optional but it would be a great help to us. Thanks" I just think the marketing machine took a wrong turn here with their current position. Its should be carrot and no stick. Yes, it is a great product

I don't think you were ever in really except for "whining" ...to use your word

I see so you are invoking things you know nothing about.good one😇

You invoke the license agreement. I presume you have something to share

Can you please provide specifics

Just because someone else does it doesn't make it right in my view but at least you know with Microsoft that is their business model for whatever reasons. Also, not continuing active support is different to actively denying access to a resource that already exists.

I played with the title but subsequently explained the facts that I am aware of, so there is no straw man here as I am not misrepresenting or replacing an argument in order to refute it It depends on what you mean by "maintaining support" for old versions eg if MC27 doesn't work in windows 11 then it is reasonable to expect to pay for that support and which is out of their control.. This OTOH appears to be punitively restricting access to their servers by their choice if you don't upgrade. As I understand it for example no longer being able to download cover art or tags etc. These servers are running anyway (I presume) for the current version so it's a matter of denying access to something that already exists in order to recruit a further cash injection from many people (how many?). If their servers have been upgraded and no longer work with older MC versions then there would be at least some justification

So you should be expected to upgrade every 5 years to maintain full functionality of what you already paid for? Does this mean a vendor can just unilaterally decide to charge extra for the same ongoing functionality whenever they want to? $30 may not be "peanuts" to some and there is also a principle here.