MQA is Vaporware

[Miska]

8 hours ago, Jud said:

I would not be certain record companies make more by selling downloads, although it is not unlikely.  There has been a long time to attain cost efficiencies with the distribution system for discs, not so long for downloads.  (I recall reading an analysis of the music business’s 2015 or 2016 figures that showed how much more the industry made per unit from discs vs. the equivalent amount - a dozen or so - downloads.  That of course is dealing with companies like Apple, which isn’t a factor in DSD downloads.)

 

CD pressings are much cheaper too than SACD. Because SACDs can be manufactured only at very few locations controlled by Sony.

 

Downloads allow record companies to sell much more directly to the end customers, without long chains of companies each adding 30% profit margin on top of the previous step...

 

[Miska]

8 hours ago, darkmass said:

Given the DVD-A specification of 9.6 megabits per second total data access rate from the disc, some form of compression is needed to be able to provide 96k/24 on all six of the "5.1" channels DVD-A can contain.  The compression scheme certainly didn't have to be MLP, it could have been anything, but I'll let you enumerate how many lossless audio compression schemes were readily available at the time of DVD-A initial release.  (A great compression scheme, FLAC, came along later of course.)

 

 

 

DVD forum could have required ISO, ATSC or MPEG standardization of the codec instead of allowing single vendor proprietary lock-in. AC-3 aka DD aka ATSC A/52 being an example.

 

Ripping the uncompressed PCM streams, or the MPEG encoded streams from DVD-A are much simpler affair.

 

DVD-A entered market in 2000. Shorten was released 1993, WavPack was released 1998, Monkey's Audio lossless was released 2000, FLAC was released 2001.

 

If someone really wants to have two-layer audio with reduced quality and lossless hires combined, for some strange reason, my proposal would be to use MPEG-4 SLS. At least that's a standard. (WavPack has also hybrid two-quality mode)

 

Quote

As far as ripping MLP encoded multichannel audio from old DVD-A discs, I suspect no one will see much development of new DVD-A ripping strategies from what could be considered the "extinct" DVD-A format.  However, the fairly well known DVD Audio Extractor (http://www.dvdae.com/), is on the market and does indeed decode MLP.

 

Even if a format is "extinct" the content is not. So if I ever purchase content I want to have the freedom to losslessly transcode it to a new container without having to purchase the same content over and over again. Standard FLAC, ALAC and such allow this. MQA is breaking this possibility, on purpose. Since I use primarily Linux, I won't be able to use that software.

 

Luckily I never got many DVD-A discs. I've got bunch of movies as HD-DVD discs though and now I don't anymore have capability to watch those and have no means to buy newly manufactured hardware to do that. But I'm not going to buy those movies again in some other format...

 

If the single vendor companies, like MQA, go extinct, possibility to purchase new devices with MQA decoding capability will likely also cease. And it will be very hard to keep the MQA encoded content usable.

 

[mcgillroy]

11 hours ago, Bob Stern said:

 

Regardless of Warner's present intention, Meridian's streaming format is specifically designed to implement DRM copy protection.  The US counterpart of their 2013 patent application is at:

https://www.google.com/patents/US20160005411

 

A few key points from the patent application:

 

Streamed music played without decoding will have a "degraded quality" that "can be controlled over a wide range from an imperceptible impairment to a significant impairment" [0016].  The exemplary degradation technique results in audio quality similar to MP3 [0108].  The degraded version of the streamed music should be of sufficiently poor quality that theft is of no concern [0112].

 

The customer's decoder can reverse the degradation dependent on an user-encrypted song key (claims 4 and 11–13, [0116]–[0117]).  The song key is encrypted so that it can be unlocked only with a customer's personal user key, and can also require a secret device key and/or "tracing information" (claims 5–10, [0137]–[0140]).

 

Does MQA fall under this patent? Is there any indication in the MQA documents that they regard MQA as an implementation or partial implementation of this patent?

[mcgillroy]

12 hours ago, Michael Lavorgna said:

 

I'm not in the habit of putting much stock in someone who does not use his/her real name. Call me old fashioned.

 

This is another trope MQA has brought to the forefront and feasts on: anonymous criticism = bad!

 

Welcome to my world Micheal, I get anonymous criticism every day, profound criticism that sometimes is stupid, sometimes verges on the personal assault, sometimes is quite insightful or even entertaining.

 

It's called peer-review. It's what science and progress is based upon.

 

It's what what makes my research better, it helps to understand the world and learn viewpoints I didn't consider or see or were masked by my biases.

