MQA is Vaporware

[The Computer Audiophile]

35 minutes ago, Fx Studio said:

 

All the above distraction posts because none of you, when challenged, can provide any real proof of the claims you keep making against MQA. So far some sketchy spectrum graphs + Golden Sounds heavily flawed "test".  

 

Its the old "Just believe me Bro". 

 

What a bunch of jokers 🤡

 

Ok, you're about a millimeter from being banned for trolling. 

[kumakuma]

6 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

Ok, you're about a millimeter from being banned for trolling. 

 

Your tolerance for BS is amazing!

[KeenObserver]

Fx Studio's promotion of MQA tells you everything you need to know about MQA.

[manisandher]

1 hour ago, Fx Studio said:

What a bunch of jokers 🤡

 

Uh, no. We established a while ago that YOU were the joker here.

 

I did an analysis of MQA a while ago (and posted my results here). The MQA decoder does something really weird in the audio band (let alone the massive imaging due to the MQA renderer's soft anti-imaging filters).

 

My advice to anyone looking into MQA - steer well clear.

 

Mani.

[The Computer Audiophile]

8 minutes ago, KeenObserver said:

Fx Studio's promotion of MQA tells you everything you need to know about MQA.

I don’t really care if he loves it and promotes it. Totally fine with me. It’s everything else he says that’s a bridge too far for me. 

[Archimago]

1 hour ago, kumakuma said:

Your tolerance for BS is amazing!

 

I think it is fascinating watching how individuals like Fx Studio operate. It speaks about the lack of insight and also intellect, witnessed in the way the thoughts come out (or simply do not come out).

 

The almost cult-like hanging on to the words of others; faith that the Lenbrook engineers (it used to be the almighty BS - Bob Stuart) will come and "put to rest" our supposed false claims. It's a lot like how PV operates where there is no critical thinking about the obvious fallacies of what MQA and their backers want us to believe (I'm not even sure they believe what they claim!).

 

The only thing worse IMO are those who lack the courage to just admit that they're wrong, and have been wrong since 2014. When as we can all see plainly that their euphoric claims, declarations of a new world streaming order, WTF moments are but fantasies and their words are meaningless for consumers; at best fodder for ongoing arguments like what we're witnessing here and the entertainment of passionate hobbyists.

 

After 9 years, MQA has gained no traction in the streaming world, or physical world of the very sad "MQA-CD". The parent MQA Ltd. has gone bankrupt. TIDAL is phasing it out and themselves struggling for market share and profits. The reputation of writers in the audiophile magazines have IMO not improved in any way (that might be a gross understatement!). And all we're seeing in the last few days is IMO one last kick at the MQA codec hype to save face, for MQA Ltd. to claim something positive (yippie, they sold the IP!) despite basically losing the money of their investors and probably got "pennies on the dollar" from Lenbrook. This is the wreckage they leave behind for those who believed mere hype.

 

MQA fans like Fx Studio and PV and magazine writers... Go ahead and enjoy the news! Collect whatever few MQA files you might have and enjoy them forever. I think educated consumers who have spent even a few moments to read what's going on will realize that the MQA codec was always going to be a nothing in the face of technological progress (whether SCL6 ends up being a something remains to be seen in the hands of Lenbrook). The history of failures, and disappointments have proven that to be the case.

 

As I've said before, I think this is a very interesting chapter in the history of audiophilia - our tiny part in the universe of hobbies and other passions... In the life and evolution of this hobby, I think it will prove to be a good exercise in finding truth and expressing honesty especially when it comes to the claims of the "High End" and faith in the media outlets that serve them.

[MikeyFresh]

11 hours ago, Fx Studio said:

I think I should know what a proper "analyzer test" should look like. 

 

PA ribbons and a light show then?

[Skirmash]

7 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I don’t really care if he loves it and promotes it. Totally fine with me. It’s everything else he says that’s a bridge too far for me. 

 

Conflating positive personal experience with evidence is one thing. Ignoring the existing evidence base while simultaneously claiming no evidence has been presented is another altogether. Some people will go to great lengths to protect their ego (including some well known audio journalists).

