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MQA is Vaporware


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13 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

So true.

 

Cases in point are Betamax vs VHS and HD DVD vs Blu-Ray.

Hold the phone.  There's a lot of misunderstanding about Betamax that needs to be cleared up.  The format was used by virtually every news agency for filming of events up to the 90's, some are likely still using it.

 

The myth is that Betamax was better, which it was, but VHS was more popular due to marketing.  The simple fact was that Betamax in the original form could only record for 60 minutes.  VHS was initially 120 minutes and soon after 240 minutes recording time.  For the movie studios there really wasn't an option - a Betamax tape couldn't hold a full length feature film.    

 

The HD Blu-Ray thing was pretty much a snooze fest for me, I had long lost interest and couldn't have cared which was the more popular.  I think I did what most people did and didn't buy either until the dust settled.  I think both parties lost out on not being able to agree on a common format.  

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2 hours ago, John Dyson said:

Actually BetaCam and BetaSP were the formats used by news organizations.  Eventually, they moved to DigiBeta and a few others.   Fox initially used D9 (which looks something like a VHS cartridge, but blows away BetaCam/BetaSP, and quality pretty much equivalent to DigiBeta.)

BetaCam used a tape that was similar to consumer Beta tape, and BetaSP used a tape very similar (pretty much the same) as ED Beta.  There were some quality differences in the shells, etc -- but the tapes were pretty compatible.

 

The tape format of BetaCam was about as different as the format can be -- the only similarity is FM recording of the Luma.  The tape speed of BetaCam was much faster, only getting 20minutes on a normal sized Beta tape (AFAIR.)  The chroma was recorded on separate tracks, similar to HiFi being on separate tracks on VHS.   Also, the chroma on BetaCam/BetaSP being FM modulated on separate heads/carriers, practically saturating the tape on each of those tracks -- provided much better chroma SNR than any color under (frequency shifted chroma) consumer format could do.

 

Pure numbers:  BetaSP could do at least 4.5MHz at maybe several dB down at most -- full signal level.   Betamax could do about 3MHz, but couldn't really do full amplitude beyond about 2-2.5MHz.   EDBeta could extend the frequency range by increasing the LUMA carrier frequency -- still couldnt' do full amplitude at 4.5MHz like BetaSP.  Also EDBeta had most of the chroma issues that Betamax had.

Also, the chroma -- BetaSP could do about 1.5-2MHz of chroma (I forget exactly), and Betamax would be lucky to do about 400kHz of chroma.  BetaSP did lose half of the vertical resolution, but by the time that NTSC/PAL were encoded/decoded, and/or chroma noise reduction was  used, then consumer formats would also lose the vertical resolution.

 

I could write a lot of 'noise' about the differences betwene consumer Betamax and Betacam (BetaSP, et al).  Most people who want to know already know all of the information about the various video formats -- will not bore everyone with a lot more blather.   I do admit one thing, before they added HiFi to the Beta decks (or with the HiFi carriers turned off), the consumer Beta format did produce nice looking pictures (ignoring the chroma problems on all of the color under formats.)

 

John

 

 

John!

 

Way over my head, I’m afraid.  You sound like an interesting guy.  If you’re ever in North Bay, Ontario stop by for a visit.

 

Stephen

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  • 3 weeks later...
13 hours ago, mansr said:

They hadn't dreamt up the MQA name yet, but the format existed. Pono were going to use it, but for reasons we'll never know, changed their mind and went to Ayre instead.

Of course, Ayre.  

 

I had a Pono, I was a Kickstarter supporter and managed to order one of the spiffy clear acrylic versions.  It was everything it was supposed to be but I found the programming of the buttons on the touchscreen needed some work. 

 

I guess they were concerned about pocket dialing so every button push had a built in delay.  You would push a button, nothing would happen.  Push the same button or another, nothing would happen.  Then there would be furious activity as all the delayed button pushes activated at the same time.  Mind you, a minor annoyance and one that was easy to manage.  

 

I think I got to the point where I wasn't using it in the truck and when on the road started carrying a USB drive with all my music.  The Pono became redundant and was sold quite some time ago.  

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49 minutes ago, mansr said:

I wonder why they even bother recording in anything above 96 kHz. There's nothing but noise at those high frequencies.

I suppose it's the modern capitalist ideal of ever increasing market share at the expense of your competitors and of your customers. 

 

If you want to sell something to somebody who already has one it needs to be "better", and it's been proven many times that your average bear firmly believes that 24/192 is quite obviously better than 24/96. 

 

It's a bigger number, see?  It goes to 11.

 

 

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I scanned the article, or advertisement.  I think the key words are “You simply stream MQA and get better sound no matter what the distribution platform or playback device.”

 

That’s a bold statement and obviously intended to be the answer to that supposed quest for better sound.  

 

Some of us have proposed that MQA was a solution to a bandwith broadcast limitation that no longer exists, that “a buck short and a day late” solution.

 

If now the focus is going to be on the MQA enhanced promise of “perfect sound forever” I think they need to be reminded that if you’re listening with earbuds you’ve already decided that you’re happy with you already have, and aren’t desperately looking for a solution. 