 

It's staggering to see the difference in quality between the anonymous research and comments on MQA done by people like Archimago, as well as Soxr and Mansr before they revealed their real names, versus anything the audiophile press has done. Anything.

 

You guys have been humbled. And all you can come up with is the lame argument of anonymity. You are out of your depth and you can write Bob a nice thank you letter for having exposed that like nobody before.

 

Or (to cite myself from an older post) you can do your job "and publish a mere synopsis of the debate so far. Or an interview with one of the many reputable & vocal critics of the format. Or god beware ask a lawyer or IP-scholar able to provide a view-point on the DRM and licensing-regime inherent to MQA? Perhaps hear a smaller music-labels opinion what they think about MQA strengthening majors control over distribution?!" 

 

You could simply call your next colleges physics or electrical engineering professor and ask him/her about opinions on MQAs claims on signal theory.

 

Any student of Digital Signal Processing 101 can pick apart the basic claims made by Stuart.

 

In fact this would be an idea for finals next semester

 

Anonymity is not the problem. Compliance by the audiophile press is. Compliance between MQA having to hide something and the audiophile press constantly fighting for their significance in the age of the internet-fora. For both devaluing anybody who speaks anonymous regardless of the quality of their insights is beneficial.

[Michael Lavorgna]

10 hours ago, Charles Hansen said:

 

Hi Michael,

 

I have to apologize as there were people at Ayre that either never passed on an invitation to give critiques of MQA to AudioStream to me or else actively blocked them. Suffice to say that they are no longer employed at Ayre.

 

As far as credentials, I think it is one reason that print magazines are in difficulty these days. It used to be that the barriers to entry were such that a publisher would only hire credible people. The internet lowered these barriers dramatically. Now the question seems to be more of "whose opinion is being influenced by what?"

 

Of all the internet audio webzines, I personally think only a handful (yours being one of them) has more experience/credibility than many of the more knowledgeable/experienced posters on random forums. The advantage (and disadvantage) of random forum is is that usually the posters have no particular agenda nor any particular constraints. On the other hand, random forums are also quite susceptible to attacks by paid "astro-turfers" - something I've heard a lot of rumors about regarding MQA and seems to me the most logical explanation for many pro-MQA posts.

 

Hope this helps,

Charles Hansen

 

The email exchanges I'm referring to were with you, Charley, and other people. I may still have them and if you'd like me to forward them to you.

[Michael Lavorgna]

11 hours ago, Charles Hansen said:

 

Hi Michael,

 

I disagree on this one. I think one of the main jobs of a journalist is to join the dots and speculate. And it doesn't take much to so so.  Check out this post from "Gearslutz", the forum for people in the "pro" audio industry:

 

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/12732261-post17.html

 

As to people speculating as to why Sony is investing tens of millions of dollars to install new LP pressing plants in Japan.

 

Thanks,

Charley

 

Hi Charley,

 

If I found a compelling argument, I would report on it. So far all I've got is:

 

1. supposed character deficiencies ("he's a liar')

2. there's DRM that will ruin music for everyone. No one has yet to explain how DRM will effect people who stream MQA which is the only way MQA will gain traction because no one, outside of audiophiles, downloads high-rez. Today you can download every MQA title (as far as I know) in regular old high-rez from the usual places as well as CD-quality, etc. So every conversation about how MQA will ruin music are speculative.

3. forum speculation. This includes the gearslutz post you linked to. I'm not downplaying the important role forums *can have* I'm saying that the idea that people on forums *know the truth* about MQA (see 1 and 2) and *no one else in the entire world does* strikes me as a fantasy. Do you know how many people are involved in MQA? I'm talking about outside MQA. I don't but it's more than a few. If 1 and 2 are in fact true, you are saying that not one single person who has worked with MQA in any capacity has recognized what you guys have because they are a) not knowledgeable enough, b) have been bought off, or c) too afraid to tell the truth.

 

The fact of the matter is *The "dots" do not connect, for me* (I frankly find #1 ridiculous and #2 to be too conspiratorial for me to buy into). On Sony's investment in pressing plants, we all know that LP sales have been rising steadily for years and that existing pressing plants are at overcapacity. That's why old presses are being put to use by existing plants and why new plants are opening (one just opening in NJ!). While I'm not up on all of the hard numbers, that's the other Michael's ballpark, the demand for vinyl provides a compelling case as to why Sony would invest in pressing LPs. imo, of course.

 

So a few things can happen in terms of a response, and I've seen them all before. I'm either a) not knowledgeable enough, b) have been bought off, or c) too afraid to tell the truth. I've just added d) the dots do not connect, for me.

