jriver Posted April 8, 2023 Share Posted April 8, 2023 4 hours ago, RichardSF said: Tidal have skin in the game and I think it's a definite possibility. It wouldn't be Tidal itself purchasing MQA, but Tidal's owner Block Inc. Block (Square) paid $300M for Tidal and they can easily purchase MQA. I'd guess that Tidal will drop it within a year. MQA has no benefit to them. Or anyone. Jim Hillegass / JRiver Media Center / jriver.com Link to comment
Popular Post Rt66indierock Posted April 8, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 8, 2023 4 hours ago, RichardSF said: Tidal have skin in the game and I think it's a definite possibility. It wouldn't be Tidal itself purchasing MQA, but Tidal's owner Block Inc. Block (Square) paid $300M for Tidal and they can easily purchase MQA. Buy Tidal Music and you can hangout with JayZ. Buy MQA to hang out with Bob Stuart? botrytis, Indydan, Currawong and 1 other 4 Link to comment
Popular Post Archimago Posted April 8, 2023 Popular Post Share Posted April 8, 2023 1 hour ago, Rt66indierock said: Buy Tidal Music and you can hangout with JayZ. Buy MQA to hang out with Bob Stuart? Not sure I'd want to hang out with either of them... But at least with JayZ it's likely more lively and there's a chance to run into Beyoncé. ;-) sphinxsix, botrytis and Rt66indierock 1 2 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Popular Post sphinxsix Posted April 8, 2023 Popular Post Share Posted April 8, 2023 2 hours ago, Rt66indierock said: Buy Tidal Music and you can hangout with JayZ. Buy MQA to hang out with Bob Stuart? 55 minutes ago, Archimago said: But at least with JayZ it's likely more lively He's also clearly a bit richer, hence a bigger chance he will pay for himself.. Archimago and botrytis 2 Link to comment
bambadoo Posted April 8, 2023 Share Posted April 8, 2023 But he does not fold. BTW: Since my english is not my native language I was not aware of this "urban dictionary". It must suck big time with 3 times (un)folding. sphinxsix 1 Link to comment
sphinxsix Posted April 8, 2023 Share Posted April 8, 2023 20 minutes ago, bambadoo said: But he does not fold. He doesn't indeed, he also seems a bit blurry in comparison with Stuart. Ok, does someone know what I should buy to hang out with Scarlett Johansson? I will pay for snacks. Link to comment
Popular Post KeenObserver Posted April 8, 2023 Popular Post Share Posted April 8, 2023 My God! What is going to happen to the blue light industry? Al M. and bambadoo 2 Boycott Warner Boycott Tidal Boycott Roon Boycott Lenbrook Link to comment
KeenObserver Posted April 8, 2023 Share Posted April 8, 2023 Well, I guess the MQA staff can get jobs folding laundry. Too soon? Boycott Warner Boycott Tidal Boycott Roon Boycott Lenbrook Link to comment
Popular Post FredericV Posted April 8, 2023 Popular Post Share Posted April 8, 2023 3 hours ago, KeenObserver said: Well, I guess the MQA staff can get jobs folding laundry. Too soon? This is how they fold, and enable the blue light ;) botrytis, Archimago and MikeyFresh 3 Designer of the 432 EVO music server and Linux specialist Discoverer of the independent open source sox based mqa playback method with optional one cycle postringing. Link to comment
yamamoto2002 Posted April 9, 2023 Share Posted April 9, 2023 On 4/8/2023 at 12:35 AM, Jud said: They’re really not able to be decoded ‘properly,’ in the sense of being faithful to the original, even with the official decoder, because encoding uses lossy compression and truncation of bits (to substitute bits that tell the decoder what to do); then that’s followed by filtering as part of the decoder that leaves aliasing/images. (I don’t know what the filtering looks like on the ADC side, but if MQA adheres to the same philosophy there it should behave similarly.) So once a file is encoded with the MQA process, some information is irretrievably lost. This is why I think the great pity of MQA while it lasted was not so much the bad productions, but the good carefully produced recordings that could have been yet better. I don't know MQA algorithm. I understand it cannot be lossless compression because 2:1 or 4:1 (I read somewhere they compressed 176.4kHz PCM onto Compact Disc) fixed rate lossless compression is technically not possible, data with maximum Shannon entropy cannot be compressed further so all the lossless compression should be variable bit