MQA is Vaporware

[realhifi]

14 hours ago, PeterV said:

7288 albums and counting.....:-)  not bad for 'vaporware'.....!...http://www.meridianunplugged.com/downloads/MQA_List.csv

 

You do realize it could be 100,000 and there would still be folks that said it’s vaporware. I’m guessing that the train is going to just keep rolling and the naysayers will be left at the station. 

[Rt66indierock]

3 hours ago, realhifi said:

 

You do realize it could be 100,000 and there would still be folks that said it’s vaporware. I’m guessing that the train is going to just keep rolling and the naysayers will be left at the station. 

MQA is vaporware until there are 10,000 albums converted counting each album once. Peter is counting albums like Pet Sounds multiple times. This was discussed at the beginning of the thread. And small fact there aren't 100,000 hi res albums to convert. Don't forget the OP started the album count.

 

I'm at RMAF where a debate about MQA was cancelled. There are less than half the vendors licensed here. I will see first hand their enthusiasm for MQA.  

[crenca]

Just now, Rt66indierock said:

 

 

I'm at RMAF where a debate about MQA was cancelled. There are less than half the vendors licensed here. I will see first hand their enthusiasm for MQA.  

 

 

Rt66indierock,

 

I read the MQA panel was back on.  Was this revived panel also cancelled or are you referring to the original cancellation?

 

Also, are you saying that "less than half" of DAC (including those with integrads, pres, servers, etc.) vendors are MQA licensed?  I would have thought the number to be quite low overall, but that MQA licensed vendors would have an outsized presence at a show like RMAF

[PeterV]

Hi realhifi and indierock. More important than just this list are some albums which I know for years are now released and are making a profound impression. The 24/192 MQA unfold of Crime Of The Century is the best sounding version I have ever heard and I own several vinyl, thr MoFi CD and the HDtracks download. Also Yello's Toy sounds much better, which surprised me, since it is mostly electronic music.

[PeterV]

What is even smarter than I thought  is the way MQA is able to use all these discussions regarding their technology totally in their advantage. This amount of free publicity by nay- and yes- sayers is priceless. If MQA would be an inferior format like MP3, no audiophile listener or criticaster would care to discuss it. Now, the fuzz and buzz is a strong marketing tool :-) just count the amount of times the 3 letters are being mentioned every day.. just listen and you will understand that it's all about about the MUSIC

[PeterV]

My audio set and room acoustics has its limitations, but is sufficient enough to distinguish increased dynamics, improved soundstage and presentation of detail like the trainstation voice on 'Rudy' the cuccoo and harmonica etc. Supertramp's COTC MQA version is for me a marvelous example what can be avhieved with the technology. The noisefloor has decreased and overall sense of presence and energy has increased. But all this is a relative and personal observation, I can only advise to test this for yourself but with certified MQA streamer and DAC  to ensure end-to-end optimised analog sound. 

[FredericV]

52 minutes ago, PeterV said:

What is even smarter than I thought  is the way MQA is able to use all these discussions regarding their technology totally in their advantage.

It's not.
 

52 minutes ago, PeterV said:

This amount of free publicity by nay- and yes- sayers is priceless. If MQA would be an inferior format like MP3, no audiophile listener or criticaster would care to discuss it.

You must be wrong: MP3 has been discussed on many audiophile fora in the 90's. A lot of energy has been wasted on MP3. The only reason why MP3 existed was because our slow analog modems could not transfer WAV in a reasonable timeframe. MP3 was the solution. For the same reason, MQA will die. The compression benefit of MQA has no place in a world where soon a lot of homes will have fiber and gigabit. Even the slowest ADSL lines can transfer 24/192 without any problem. This week Telenet installed their gigabit HFC network in my street. We now have 200+ mbit, soon 1000 mbit. 24/192 flac takes how many mbit? Just a few.

MQA is also lossy just like MP3, with crippling features so that without a decoder, it sounds like MP3. It's all in the patent. Not saying that these features are already active, but they could activate it any time. They could also active files tied to the serial number of the DAC.

So MQA can become a very evil DRM format.

MP3 was good for one thing: I discovered a lot of music thanks to MP3, which then made me buy the CD for higher sound quaility. When I was a network engineer for a big telco, I listened to MP3 and later AAC shoutcast stations. I bought a lot of CD's based on the new music I heard. In the 90's I did the same with cassettes: taped from MTV in stereo nicam, badly compressed, and if I liked the music, I bought it on CD.

With MQA there's no more incentive to buy music, as I will never buy MQA files when I can buy the real lossless master for just a few EURO's more. Undecoded MQA with sox minimum phase sounds already extremely close to the DXD master, and does not suffer from the weird filters which make everything thinner with more distortion, which deviates from the master.
 