 

It is abundantly clear that FX has no intention of involvement in an intelligent dialogue. 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, Skirmash said:

It is abundantly clear that FX has no intention of involvement in an intelligent dialogue. 

Agree. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, MikeyFresh said:

 

PA ribbons and a light show then?

I think I saw an AES paper about that 🙃

[Iving]

Here's just a point of view.

 

I'm British and 100% anti-MQA. Have participated in this thread and elsewhere on the www consistent with that.

 

It's bleeding obvious that FxStudio is getting far, far, far more personal stick and flak than he is dishing out. I don't see him being abusive at a level that should get anybody banned.

 

Presenting relatively weak arguments, or being repetitive, or refusing to play by somebody else's rules, or refusing to move towards someone else's chosen battleground - or insisting on a contrary burden of proof. None of these things - especially when you are in a minority of 1 against the mob - constitute "trolling" or warrant banning on a public Forum.

 

The real problem with this Forum is that its owner does not participate as a peer. He uses a power gradient with himself as sole moderator to skew discussions and deflect points of view inconsistent with his vision of the Forum's future. The galling thing about this is that he pretends otherwise.

 

Many interesting and capable members have been banned or have left. Not all of them deserved severance.

 

Audiophile Style has become an echo chamber frequented by "comfortable" people with a view of enjoying music, enhanced by good gear, that is pretty significantly less than 360 degrees. 

 

So be it then.

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 minutes ago, Iving said:

The real problem with this Forum is that its owner does not participate as a peer. He uses a power gradient with himself as sole moderator to skew discussions and deflect points of view inconsistent with his vision of the Forum's future. The galling thing about this is that he pretends otherwise.

 

Please provide evidence. If it's just the way you feel, that's totally OK, but should be stated that way. feelings are valid. Evidence is another thing completely. 

 

 

4 minutes ago, Iving said:

Presenting relatively weak arguments, or being repetitive, or refusing to play by somebody else's rules, or refusing to move towards someone else's chosen battleground - or insisting on a contrary burden of proof. None of these things - especially when you are in a minority of 1 against the mob - constitute "trolling" or warrant banning on a public Forum.

 

I'm totally cool with FX presenting any argument or loving anything. But, his constant PeeWee Herman style seems to be trolling only to get a rise out of people. if someone is here only to get a rise out of people, that's not OK. His views about MQA don't matter to me at all. 

[Jud]

1 hour ago, Fx Studio said:

 

All the above distraction posts because none of you, when challenged, can provide any real proof of the claims you keep making against MQA. So far some sketchy spectrum graphs + Golden Sounds heavily flawed "test".  

 

Its the old "Just believe me Bro". 

 

What a bunch of jokers 🤡

 

There is an extensive multi-volume set of commentaries on the Old Testament called the Talmud, which is considered to comprise part of Jewish religious law. A very famous portion of the Talmud concerns Rabbi Hillel, a great sage who lived mostly in the first century BCE.

 

It seems there was a skeptic who mockingly challenged Hillel to teach him the Torah while standing on one foot. Hillel accepts the challenge, and says "Do not unto your neighbor that which is hateful to you. All else is commentary." (This is one of the earlier recitations of the Golden Rule, a century before the New Testament.)

 

But there is one more thing Hillel said that is often left out of the story. According to the Talmud, Hillel's next sentence was "Now go and learn it!" You see, Hillel was wise enough to know that a lazy skeptic (aka, a troll) could simply choose to mock or ignore his wisdom. In order to understand what Hillel had said, the skeptic would have to work at it - to "go and learn it!"

 

Or to put it simply, the only person capable of really educating you is yourself.

 

Given your past record on this thread, no one else is going to waste the time and work to spoon feed you the various items we've told you about, like conjugate variables in Fourier analysis or the logic analyzer tests performed on the MQA filters. The only effective way for you to know about, understand and trust the correctness of these things is to do the work of finding them for yourself.

 

Now go and learn it!

[Archimago]

2 hours ago, Iving said:

...

It's bleeding obvious that FxStudio is getting far, far, far more personal stick and flak than he is dishing out. I don't see him being abusive at a level that should get anybody banned.