rate. Still, with some of the high frequency info can be stored and recovered by embedding a hint information onto least significant bit of PCM signal. While without proper decoding, the extra hint info becomes very non-musical noise and signal quality becomes worse than plain linear PCM and it is not good (at least in psychologically, may be it can be real audible noise issue in some corner cases). Similar technology HDCD, which squeezes extra 6dB ? of dynamic range using perceptual unevenness nature of linear PCM, is relatively benign because it is not DRM protected and it can be decoded properly forever. Sunday programmer since 1985 Developer of PlayPcmWin Link to comment
Popular Post Jud Posted April 9, 2023 Popular Post Share Posted April 9, 2023 On 4/7/2023 at 10:25 AM, JoeWhip said: I know some flat earthers who would still deny the Earth is a sphere One of my very favorite Web things is that the official site of the Flat Earth Society used to say "Members from around the globe!" until someone finally realized and deleted it. christopher3393, sphinxsix, robi20064 and 2 others 5 One never knows, do one? - Fats Waller The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. - Einstein Computer, Audirvana -> optical Ethernet to Fitlet3 -> Fibbr Alpha Optical USB -> iFi NEO iDSD DAC -> Apollon Audio 1ET400A Mini (Purifi based) -> Vandersteen 3A Signature. Link to comment
Jud Posted April 9, 2023 Share Posted April 9, 2023 3 hours ago, yamamoto2002 said: Still, with some of the high frequency info can be stored and recovered by embedding a hint information onto least significant bit of PCM signal. I believe it uses the 3 least significant bits of the encoded signal (telling the DAC which of 16 or so filters to use among other things, which is a waste because they are all very similar), so that's 13 bits left for music in Redbook. yamamoto2002 1 One never knows, do one? - Fats Waller The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. - Einstein Computer, Audirvana -> optical Ethernet to Fitlet3 -> Fibbr Alpha Optical USB -> iFi NEO iDSD DAC -> Apollon Audio 1ET400A Mini (Purifi based) -> Vandersteen 3A Signature. Link to comment
Popular Post Iving Posted April 9, 2023 Popular Post Share Posted April 9, 2023 Well, provoked by @firedogand having denied he ever blew a gasket over people criticising BS or supported MQA himself, Amir just closed the "MQA entering into administration" thread on ASR on basis not allowed to talk about why MQA looks like it's going out of business (as in "What more do you want?"). Like elsewhere online, most ASR members react to MQA news with "Good riddance". Seems the pro-MQA crowd are more into authoritarian censorship of others than self-reflection. Archimago, Currawong and MikeyFresh 2 1 Link to comment
sphinxsix Posted April 9, 2023 Share Posted April 9, 2023 4 hours ago, Iving said: Amir just closed the "MQA entering into administration" thread He's an audio scientist, I'm sure he's got reasons to do that - maybe MQA is scientifically more justified than lossless.. 😉 MikeyFresh 1 Link to comment
Popular Post botrytis Posted April 9, 2023 Popular Post Share Posted April 9, 2023 50 minutes ago, sphinxsix said: He's an audio scientist, I'm sure he's got reasons to do that - maybe MQA is scientifically more justified than lossless.. 😉 He is not an audio scientist, he is a glorified computer programmer. yahooboy, Indydan, MikeyFresh and 1 other 3 1 Current: Daphile on an AMD A10-9500 with 16 GB RAM DAC - TEAC UD-501 DAC Pre-amp - Rotel RC-1590 Amplification - Benchmark AHB2 amplifier Speakers - Revel M126Be with 2 REL 7/ti subwoofers Cables - Tara Labs RSC Reference and Blue Jean Cable Balanced Interconnects Link to comment
sphinxsix Posted April 9, 2023 Share Posted April 9, 2023 2 hours ago, botrytis said: He is not an audio scientist, he is a glorified computer programmer. That was ironic. Is this ironic too.? (I never check audio scientists bios on Wiki) botrytis 1 Link to comment
botrytis Posted April 9, 2023 Share Posted April 9, 2023 1 minute ago, sphinxsix said: That was ironic. Is this ironic too.? (I never check audio scientists bios on Wiki) An audio scientist would have studied physics. sphinxsix 1 Current: Daphile on an AMD A10-9500 with 16 GB RAM DAC - TEAC UD-501 DAC Pre-amp - Rotel RC-1590 Amplification - Benchmark AHB2 amplifier Speakers - Revel M126Be with 2 REL 7/ti subwoofers Cables - Tara Labs RSC Reference and Blue Jean Cable Balanced Interconnects Link to comment