 

Cheers,

Michael

 

[mansr]

1 hour ago, mcgillroy said:

It's staggering to see the difference in quality between the anonymous research and comments on MQA done by people like Archimago, as well as Soxr and Mansr before they revealed their real names, versus anything the audiophile press has done. Anything.

FWIW, I've never tried to hide my real name. All anyone ever had to do was ask, assuming they failed to figure it out.

[Michael Lavorgna]

2 hours ago, mcgillroy said:

 

This is another trope MQA has brought to the forefront and feasts on: anonymous criticism = bad!

 

Welcome to my world Micheal, I get anonymous criticism every day, profound criticism that sometimes is stupid, sometimes verges on the personal assault, sometimes is quite insightful or even entertaining.

 

It's called peer-review. It's what science and progress is based upon.

 

It's what what makes my research better, it helps to understand the world and learn viewpoints I didn't consider or see or were masked by my biases.

 

It's staggering to see the difference in quality between the anonymous research and comments on MQA done by people like Archimago, as well as Soxr and Mansr before they revealed their real names, versus anything the audiophile press has done. Anything.

 

You guys have been humbled. And all you can come up with is the lame argument of anonymity. You are out of your depth and you can write Bob a nice thank you letter for having exposed that like nobody before.

 

Or (to cite myself from an older post) you can do your job "and publish a mere synopsis of the debate so far. Or an interview with one of the many reputable & vocal critics of the format. Or god beware ask a lawyer or IP-scholar able to provide a view-point on the DRM and licensing-regime inherent to MQA? Perhaps hear a smaller music-labels opinion what they think about MQA strengthening majors control over distribution?!" 

 

You could simply call your next colleges physics or electrical engineering professor and ask him/her about opinions on MQAs claims on signal theory.

 

Any student of Digital Signal Processing 101 can pick apart the basic claims made by Stuart.

 

In fact this would be an idea for finals next semester

 

Anonymity is not the problem. Compliance by the audiophile press is. Compliance between MQA having to hide something and the audiophile press constantly fighting for their significance in the age of the internet-fora. For both devaluing anybody who speaks anonymous regardless of the quality of their insights is beneficial.

 

 

I've spoken to many people about MQA and not one of them, including people with PhDs in physics, raise any of the speculative stuff I see here. Of course, these people are not as qualified to call other people liars ;-)

 

This notion that "you guys have been humbled" is another interesting point of view coming from one of the supposed "humblers". If you haven't noticed, I don't share this point of view and I am proud of the work I do. But that's just me. The fact that some guys on a hi-fi forum feel differently, to quote Humphrey Bogart, doesn't amount to a hill of beans. For me.

[mansr]

9 minutes ago, Michael Lavorgna said:

1. supposed character deficiencies ("he's a liar')

The dictionary definition of a liar is "a person who tells lies," and a lie is defined as "an intentionally false statement." If Bob Stuart isn't a liar, the false statements he's made must have been unintentional, which would imply he is incompetent. Either alternative is reason not to trust him.

 

9 minutes ago, Michael Lavorgna said:

2. there's DRM that will ruin music for everyone. No one has yet to explain how DRM will effect people who stream MQA which is the only way MQA will gain traction because no one, outside of audiophiles, downloads high-rez. Today you can download every MQA title (as far as I know) in regular old high-rez from the usual places as well as CD-quality, etc. So every conversation about how MQA will ruin music are speculative.

MQA as distributed today already prevents upsampling and DSP room correction that many people enjoy. Perhaps ruin is too strong a word for that, but it certainly makes the music less accessible.

 

9 minutes ago, Michael Lavorgna said:

3. forum speculation. This includes the gearslutz post you linked to. I'm not downplaying the important role forums *can have* I'm saying that the idea that people on forums *know the truth* about MQA (see 1 and 2) and *no one else in the entire world does* strikes me as a fantasy. Do you know how many people are involved in MQA? I'm talking about outside MQA. I don't but it's more than a few. If 1 and 2 are in fact true, you are saying that not one single person who has worked with MQA in any capacity has recognized what you guys have because they are a) not knowledgeable enough, b) have been bought off, or c) too afraid to tell the truth.

Anyone working with MQA in any official capacity has signed an NDA preventing them from talking about it. When people figure things out for themselves, you dismiss it as speculation. You've made yourself a nice little catch-22 shelter where the only ones you'll listen to are those who are legally forbidden to talk. You can either stay in your comfy bubble, or you can let the scales fall from your eyes and see the world for what it really is. The choice is yours.