52 minutes ago, PeterV said:

Now, the fuzz and buzz is a strong marketing tool :-) just count the amount of times the 3 letters are being mentioned every day.. just listen and you will understand that it's all about about the MUSIC

I hear from several manufacturers that demand for MQA is down. They no longer ask if their DAC will support MQA or not.
Same applies to our music servers, when MQA was introduced we frequently got questions about MQA.

In Munich nobody asked us about MQA. Since Munich we heard things like this:

- we do it not because we believe in MQA, but because we don't want to miss the train, we don't want to lose money
- we have an MQA decoder ready for our DAC, we don't promote it, but if MQA becomes a big format, we don't want to go bankrupt, so we keep the line open
- lead designer: our CEO believes in MQA, but our latest greatest dac with MQA is not great because of MQA (and this is a very big MQA partner)

So critical topics like this must be working. Topics like these debunk and demystify MQA.

[4est]

1 hour ago, PeterV said:

What is even smarter than I thought  is the way MQA is able to use all these discussions regarding their technology totally in their advantage. This amount of free publicity by nay- and yes- sayers is priceless. If MQA would be an inferior format like MP3, no audiophile listener or criticaster would care to discuss it. Now, the fuzz and buzz is a strong marketing tool :-) just count the amount of times the 3 letters are being mentioned every day.. just listen and you will understand that it's all about about the MUSIC

"just count the amount of times the 3 letters are being mentioned every day.. just listen and you will understand that it's all about about the MUSIC"  Money

[FredericV]

55 minutes ago, PeterV said:

 I can only advise to test this for yourself but with certified MQA streamer and DAC  to ensure end-to-end optimised analog sound. 

Do you actually understand MQA? You don't need an MQA streamer, just a bitperfect one (our's can do that too), and an MQA dac to enjoy their weirld filters that make everything more thin with extra distortion, more echo & reverb.

End to end is a joke, MQA allows tube dac's to be certified. No studio I know uses tube dacs for their critical listening. I must conclude there's a lot of quack here.

[PeterV]

Again: the only way to 'debunk' anything is to listen to it. If you like MP3 that's fine.

 

I am perfectly informed how MQA works and that it's lossless in the audible band up to 48 kHz, above it can be regarded as noise. Compared to the cut-off frequency of a CD this is allready a large improvement. But you need to understand that the end-to-end encoding and decoding process is all about improving the total impulse response and decreasing time-smear. 

 

That's what results in a very convincing audible improvement of these albums ans all others I am listening to dor just 20,- euro per Month. No need to download music anymore and the soundquality is better than ever before.

 

 

[psjug]

The number of titles available in MQA is only one end of the vaporware question.  There is also the delivery.  And how many consumers are equipped (and engaged) for playing MQA.  If streaming is the main delivery, they really need to get Apple and Spotify on board.  These services strike me as not caring much about high quality music or else they would already be doing 16/14.4 FLAC.

 

If you multiply fraction of titles, fraction of streaming customers, fraction of customers with MQA playing equipment, then what do you have?

[4est]

2 hours ago, FredericV said:

End to end is a joke, MQA allows tube dac's to be certified. No studio I know uses tube dacs for their critical listening. I must conclude there's a lot of quack here.

I must say that I am a bit confused by your insistence that putting a tube into a DAC relegates it into the "sub critical" listening category. Sure studios might not use them, but what's the big deal. You might not like them, but there are some very well regarded DACs with tubes in them. One might complain about the output transformers in most tube amps, but there are no intrinsic sonic disadvantages to using tubes in line level components.

[jabbr]

34 minutes ago, PeterV said:

That's what results in a very convincing audible improvement of these albums ans all others I am listening to dor just 20,- euro per Month. No need to download music anymore and the soundquality is better than ever before.

So if I listen to:

 

 

Does that “ca Ching” get felt in your pocket? I’m not feeling the hi fidelity...

[FredericV]

30 minutes ago, PeterV said:

Again: the only way to 'debunk' anything is to listen to it. If you like MP3 that's fine.

 

I am perfectly informed how MQA works and that it's lossless in the audible band up to 48 kHz, above it can be regarded as noise.

 

It's not lossless, as it's not 24 bits. But it does not matter, as your NAD C390 reaches 16 bits of SNR at 1 Watt, and source material exploiting the full dynamic range of 24 bit does not exist either.  At full power your NAD reaches 20 bits worth of SNR. This is why they get away with only 15 bits that MQA can achieve without dithering.
 

30 minutes ago, PeterV said:

Compared to the cut-off frequency of a CD this is allready a large improvement. But you need to understand that the end-to-end encoding and decoding process is all about improving the total impulse response and decreasing time-smear. 

PCM already has infinite timing resolution, which you don't seem to understand. Impulse response is only an issue with oversampling or upsampling dac's, not an issue with NOS dacs like my Metrum. MQA is no upgrade here but a downgrade. End-to-end encoding is not the issue as PCM already has this, looking at your system, your acoustics and NAD will be the limiting factor.
 