Popular Post Archimago Posted April 9, 2023 Popular Post Share Posted April 9, 2023 6 hours ago, Iving said: Well, provoked by @firedogand having denied he ever blew a gasket over people criticising BS or supported MQA himself, Amir just closed the "MQA entering into administration" thread on ASR on basis not allowed to talk about why MQA looks like it's going out of business (as in "What more do you want?"). Like elsewhere online, most ASR members react to MQA news with "Good riddance". Seems the pro-MQA crowd are more into authoritarian censorship of others than self-reflection. I've always been surprised by Amir's somewhat protective attitude to MQA. Very strange and some have suspected it's because he does have ties to the hardware industry (Madrona Digital sells Berkeley DACs that do MQA for example). The limits to our ability to perform critical thinking or at least express it whenever we're indebted to certain associations we've made? Silly to be inconsistent, on the one hand measuring and grading DACs based on THD+N/SINAD but yet not critical of an encoding scheme that does not have the capacity to even use the resolution of any of his top-tier 120dB DACs that he recommends. Granted, I don't know any recording needing that kind of resolution, but I don't see the need to be handcuffed by MQA's bit-depth reduction and lossy character either so MQA must be called out for being qualitatively regressive. It is interesting isn't it seeing the lack of news about MQA over the last few days at places like: Stereophile, The Absolute Sound, HiFi+, Darko Audio (usually happy to post any little press release), Twittering Machines, Positive Feedback... Maybe they'll say something ahead; would be even more fascinating if they say nothing at all because I'm sure posting on this topic would attract eyeballs on the page which is what they're all hoping to get, right? Maybe they're just off on Easter holiday. So far, other than @The Computer Audiophile, the only other audiophile site lead I know who has spoken out about the MQA bankruptcy is Doug Schneider of SoundStage!. Iving, MikeyFresh, Nikhil and 1 other 2 2 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
krass Posted April 9, 2023 Share Posted April 9, 2023 28 minutes ago, botrytis said: An audio scientist would have studied physics. I think you’re a bit harsh on his credentials. He has a degree in Electrical Engineering and an extensive background that includes signal processing/ analysis, codecs etc. That would cover substantial amount of relevant Physics. Audio Scientist suggests a research element… his bio suggests he has also made research contributions in the past, so I wouldn’t dispute the use of that description. You may not like his viewpoint, but he has solid experience & credentials in the audio domain, as well as computing. Grimm Mu-1 > Mola Mola Makua/DAC > Luxman m900u > Vivid Audio Kaya 90 Link to comment
RichardSF Posted April 9, 2023 Share Posted April 9, 2023 What do we love to talk about, more than anything else? MQA, of course! This is the most active thread on the forum by far, with almost 26 thousand replies and over 2.2 million views. Nothing else comes remotely close. Let's aim for a stretch goal of 40K replies and 3M views! MikeyFresh 1 Link to comment
Iving Posted April 9, 2023 Share Posted April 9, 2023 43 minutes ago, Archimago said: It is interesting isn't it seeing the lack of news about MQA over the last few days at places like: Stereophile, The Absolute Sound, HiFi+, Darko Audio (usually happy to post any little press release), Twittering Machines, Positive Feedback... Maybe they'll say something ahead; would be even more fascinating if they say nothing at all because I'm sure posting on this topic would attract eyeballs on the page which is what they're all hoping to get, right? Maybe they're just off on Easter holiday. Yes! I think we'll see them come over one by one rather than publication by publication. Link to comment
