MQA is Vaporware

[Rt66indierock]

Now, thát's the proper tone to welcome new members!

 

Why was Michael not being welcomed in a normal way? Unless of course no one is really interested in his opinion because it might differ from yours..? Such a missed chance for an open discussion.. :-((

 

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Vincent,

 

I've met Michael and I think it is best to let him speak for himself. What he posted in this tread is his and his alone.

 

I'm more than happy to listen to anyone's opinion when I talk about audio. If Michael wants to read the original post and comment on it great. I may comment his post but I will not comment on the language. He is doing a great job of making MQA an audiophile format. Number two on my list of the ways for MQA to fail in the United States.

 

Finally you should look at The Enthusiast Network website and see how small the audio part is. Especially look at Audiostream and note the picture.

[plissken]

I wonder if you are going to have the debate of the likes of FLAC vs WAV where the decoder is blamed for the degradation in SQ?

[Rt66indierock]

Fun thread....sorta. I think a good read is Darkos articles on MQA which do a pretty good job of explaining things.

MQA & Tidal - where are we now? | DAR__KO

 

Not sure where so much angst is coming from on the subject of MQA. If the main beef is DRM I'm not sure why (as Mike said) "

Do I believe that record labels should be able to limit piracy? Yes." which I happen to agree with.

 

John Darko's post you cited is excellent for explaining my reason number three why MQA will fail in the United States. MQA is within the margin of error sound quality wise.

 

I'm going to ignore your last sentence until you can show me ten recording artists treated fairly by major labels. There are good reasons why the United States regulates them. You can't trust them. Pirates complaining about piracy.

[crenca]

Finally you should look at The Enthusiast Network website and see how small the audio part is. Especially look at Audiostream and note the picture.

 

LOL! "2017 Audiostream Media Kit" indeed!! The "coincidence" is almost too much to bear...There is an "Audio God" and there is the proof!!...LOL!!!

[Jud]

???

Isn't that illegal?

 

Trading physical CDs for each other, buying them, or selling them used is perfectly legal. Ripping then selling is questionable in the US and AIUI illegal in the U.K. Selling rips is illegal in the US.

[Rt66indierock]

LOL! "2017 Audiostream Media Kit" indeed!! The "coincidence" is almost too much to bear...There is an "Audio God" and there is the proof!!...LOL!!!

 

No "Audio God" exists.

[Samuel T Cogley]

LOL! "2017 Audiostream Media Kit" indeed!! The "coincidence" is almost too much to bear...There is an "Audio God" and there is the proof!!...LOL!!!

 

Below the Meridian Explorer prominently displayed in the "media kit" is something like a mission statement:

 

AUDIOSTREAM.COM exists to educate the consumer on the benefits and advantages of computer-based audio and entertainment.

That sure sounds like the opposite of consumer advocacy to me.

 

And then, this:

 

MALE: 94.7%

8.1% 18-24 / 14.1% 25-34 / 21.0% 35-44 / 23.9% 45-54

AVG. AGE: 42.4

AVG. HHI: $76,269

ANY COLLEGE: 79%

 

This media "network" exists purely for advertisers. I don't see how that can be disputed.

[DM]

mobile is getting cheaper and cheaper, can't we just stream lossless? There isn't that much difference in data volume (it's not like 10:1) with MQA, more like 2:1.

[audiventory]

I wonder if you are going to have the debate of the likes of FLAC vs WAV where the decoder is blamed for the degradation in SQ?

 

FLAC decoder may be checked right now. Because encoder is available for anybody. But discussion continued

[Don Hills]

Thanks. I tried to explain this here too before. Streaming and DRM doesn't make any sense at all. DRM only makes sense in downloads and physical media!

 

Streaming and DRM makes perfect sense to me... For example, content over HDMI is "streaming", and it has DRM in the form of HDCP.

[Vincent1234]

Streaming and DRM makes perfect sense to me... For example, content over HDMI is "streaming", and it has DRM in the form of HDCP.

 

I think you misunderstand this point. Tidal is streaming MQA now. There is no DRM involved there, because it doesn't make sense. MQA is being accused here of having DRM, but until now you can only use it as a Tidal stream.

 

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[Vincent1234]

It seems that qobuz was already streaming high/rez without messing with the files and without trying to create a problem where no one was seeing one (the deblurring of timming errors)..

Have you heard MQA?

Even Darko thought MQA sounded clearly better than the original HD files in his comparison. Or is he now a suspect too, after the 'discussion' here with Michael yesterday? After all, 'you cannot trust the audio press'..

 

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[Vincent1234]

Below the Meridian Explorer prominently displayed in the "media kit" is something like a mission statement:

 

 

That sure sounds like the opposite of consumer advocacy to me.

 

And then, this:

 

 

 

This media "network" exists purely for advertisers. I don't see how that can be disputed.

We already had the discussion that all media need adds to survive. We also had several posts to explain the segregated organization of commercial and editorial activities. You can find a ghost under every bed when you look well enough.

 

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[audiventory]

Have you heard MQA?

Even Darko thought MQA sounded clearly better than the original HD files in his comparison.

 

Does you meant, original file after encoding and decoding sound better than before?

[Richard Dale]

I think you misunderstand this point. Tidal is streaming MQA now. There is no DRM involved there, because it doesn't make sense. MQA is being accused here of having DRM, but until now you can only use it as a Tidal stream.