 

Is that true? Remember that he came here with a video that supposedly proved MQA sounded way better than lossless, that others had not done testing properly because of equipment or conditions. That it was obvious to hear MQA's superiority. I think it was clear that the video was improperly done, not to mention that the equipment he used was unlikely to show a benefit anyways. He either blatantly tried to create a fraudulent video or was incompetent yet still holds on to his assertions (see the link above).

 

And now he demands proof from everyone else. Doesn't provide any new information for us to consider. For weeks now (at least since Sept 1).

 

How are forum participants or Chris supposed to respond to this? Does patience at some point not run dry?

 

2 hours ago, Iving said:

...

 

The real problem with this Forum is that its owner does not participate as a peer. He uses a power gradient with himself as sole moderator to skew discussions and deflect points of view inconsistent with his vision of the Forum's future. The galling thing about this is that he pretends otherwise.

 

Many interesting and capable members have been banned or have left. Not all of them deserved severance.

 

Audiophile Style has become an echo chamber frequented by "comfortable" people with a view of enjoying music, enhanced by good gear, that is pretty significantly less than 360 degrees. 

 

So be it then.

 

I think you're out of line with the claims above @Iving.

 

There is of course a power gradient here - it's a private web site and forum after all. Chris has the right to invite or disinvite anyone. He has the right to shut the thread down at any point and none of us should disrespect that; it's his time and work. There are plenty of other forums to visit and chat about MQA, pros and cons, civil or unruly!

 

What I have observed is:

1. If you go on other forums that openly consider evidence and allow people to respond, I think you will find a preponderance of anti-MQA sentiment and skepticism. This includes for example Stereophile and their recent post on Lenbrook's acquisition among the (currently) 61 comments. Are the comments here directed at Fx Studio any different than some of the jabs and unhappiness?

 

2. The responses are not out of line with what I said above about how Fx Studio presented himself and what he wanted to show us. Imagine I went to a home theater website/forum where guys are interested in 4K, 8K, HDR video. And I claim to show (inaccurately) using a YouTube video something that objectively is barely 1080P and in SDR (standard dynamic range) to be better than their 4K/Dolby Vision content! And I refuse to study the technologies and bring up specific items I wanted to dispute (despite multiple posts from others with links). And I keep coming over and over again with nothing further in hand to show... Would I continue to expect to be given the red carpet or invited to continue participating by the others or the host? This is what we have going on... Chris (and others) have shown restraint by actually being relatively civil and not done anything to this point other than tell the person maybe he's not all that welcomed unless he has more to bring to the table!

 

3. What other capable members have been banned who have voiced their support of MQA, maintained civil dialogue, engaged in fair discussions?! I can't say I know the full history of this thread but I've seen trolls come and go (PV was around here at one point, right?), disrespectful people get expelled (like Lavorgna). Doesn't seem unfair.

[bambadoo]

1 hour ago, Archimago said:

(PV was around here at one point, right?)

I think he was here several times schillin with different nicknames. 

[Currawong]

6 hours ago, Iving said:

Many interesting and capable members have been banned or have left. Not all of them deserved severance.

 

Audiophile Style has become an echo chamber frequented by "comfortable" people with a view of enjoying music, enhanced by good gear, that is pretty significantly less than 360 degrees.

Being banned and choosing to leave are separate things. "Deserve" doesn't factor into it if they leave of their own accord.  What is more, if someone, no matter how capable in their field of expertise, decides to be repeatedly abusive, their expertise does not give them a free pass to abuse others.

I don't know about the "echo chamber" thing, unless your entire post has to do with the Objective-Fi forum and people like mansr who felt that they were "being rounded up and placed in special fenced-off pen". Unfortunately, many people whose subjective preference for objective data (that's what it is, really) insist that their perspective be the only one that can be discussed, with alternate ideas and experiences shut out. It ends up being more a religious objection (scientism) than a rational one, ultimately. Given that the scientific method is fundamentally based upon taking experiences and methodically analysing them to discover the reasons behind them, the common attempt by "objectivists" to shut down the discussion of "subjective" experiences is actually self-defeating. Likewise the reverse.