[Michael Lavorgna]

2 minutes ago, mansr said:

The dictionary definition of a liar is "a person who tells lies," and a lie is defined as "an intentionally false statement." If Bob Stuart isn't a liar, the false statements he's made must have been unintentional, which would imply he is incompetent. Either alternative is reason not to trust him.

 

MQA as distributed today already prevents upsampling and DSP room correction that many people enjoy. Perhaps ruin is too strong a word for that, but it certainly makes the music less accessible.

 

Anyone working with MQA in any official capacity has signed an NDA preventing them from talking about it. When people figure things out for themselves, you dismiss it as speculation. You've made yourself a nice little catch-22 shelter where the only ones you'll listen to are those who are legally forbidden to talk. You can either stay in your comfy bubble, or you can let the scales fall from your eyes and see the world for what it really is. The choice is yours.

 

I'm saying that calling someone a liar to support speculation is silly. It's childish, imo.

 

The inability to upsample and apply dsp are good points. Since we're talking about streaming MQA via Tidal (at least I am), people can stream the CD-quality version and skip the "Masters" version. Based on what the labels have said publicly, there will be high-rez streaming services coming that do not use MQA.

 

I'm not a fan of drama. Especially when it's deaf. Let me get the rules of this place straight - I'm supposed to know everything you have written about MQA while I have to explain myself over and over and over and be put into a defensive position by having to answer every silly-assed accusation that comes my way. Hmm. I'll think about that and get back to you.

 

Here's a thought for you - if you have something you feel you'd like to share beyond posting here, why not put something together and share it.

 

[mcgillroy]

Michael - let me know when you got a physicist or electrical engineer with or without an Ph.D but working in academia giving his opinion on MQA on your site.

 

For everybody else it’s exactly what Mansr said: people either have skin in the game or are NDA’d to the gills. Or both.

 

[Michael Lavorgna]

11 hours ago, Charles Hansen said:

 

Hi Michael,

 

I disagree on this one. I think one of the main jobs of a journalist is to join the dots and speculate. And it doesn't take much to so so.  Check out this post from "Gearslutz", the forum for people in the "pro" audio industry:

 

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/12732261-post17.html

 

As to people speculating as to why Sony is investing tens of millions of dollars to install new LP pressing plants in Japan.

 

Thanks,

Charley

 

Hey Charley,

 

What do you make of this: https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/mqa-time-domain-accuracy-digital-audio-quality

[Shadders]

48 minutes ago, Michael Lavorgna said:

 

Hi Charley,

 

If I found a compelling argument, I would report on it. So far all I've got is:

 

1. supposed character deficiencies ("he's a liar')

2. there's DRM that will ruin music for everyone. No one has yet to explain how DRM will effect people who stream MQA which is the only way MQA will gain traction because no one, outside of audiophiles, downloads high-rez. Today you can download every MQA title (as far as I know) in regular old high-rez from the usual places as well as CD-quality, etc. So every conversation about how MQA will ruin music are speculative.

3. forum speculation. This includes the gearslutz post you linked to. I'm not downplaying the important role forums *can have* I'm saying that the idea that people on forums *know the truth* about MQA (see 1 and 2) and *no one else in the entire world does* strikes me as a fantasy. Do you know how many people are involved in MQA? I'm talking about outside MQA. I don't but it's more than a few. If 1 and 2 are in fact true, you are saying that not one single person who has worked with MQA in any capacity has recognized what you guys have because they are a) not knowledgeable enough, b) have been bought off, or c) too afraid to tell the truth.

 

The fact of the matter is *The "dots" do not connect, for me* (I frankly find #1 ridiculous and #2 to be too conspiratorial for me to buy into). On Sony's investment in pressing plants, we all know that LP sales have been rising steadily for years and that existing pressing plants are at overcapacity. That's why old presses are being put to use by existing plants and why new plants are opening (one just opening in NJ!). While I'm not up on all of the hard numbers, that's the other Michael's ballpark, the demand for vinyl provides a compelling case as to why Sony would invest in pressing LPs. imo, of course.

 

So a few things can happen in terms of a response, and I've seen them all before. I'm either a) not knowledgeable enough, b) have been bought off, or c) too afraid to tell the truth. I've just added d) the dots do not connect, for me.

 

Cheers,

Michael

 

Hi,

Personal comments aside, what you could report upon is the hard work completed by others on this forum in reverse engineering MQA aspects, the patents indicating the "potential" for DRM control, and those discussions with evidence which prove that the answers Bob Stuart provided in the Q&A's on this site, are false.

You do not have to attack anyone, just explain the information on this site with regards to MQA.