 

in other words, the horse is already out of the barn.  Slam the door as hard as you want.

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  • 4 months later...
27 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

The two reasons why I, who enjoy reading subjective reviews, stopped reading the magazines:

 

1. The primary reason is that there were never any negative subjective reviews, and I simply got tired of having to finely parse sentences and phrases to try to get some meaning from them. I hardly if ever recall reading subjective impressions like "I was expecting to like this more than I did," or "I think something else that costs less does the same thing better." There was simply an endless parade of favorable remarks, and I did not find it at all useful in distinguishing between products in order to make purchasing decisions.

 

2. This got a Product of the Year Award from TAS in 2017: https://www.synergisticresearch.com/acoustics/passive/hft/

There's objective, subjective, and there's "WTF?," and I put the HFTs in the latter category. Have there been any subjective reviews in TAS to this day that said "I don't hear a bit of difference, and can anyone give me a reasonable explanation as to how these could possibly work?" Because that was my entirely subjective reaction when a dealer friend installed them in the listening room at his store. Where is the representation in the magazines' content of subjectivists who aren't uncritically credulous of all manufacturer claims?

 

And now some unsolicited and probably bad business advice:

 

When TAS started, it was a revelation. HP was an acid-tongued joy. Why not try some new sections in the magazine that represent more of the full range of what subjectivists actually experience, like "My Least Favorite Audio Equipment," or "How Can This Even Work?" Because subjectivist audiophiles enjoy reading some subjective *opinions* from time to time.

 

I had to do a bit of digging to find out that High Frequency Transducer was the meaning of HFT, that doesn't show up anywhere expect in the manual and breaks a lot of established technical writing rules on how to introduce an acronym.

 

My first reaction was that I'm sure out of touch for never having heard of these before.  

 

My second reaction was that I'm not missing much.

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10 minutes ago, sandyk said:

Some magazines such as Hi Fi Critic are able to exist without advertising support, but subscribers pay dearly for the privilege.

1 year subscription (4 issues)
£90 (approximately $120) posted

Magazines once had a purpose but that all stopped when the Whole Earth Catalog stopped publishing. 
 

Peace be with you, my friend. Peace, love, dove. 

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Just now, Ralf11 said:

 

and really expensive shovels

Not in the early days. It was all Buckminster Fuller and fitting into the world, not trying to force the world into fitting you. 
 

Peace, my friend. Find peace and contentment within yourself. Be well.

 

And yes, in modern terms, have a great weekend.  

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  • 1 year later...
  • 1 month later...

For what it's worth, with the Devialet Expert Pro 440 monoblocks that I have, it turns out that they're capable of both MQA decoding and rendering.  I use Roon on a ROCK for playback, with a switch directly connecting the ROCK to the main monoblock, and can enable MQA through the device setup.

 

I'm also a HiFi subscriber on Tidal and have that enabled in Roon.  As a rule, when adding music and given a choice I will select the higher bit rate and resolution of the MQA version as opposed to the redbook option.  

 

I don't have time right now, but from an earlier post noticed a comment on how Physical Graffiti was only available with the MQA variations.

 

Tomorrow, I can queue up a couple of tracks from an original LP that I recorded digitally many moon ago as compared to the MQA version.  This is with a standard album I bought when the album was first released, but it was recorded with a much better than average turntable and cartridge.  

 

Or should I simply upload a couple of tracks from the album I recorded that people can compare to MQA with their own setup?  

 

Edit:  I'll do my own comparison tomorrow to satisfy my own curiosity - between my digital recording and the highest bit rate/frequency available on Tidal, and reply with any comments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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45 minutes ago, Dr Tone said:


That’s a manual override it doesn’t mean the hardware supports MQA.

My understanding was that Roon did the first unfolding (if enabled) and the Devialet DAC section did the rest (if enabled). 

 

From what you're saying, Devialet doesn't support MQA and Roon doesn't do much either.  

 

I'll just turn off those settings and not lose any sleep over it.  Thanks for the reply.

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20 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I just compare the original CD, and the pure PCM 24/96 from Qobuz to the MQA upsampling. 

For what it's worth, here are a couple of tracks in 24/96 that I recorded with a Korg MR-2000S years ago.  The turntable was either a Rega P9 or a Clearaudio Innovation Compact with a Shelter 501 cartridge.  

 

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/vaqqb8rmyuv5rmb/AADOS1spZ0yaG1v-ApbJwTcVa?dl=0

 

 

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  • 1 month later...
17 hours ago, KeenObserver said:

One has to wonder what is behind this fanatical support for the MQA scheme.

Even if it came to pass that MQA were able to implement their scheme, eventually people would come to realize what a horrible mistake it was. These people will be on the wrong side of history and their reputations will be forever damaged.

Perhaps they believe that will be far in the future.

Or, perhaps, they believe that they have to continue on this fool's errand believing that they can fool all the people all the time. They still believe that they are the final arbiter of all things audiophile.