Archimago Posted April 9, 2023 Share Posted April 9, 2023 3 minutes ago, RichardSF said: What do we love to talk about, more than anything else? MQA, of course! This is the most active thread on the forum by far, with almost 26 thousand replies and over 2.2 million views. Nothing else comes remotely close. Let's aim for a stretch goal of 40K replies and 3M views! LOL. I think that will all depend on whether anyone coughs up the cash to keep this scheme going during the bankruptcy process! I'm personally OK with retiring from MQA talk and just listen to music (stereo and multichannel of course!) going forward. ;-) If SCL6/MQair is just adaptive bitrate streaming software without nonsensical "woo", then there's probably not much to debate about there. Could be "boring" gentlemen and ladies. botrytis 1 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
botrytis Posted April 9, 2023 Share Posted April 9, 2023 1 hour ago, krass said: I think you’re a bit harsh on his credentials. He has a degree in Electrical Engineering and an extensive background that includes signal processing/ analysis, codecs etc. That would cover substantial amount of relevant Physics. Audio Scientist suggests a research element… his bio suggests he has also made research contributions in the past, so I wouldn’t dispute the use of that description. You may not like his viewpoint, but he has solid experience & credentials in the audio domain, as well as computing. He was the gent pushing MS to be more closed system with their audio codec. The old phrase, what has he done lately. Rt66indierock 1 Current: Daphile on an AMD A10-9500 with 16 GB RAM DAC - TEAC UD-501 DAC Pre-amp - Rotel RC-1590 Amplification - Benchmark AHB2 amplifier Speakers - Revel M126Be with 2 REL 7/ti subwoofers Cables - Tara Labs RSC Reference and Blue Jean Cable Balanced Interconnects Link to comment
Popular Post bogi Posted April 9, 2023 Popular Post Share Posted April 9, 2023 3 hours ago, Archimago said: the only other audiophile site lead I know who has spoken out about the MQA bankruptcy ... I don't see it so. Sites clearly related in some commercial way to MQA business closed the relevant threads. Other audio related forums (I'm not sure the term 'audiophile' is well defined) continue discussion. And further audio related forums simply did not discuss much MQA in the past so they don't live with the current news. What I liked most on superbestaudiofriends discussion is this sentence: "Roon, for example, wasted thousands of development hours that could be spent on improving their product. " Then I looked at audioasylum. What I found most interesting is post from Krav Maga https://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/vt.mpl?f=critics&m=98991) Quote Did you want all digital music to be MQA encoded? That was MQA's goal. As a reminder of what the stakes were regarding the MQA audio format, let me remind you what the company's ambitions for MQA are as stated by MQA's Spencer Chrislu (SC) to Jim Austin (JCA) on Stereophile.com. And I quote: "JCA: What are the company's ambitions for MQA? Do you hope/expect that all digital music will someday be MQA encoded? SC: Well, that's the goal!" (Link below) https://www.stereophile.com/content/spencer-chrislu-master-q That's the point Amir never reflected, never recognized, always befog. Amir wrote yesterday: "I see no fear of MQA taking over the world and predicted that Apple and Amazon's of the world would never pay a fee to use it. Amazon has since come out with high-res service with no MQA proving that MQA had no leverage over them, or the the labels." Best reaction to that was: "I resent anyone who tries to steal from me, even if they have no chance of success." Then I looked at stevehoffman but didn't have time to read it. They have quite long MQA thread too, discussion is ongoing like here. They have about 80 posts on the topic since Friday. But I agree with you about audio portals (not forums) you listed. We will see after Easter holiday. Iving, DuckToller, Archimago and 1 other 3 1 i7 11850H + RTX A2000 Win11 HQPlayer ► Topping HS02 ► 2x iFi iSilencer ► SMSL D300 ► DIY headamp DHA1 ► HiFiMan HE-500 Link to comment
skikirkwood Posted April 9, 2023 Share Posted April 9, 2023 With the demise of MQA it's worth looking back at some of the early reactions from audiophile pundits. In a short post on The Absolute Sound in 2016 Robert Harley talks about this "...game changer not only for audiophiles, but for the entire music and audio industries" and linked to this YouTube video of early reactions to people listening to MQA. It's pretty hysterical. Link to comment
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