Regards,

Shadders.

[Michael Lavorgna]

2 minutes ago, mcgillroy said:

Michael - let me know when you got a physicist or electrical engineer with or without an Ph.D but working in academia giving his opinion on MQA on your site.

 

For everybody else it’s exactly what Mansr said: people either have skin in the game or are NDA’d to the gills. Or both.

 

 

His name is xxxDrphysics. That should be enough for you, right?

[Michael Lavorgna]

4 minutes ago, Shadders said:

Hi,

Personal comments aside, what you could report upon is the hard work completed by others on this forum in reverse engineering MQA aspects, the patents indicating the "potential" for DRM control, and those discussions with evidence which prove that the answers Bob Stuart provided in the Q&A's on this site, are false.

You do not have to attack anyone, just explain the information on this site with regards to MQA.

Regards,

Shadders.

 

I certainly could do that but I am not going to do that because I do not consider reading hi-fi forums to be a good use of my time. As a matter of fact, I've wasted too much time already by engaging with people here.

 

And yea, personal attacks are what you get if you attack me personally. That's the way I work.

[Shadders]

4 minutes ago, Michael Lavorgna said:

 

I certainly could do that but I am not going to do that because I do not consider reading hi-fi forums to be a good use of my time. As a matter of fact, I've wasted too much time already by engaging with people here.

 

And yea, personal attacks is what you get if you attack me personally. That's the way I work.

Hi,

On the personal attack side, i was referring to people calling BS a liar which you stated you would not print, not you.

If someone were to summarise the information for you, with supporting evidence, would you publish then ?

Regards,

Shadders.

[mcgillroy]

There is always Wikipedia too

[Michael Lavorgna]

5 minutes ago, Shadders said:

Hi,

On the personal attack side, i was referring to people calling BS a liar, not you.

If someone were to summarise the information for you, with supporting evidence, would you publish then ?

Regards,

Shadders.

 

I would certainly consider it but I will not publish anything that includes personal attacks, wild speculation, etc. I would hope that my position is clear on these points.

 

What I would need is someone's real name attached to the summary along with some brief biographical information so readers know whose work they are reading.

 

Or to put it another way, I've *encouraged* people (like Charley) to contribute something for me to publish. *I'll also add that have published statements from Schiit, Paul McGowan/PS Audio, and Linn that are very much anti-MQA.

[mansr]

11 minutes ago, Michael Lavorgna said:

What do you make of this: https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/mqa-time-domain-accuracy-digital-audio-quality

"higher sample rates inherently improve the ‘temporal precision’ to some degree."

 

You can stop reading there. This statement (or equivalent) is actually a great litmus test for audio bollocks. If an article includes it, the entirety is, without exception, rubbish. In this particular instance, the remainder of the article is just a rehash of MQA marketing blather with no real substance.

[mansr]

4 minutes ago, Michael Lavorgna said:

I would certainly consider it but I will not publish anything that includes personal attacks, wild speculation, etc. I would hope that my position is clear on these points.

Yes, you've made it quite clear that anything not originating from MQA themselves, or otherwise supporting their claims, will be dismissed as speculation.

[Michael Lavorgna]

Just now, mansr said:

"higher sample rates inherently improve the ‘temporal precision’ to some degree."

 

You can stop reading there. This statement (or equivalent) is actually a great litmus test for audio bollocks. If an article includes it, the entirety is, without exception, rubbish. In this particular instance, the remainder of the article is just a rehash of MQA marketing blather with no real substance.

 

Thanks for the summary. So we've established that simply because something is published on a "Pro Audio" website it is not necessarily of value.

[lucretius]

5 hours ago, Miska said:

I don't evaluate quality degradation by listening, but through objective analysis of the data. And in fact both the undecoded and decoded versions of the MQA are quality degraded compared to the original.

 

Do you mean "degraded" as in measurements show a difference vs actually being able to hear the difference?

[Michael Lavorgna]

Just now, mansr said:

Yes, you've made it quite clear that anything not originating from MQA themselves, or otherwise supporting their claims, will be dismissed as speculation.

 

You do love to spout nonsense, don't you. Here's a suggestion for you - try sticking with reality, as in what I've done, as opposed to trying to be clever from inside your O-so-comfy safety bubble. It will work out much better if you actually want to communicate.

[Michael Lavorgna]

9:00am (EST) today is my cutoff time for commenting here. If you have a question ask away. Otherwise, you can contact me via email.

[mansr]

Just now, Michael Lavorgna said:

9:00am (EST) today is my cutoff time for commenting here.

Oh no, another hour of this.