I think that would be obvious - the major music labels.  The thought of people having to buy their music collections all over again has more than one executive staring out the window and thinking fondly of the days past - the days of minimal effort and huge profits.  

 

Oh, just the thought of it.  People can buy all their music all over again, but this time - this time it will be better.  This time, it will be MQA certified.  

 

Here's Neil Young's thoughts on MQA Masters through Tidal - says it all.

 

https://neilyoungarchives.com/news/1/article?id=Tidal-Misleading-Listeners

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47 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

I don't think anyone is counting on re-purchases of music. The big thing is control and the fact that the labels have stock in MQA. When they force everyone to use MQA, they'll make money on the MQA tax collected from every manufacturer of hardware and developer of software that want's to "decode" the stream. 

Chris,

 

I'll defer to your knowledge of the industry on that point.  I think we're both agreed that the music labels would like maximum return for minimal effort.  Owning the music certainly gives them the advantage.  

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48 minutes ago, Confused said:

In fairness to Cookie Marenco and & Blue Coast records, it does say this on their website:

 

To compare an MQA encoded file that was originally recorded to DSD256 would be like comparing a $2000 Mytek DSD DAC to a $25,000 DSD DAC from Playback Designs.  I love them both when I don't compare them. Many people can't hear a difference.

 

Personally I look at this a little differently.  If a relatively small record label is aware that there is demand for MQA, or that a particular streaming service will only deal with them if they provide MQA files, then it is good business sense for them to offer MQA.  Note that Blue Coast is offering MQA as an option, DSD, FLAC and WAV are also offered.

 

Furthermore, they also offer a free download in different file formats so you can try and hear for yourself:

 

To quote:

 

 

If you want to compare for yourself, we now include an MQA file along with the 9 other files in our free test download located here.

https://bluecoastmusic.com/free-downloads

Better than guessing or reading, listen for yourself.

 

All of this seems reasonable to me.  (As an aside, the above linked free download might offer a relatively unusual opportunity to compare MQA files with other formats, free of any MQA EQ manipulation or similar.  I might be wrong, but I suspect these examples will be identical, other than the format differences.  Can anyone confirm this, or otherwise?)

 

The issue as I see it is a different one.  Labels like Blue Coast would not be bothering with MQA if there was not a demand for it.  So the issue is not with Blue Coast doing what they have to do from a business perspective, the issue is that there is demand for MQA.

 

I see this more as a failure of those of see MQA for what it really is not getting the message out.  The message is clear enough on this thread, but is the message reaching the big bad world out there?  It would appear not I think.

Would you not need MQA compatible hardware to be able to play the MQA sample?  If you bought hardware that was compatible, could there be the inclination for a slight bias?

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  • 2 weeks later...
4 hours ago, JoshM said:

Not sure whether this is better placed in this thread, the thread on @GoldenOne’s video, or the ASR thread, but:

 

1) Over at ASR, John Atkinson is claiming that Golden’s test is invalid since everyone knows a lossy encoder (we’re now apparently conceding that MQA is lossy) can’t handle the signals Golden encoded. This is the same claim Amir made, and if you look at John’s “likes” at ASR, he’s “liking” every post criticizing Golden’s test and defending MQA. 
 

2) Amir has just given a response that completely negates the point of every measurement he’s ever done:

 

6B82EB57-42F5-4B53-8F02-64E145E75F48.jpeg

 

 

I always thought that John Atkinson was well respected from his days at Stereophile as Editor through many stormy seas with various ownership changes. 

 

And, he may still be - all those years of careful deliberation and quantitative measurements that build a reputation shouldn't be lost that easily.  

 

But I do recall some fuzziness way back when all this MQA talk started - he seemed to be on the supportive side initially, and it would seem may still be.  Hasn't he posted on this topic here a few times?  

 

I suppose we all have the right of some flexibility in our opinion, but certainly with MQA there isn't much more room for deliberation from a technical perspective, particularly with the detailed and methodical testing done recently by GoldenSound.  

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8 hours ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

As I was comparing a hi-rez file with an MQA version of the same file, use of plugins would have been a confusing variable.

 

And I have no idea if the audible improvement in sound quality that I reported finding with MQA could be duplicated with plugins.

 

John Atkinson

Technical Editor, Stereophile

John,

 

I'm curious then as to your thoughts on what has been recently proposed here - that MQA originally may have been a means of augmenting and improving sound files that you found favorable and that now is seen as nothing more than an upsampling filter and marketing scheme.  

 

I know there's a lot of cheap shots taken at you on occasion, and for one admire the fact that you respond at all.  

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2 hours ago, KeenObserver said:

 

That seems to be the modus operandi of MQA and why they insist on the NDA's.

If non MQA music is distorted on MQA certified DAC's, then MQA will sound better in comparison.

Wait a minute. That presumes that it won’t occur to anyone to do a comparison between an MQA enabled and a “standard” DAC.  
 

Are you saying that Meridian are now in a position to take over the audiophile world with this clever MQA marketing campaign?


Is this another industry push to get us to buy our music all over again, or just another sales pitch like Quadraphonic Sound?

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