 

 

It seems perfectly reasonable to me to use cryptography to verify that a music file is exactly the same as the original version released by the record label. If it helps check the provenance of music files, then as far as I'm concerned it is a feature, not a bug. DRM (aka Digital Restrictions Management) is about preventing copying, and not aimed at doing something useful to the end user in verifying provenance.

 

To me it is just the same as using using an md5 checksum to verify that my installed Free Software Debian packages are the ones built by Debian and haven't been interfered with. Yet nobody would accuse Debian of using DRM and as a consequence the content of the packages isn't Free Software.

[Vincent1234]

Does you meant, original file after encoding and decoding sound better than before?

Yes, check Darko's site for details.

 

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[Vincent1234]

It seems perfectly reasonable to me to use cryptography to verify that a music file is exactly the same as the original version released by the record label. If it helps check the provenance of music files, then as far as I'm concerned it is a feature, not a bug. DRM (aka Digital Restrictions Management) is about preventing copying, and not aimed at doing something useful to the end user in verifying provenance.

 

To me it is just the same as using using an md5 checksum to verify that my installed Free Software Debian packages are the ones built by Debian and haven't been interfered with. Yet nobody would accuse Debian of using DRM and as a consequence the content of the packages isn't Free Software.

Good comparison!

 

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[christopher3393]

??? Just clicked that link, highest post # is 21.

 

Michael Lavorgna's response in this thread is post #505.

[Vincent1234]

Yes, check Darko's site for details.

 

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From Darko's site:

 

http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2016/06/an-inconvenient-truth-mqa-sounds-better/

 

"Why then would I want to keep hold of Gaucho’s first cut in MQA?"

 

"Put simply: because it sounds convincingly better than the normal, non-MQA’d 24bit/96kHz file. Lest you thought MQA was just a way to pack, transmit and then unpack hi-res audio via what Bob Stuart calls “audio origami” or “encapsulation”, it isn’t. It’s that. But also more."

 

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[mansr]

I wonder if you are going to have the debate of the likes of FLAC vs WAV where the decoder is blamed for the degradation in SQ?

 

If FLAC is bad, FLAC+MQA has got to be worse, right?

[Vincent1234]

If FLAC is bad, FLAC+MQA has got to be worse, right?

Not according to Darko

 

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[mansr]

Trading physical CDs for each other, buying them, or selling them used is perfectly legal. Ripping then selling is questionable in the US and AIUI illegal in the U.K. Selling rips is illegal in the US.

 

Ripping is illegal in the UK even if you still have the CD. Obviously, it's impossible to enforce, and I don't think anyone actually cares.

[mansr]

It seems perfectly reasonable to me to use cryptography to verify that a music file is exactly the same as the original version released by the record label. If it helps check the provenance of music files, then as far as I'm concerned it is a feature, not a bug. DRM (aka Digital Restrictions Management) is about preventing copying, and not aimed at doing something useful to the end user in verifying provenance.

 

To me it is just the same as using using an md5 checksum to verify that my installed Free Software Debian packages are the ones built by Debian and haven't been interfered with. Yet nobody would accuse Debian of using DRM and as a consequence the content of the packages isn't Free Software.

 

You could easily add a standard cryptographic signature (e.g. PGP) to a FLAC file. The format allows arbitrary fields in the header that will simply be ignored by decoders that don't recognise them.

 

Since you make the analogy with software distribution, let's take that one step further. Many devices, for instance most phones, will refuse to run software that doesn't pass the signature verification, meaning you can't replace the vendor's software with something else. This is something free software advocates strongly object to. Would you like a DAC that will only play music with a valid signature? I can easily see MQA making it a licensing condition that DACs be limited to CD quality if no signature is found. Obviously, they'll have to wait for the format to catch on first.

 

If you think this seems far-fetched, look no further than to HD video. To produce a Blu-ray player, you must agree to limit the picture to DVD resolution if the display connection doesn't have HDCP encryption. MQA could become the music industry's equivalent of HDCP.

[audiventory]

You could easily add a standard cryptographic signature (e.g. PGP) to a FLAC file.

 

Like Mac’s software. Files there do not encrypted. For checking launched system utiliy.

[Vincent1234]

You could easily add a standard cryptographic signature (e.g. PGP) to a FLAC file. The format allows arbitrary fields in the header that will simply be ignored by decoders that don't recognise them.

 

Since you make the analogy with software distribution, let's take that one step further. Many devices, for instance most phones, will refuse to run software that doesn't pass the signature verification, meaning you can't replace the vendor's software with something else. This is something free software advocates strongly object to. Would you like a DAC that will only play music with a valid signature? I can easily see MQA making it a licensing condition that DACs be limited to CD quality if no signature is found. Obviously, they'll have to wait for the format to catch on first.

 

If you think this seems far-fetched, look no further than to HD video. To produce a Blu-ray player, you must agree to limit the picture to DVD resolution if the display connection doesn't have HDCP encryption. MQA could become the music industry's equivalent of HDCP.

 

I think it's pretty far-fetched indeed. First off, it would mean a severe restriction of their current policy to only allow CD quality (for non-MQA users) in a later stage. You shouldn't underestimate the market response if this would be the case. People would get mad and rightfully so. It could simply mean the end of you. As far as I can recall it would be a first in history for any sound format if such a restriction would happen later on and again, it would go completely against the technology trend of the last years. Standards are regularly set right from the off. Changing them later doesn't give you much credit.

Secondly: I have never heard anyone here complain about the fact that you also need to pay now for your dts and Dolby Digital decoders in your Blu-Ray and DVD players. Why is everybody mad about a standard that acts similarly, but at least doesn't FORCE you to buy it..?

 

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