30 minutes ago, PeterV said:

That's what results in a very convincing audible improvement of these albums ans all others I am listening to dor just 20,- euro per Month. No need to download music anymore and the soundquality is better than ever before.

 

 

But you own nothing and services can cease to exist or go bankrupt. Just look at what Spotify did to the Logitech ecosystem.

[PeterV]

What is your point jabbr..? Youtube has no MQA encoded albums available (yet) and if they would, you will need to decode it properly. Only then you will hear what it has to offer

[FredericV]

22 minutes ago, 4est said:

I must say that I am a bit confused by your insistence that putting a tube into a DAC relegates it into the "sub critical" listening category. Sure studios might not use them, but what's the big deal. You might not like them, but there are some very well regarded DACs with tubes in them. One might complain about the output transformers in most tube amps, but there are no intrinsic sonic disadvantages to using tubes in line level components.

 

Tubes break the end-to-end analog promise MQA is claiming, as they add harmonics which were not in the input signal.

While I don't dislike tubes, tubes have coloration. DAC specific coloration is what MQA's marketing tries to undo.
 

[PeterV]

You really have no clue Frederic. I seem to have made a lucky choice with NAD 390DD. It is relatively affordable and it is build around the fully digital architecture a the 35 bit 844 kHz PWM DAC. Plenty of headspace for full 24 (or more!) resolution. Check the specs and reviews on the web. As mentioned earlier A/B testing shows MQA is a clear winner here at home and I am very satisfied with those albums I know by heart.

[4est]

1 minute ago, FredericV said:

 

Tubes break the end-to-end analog promise MQA is claiming, as they add harmonics which were not in the input signal.

While I don't dislike tubes, tubes have coloration. DAC specific coloration is what MQA's marketing tries to undo.
 

And so you are suggesting that solid state IVs and line level outputs do not have colorations?

[4est]

1 minute ago, PeterV said:

You really have no clue Frederic. I seem to have made a lucky choice with NAD 390DD. It is relatively affordable and it is build around the fully digital architecture a the 35 bit 844 kHz PWM DAC. Plenty of headspace for full 24 (or more!) resolution. Check the specs and reviews on the web. As mentioned earlier A/B testing shows MQA is a clear winner here at home and I am very satisfied with those albums I know by heart.

But MQA does not have 24 bits worth of information anyway. It's simply lossy compression with shitty filters of (perhaps) nice remasters. The ringing makes my head hurt whenever I try to listen to them.

[jabbr]

9 minutes ago, FredericV said:

Tubes break the end-to-end analog promise

That promise wasn’t broken by your tubes

[FredericV]

8 minutes ago, PeterV said:

You really have no clue Frederic. I seem to have made a lucky choice with NAD 390DD. It is relatively affordable and it is build around the fully digital architecture a the 35 bit 844 kHz PWM DAC.

 

You clearly have no clue about DSP. 35 bit means nothing if the analog output at the speakers can reach only 16 bits. All marketing BS.
 

8 minutes ago, PeterV said:

Plenty of headspace for full 24 (or more!) resolution. Check the specs and reviews on the web. As mentioned earlier A/B testing shows MQA is a clear winner here at home and I am very satisfied with those albums I know by heart.

24 bit needs an SNR of at least 144dB which your NAD can't achieve.

I'm talking to a guy with a marketing / sales background that has no clue and just repeats the MQA marketing, and does not learn from the technical info posted here.

[jabbr]

22 minutes ago, PeterV said:

What is your point jabbr..? Youtube has no MQA encoded albums available (yet) and if they would, you will need to decode it properly. Only then you will hear what it has to offer

I’m just tryin to learn, so would MQA (if it did YouTube) convert:

Into: 

? 

Or vis versa

??

[mansr]

On 10/6/2017 at 4:34 PM, Rt66indierock said:

MQA is vaporware until there are 10,000 albums converted counting each album once. Peter is counting albums like Pet Sounds multiple times.

Yeah, that list is rather misleading. Let's break it down:

• 7431 total entries
• 7195 unique entries ignoring punctuation differences
• 6374 unique artist/album pairs
• 6042 unique artist/album pairs not counting variants like "Deluxe" and "Special Edition"

The total count is thus inflated by a whopping 23%.

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 hours ago, PeterV said:

 

 

You're supposed to sit in front of the loudspeakers :~)

[FredericV]

6 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

You're supposed to sit in front of the loudspeakers :~)

My neighbor has Wilsons + Bryston amplification and uses an old Sony SACD player as source, and has a sofa in between the speakers. I once demonstrated an Antelope Zodiac and this was a very strange experience as I was sitting across, on the place where you are supposed to sit, and he was sitting in between the speakers.

My neighbor also recently told me he suffers from Tinnitus and can't stand certain frequencies.