 

We see this hypocrisy in society daily, with people calling for freedom for their ideas, yet the same people objecting and trying to shut down criticism of anyone or anything that disagrees with them. I don't believe that Chris has done anything like this on the forum. It has always been, not just here, but elsewhere, the inability of people to be reasonable and discuss ideas that has necessitated changes.

 

Specific to this thread and the MQA discussion, nobody has any objection to liking the sound from an MQA set-up. I have tried it myself, and I get how it can sound seemingly more enjoyable. The objections have been to the proven false and contradictory claims, as well as the attempt by MQA to take over the hi-fi industry with a DRM scheme based upon those claims, that would force everyone to pay a fee to get access to what has been shown to be most often reduced-quality* high-res music. 

 

*Referring here to the majority of MQA music having been produced by poor-quality batch processing.

[Fx Studio]

9 hours ago, manisandher said:

 

Uh, no. We established a while ago that YOU were the joker here.

 

I did an analysis of MQA a while ago (and posted my results here). The MQA decoder does something really weird in the audio band (let alone the massive imaging due to the MQA renderer's soft anti-imaging filters).

 

My advice to anyone looking into MQA - steer well clear.

 

Mani.

 

That's the spectrum analysis that everyone refers to - so I have some questions for the originator.

 

1) What was the analyser equipment/ make model that you used to make the spectrum analysis graphs - because that's not mentioned.

2) What was the range/ make models of equipment that you performed the tests on. 

3) How many tests were conducted and on how many different pieces of equipment.

4) What were the parameters of the tests.

5) How were the tests conducted.

6) Did you make checks that the source material was representative of the best quality available for each format.

 

These are examples of the kind of information I would have expected to have been provided in a professionally written test report that expects to be taken as credible.

 

 

 

 

 

[Racerxnet]

The best quality recording for each format has nothing to do with leaky filters. Those filters will show the same results on any DAC as they are part of the MQA package. Anyone can correct me if wrong. 

[MikeyFresh]

1 hour ago, Fx Studio said:

a professionally written test report

 

Have you provided any professionally written test reports that back your fantastic claims of MQA's time smear correction capability (hint: thats a yes/no question)?

If yes, exactly whose tests were you reporting on?

 

Related to the above, how many professionally written test reports have MQA ever provided that back up or illustrate their various marketing claims, including the above mentioned correction of so-called time smear?

 

Besides MQA themselves, how many professionally written test reports backing the claim of time smear correction have been produced by 3rd parties? Cite examples please.

[Fx Studio]

5 minutes ago, MikeyFresh said:

 

Have you provided any professionally written test reports that back your fantastic claims of MQA's time smear correction capability (hint: thats a yes/no question)?

If yes, exactly whose tests were you reporting on?

 

Related to the above, how many professionally written test reports have MQA ever provided that back up or illustrate their various marketing claims, including the above mentioned correction of so-called time smear?

 

Besides MQA themselves, how many professionally written test reports backing the claim of time smear correction have been produced by 3rd parties? Cite examples please.

 

Its not me who is disputing the manufacturers claims - YOU are.

 

There claims cross-match mine and many others experiences.

 

MQA has clearly spent millions on R&D, and no doubt has all the equipment and experienced engineers required to test there own products, as well as to support implementation by third party manufacturers.

 

Therefore, as the accusers its up to you to back those claims up - which collectively you seemed to have failed to do.

 

 

[MikeyFresh]

22 minutes ago, Fx Studio said:

 

Its not me who is disputing the manufacturers claims - YOU are.

 

There claims cross-match mine and many others experiences.

 

MQA has clearly spent millions on R&D, and no doubt has all the equipment and experienced engineers required to test there own products, as well as to support implementation by third party manufacturers.

 

Therefore, as the accusers its up to you to back those claims up - which collectively you seemed to have failed to do.

 

 

 

Translation: the answer to that first yes/no question I asked is a "no", you've not produced any professionally written test reports despite the expectation and demand for such in your previous post in which you listed out 6 different necessary pieces of information when no one owes you anything.

 

In my second question I asked how many professionally written test reports (the kind you are demanding) had MQA ever published backing their claims of time smear correction, but since you don't know the answer to that question you've instead replied with conjecture about R&D budgets and what that might mean in terms of equipment and MQA engineers testing their own product. Your pathetic reply there skirts the obvious question of why that testing has not been presented in the professionally written test reports you've demanded, and made available for 3rd party and peer review scrutiny. Surely if time smear correction were a real thing, MQA would show the testing that proves it and probably license it to various 3rd parties including the ADC makers, right?

 

34 minutes ago, Fx Studio said:

Therefore, as the accusers its up to you to back those claims up - which collectively you seemed to have failed to do.

 

I'll relieve you from having to answer my 3rd question since you failed to answer the first two, I'm going to presume based on your track record here that it would have been 3 for 3 with pathetic non-answers, and I'll not feed your trolling here again at all. You've been exposed as a know nothing fool that is here only to troll us and nothing else.

 

Again, we all laughed pretty hard at your PA ribbon EDM light show "test" captured to YT video, really quite amusing, and told us pretty much all we needed to know right then.

[Jud]

2 hours ago, Fx Studio said:

 

That's the spectrum analysis that everyone refers to - so I have some questions for the originator.

 

1) What was the analyser equipment/ make model that you used to make the spectrum analysis graphs - because that's not mentioned.

2) What was the range/ make models of equipment that you performed the tests on. 

3) How many tests were conducted and on how many different pieces of equipment.

4) What were the parameters of the tests.

5) How were the tests conducted.

6) Did you make checks that the source material was representative of the best quality available for each format.

 

These are examples of the kind of information I would have expected to have been provided in a professionally written test report that expects to be taken as credible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You're still not getting it. It's not a spectrum analysis, it's decoding the exact parameters of the filters the DAC is choosing. When you know what the filtering is, you know what the results are for any given input.

 

Since we know that all 17 filters are very short filters that hardly suppress ultrasonics at all, we know that they can't correct "time smearing" (Gibbs effect), which in digital audio occurs in the ultrasonic range.

 

So you can go measure the frequency spectra of hundreds of MQA tracks output by your DAC to confirm this, but all it's going to tell you is yes, 2+2 does equal 4.

 

Are you understanding now? We know exactly what the MQA filter parameters are, and therefore exactly what they will do to a given signal, so measuring output spectra is utterly unnecessary and redundant.

[Fx Studio]

1 hour ago, MikeyFresh said:

In my second question I asked how many professionally written test reports (the kind you are demanding) had MQA ever published backing their claims of time smear correction, but since you don't know the answer to that question you've instead replied with conjecture about R&D budgets and what that might mean in terms of equipment and MQA engineers testing their own product. Your pathetic reply there skirts the obvious question of why that testing has not been presented in the professionally written test reports you've demanded, and made available for 3rd party and peer review scrutiny. Surely if time smear correction were a real thing, MQA would show the testing that proves it and probably license it to various 3rd parties including the ADC makers, right?

 

 

MQA as an IP only company may have have very good reason not to make sensitive data on there technology available. 

And if they had, they may have ended up losing all the value left in the company.

 

Could they have been a bit more transparent about some of the processes? - yes possibly. 

It was a bit much having to dig back to 2016 screen grabs to find that the plugin for the DAW did actually exist.

 

But that still doesn't excuse the fact that quite serious business/ technological allegations have been levied against them, with no commensurate professional level of technical support to back them up.

 

If they had decided to pursue a libel case then you would have lost for sure based on the current data this collective group has produced so far.

 

 

[Fx Studio]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

Since we know that all 17 filters are very short filters that hardly suppress ultrasonics at all, we know that they can't correct "time smearing" (Gibbs effect), which in digital audio occurs in the ultrasonic range.

 

 

Again you are making sweeping statements with no real evidence to back it up.

 

The fact that you say "time Smearing correction" can't work when it can be heard audibly to work, collaborating what the manufacturer has stated, shows that there must be more going on here than you are able to understand or measure for.
 

[loop7]

After a few days of soul searching, I've decided to keep the Bluesound Node and two Bluesound speakers in the house. No boycott yet but if Lenbrook forces ridiculous changes to products, I'll likely be out.