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MQA is Vaporware


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I am wondering three things. How many people will pay to stream those 15,000 hi-res albums currently available? How much of the catalog will have to be hi-res to interest those 12 million potential customers? And will MQA get a significant piece of this market?

 

Well its hard to say. According to Digital Music News over 100 millions people are streaming music and this article also notes there are approximately 103.1 million people paying, worldwide. It would be difficult to know what they are streaming. But people are streaming music and paying for it. MQA depending on this little trial Tidal has going on will provide some data so its to early to tell. Will a bunch of high school kids spend $20 a month to get their music and who knows what MQA will cost after the trial is over, will the price stay the same , will other labels come on board to support MQA, we as users don't have a clue.

 

More Than 100 Million People Now Pay for Streaming Music Services

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Sterophile is to varying degrees always more pro-vendor than pro-consumer. That's certainly the filter I use when reading anything from their media brands.

 

Got that right, you have to weed through the fine print (pro-vendor) to get to the real story. But I think Kal does a good job at least he likes multi-channel music via a multi-channel dac.

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A few corrections - AudioStream is not Stereophile. I am the editor of the former, JA the latter. There is no overlap so "Stereophile" has nothing to do with what goes on on AudioStream.

 

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Mike kinda sorta. Stereophile and Audiostream might be independent in as far as editors go, but you both are under the, Enthusiast Network banner and have the same publisher in Keith Perry. anyway I enjoy your contribution to digital.

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That's interesting. Do you know what they will be using?

 

Some other tidbits from CES Universal, Sony and Warner Music, Pandora, RIAA Announce Support for Hi-Res Audio Streaming | Billboard

 

I like this little announcement "" Notably absent from today's announcement are streaming market leaders Spotify and Apple (the latter of which is reportedly developing their own high fidelity technology).""

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All I know this back and forth between between CA members and ML wasn't good for CA as a whole. From being a place to learn and grow the hobby it was pretty darn embarrassing to say the least. It went to far and Chris should have moved in and stopped the madness. I sure hope people from now on look at the big picture, its not about one or two people and their opinions its about the hobby as a whole, you can help it succeed or you can kill it with the remarks people make and those remarks reflect the culture of this site. From what I have read today, some acknowledge maybe they went to far, and for me that's a start in civility.

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{just using your post here to riff off of - it is expressing what others have said in different ways as well}

 

I have to respectfully disagree. The problem is not dialogue per se, the problem is real disagreement. Now, we could have a kind of politically correct culture, where certain things are not discussed and where certain people are more equal than others (say, ML because of his long experience, industry status, etc.) and where we "ask questions", just not the hard ones and thus we really only "learn" what the sages tell us is so (rather it is true or not), OR we can have a slightly uncomfortable and a bit "confrontational" culture where real disagreement happens and sacred cows are actually questioned, shot, and eaten. Now, I agree this can be done in a more "civil" manner, but honestly give me real and messy conflict over a safe and false "civility" any day. ML promotes a kind of "civility" on his site - it is a smothering and tyrannical "civility" that only leads to one place - whatever he thinks is right and true...

 

 

The thing is, you and others and ML were wrong to let this get out of hand and that didn't help you're cause or his. It just went nowhere and that's a shame as a lot could have been learned. Knowledgeable people discussing a topic intelligently would have been helpful to the members and viewers of CA.

 

Thats it for me on this topic.

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Thank you. I've seen all that. I was hoping for a way to search in the desktop app that would only return MQA content. Like I said, can't wait until Roon 1.3.

 

Is Roon via the upcoming software release supposed to be able to totally decode a MQA file and a certified MQA DAC will not be needed ??

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Still can't understand why Tidal doesn't label the MQA masters so they are easy to find.

 

Lazy, or lost the list on what's masters or not, to quick to the gate and fail behind, etc.. And agree MQA has nothing to do with the administration of the app or the Tidal catalog. Tidal just messed up.

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Of course I know much better than Popular Science :~)

 

Only kidding. I see it as a way for the site to make its job easier by not having to moderate comments. It's also looking at its readers as extremely easily influenced and not able to read opposing or uncivil comments for what they are - just another internet comment. It seems like big brother / popsci knows best, and its readers should not be exposed to anything that may change their minds, because a changed mind would mean PopSci was wrong.

 

You know popular Science is not the only one,

Recode, Mic, The Week, and Reuters all announced that they were closing down their comment sections and this was back in late 2015.

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Yes. The article I linked to is from 2013 but strikes me as still being relevant.

 

And we can't forget CNN the did the same August 2014 and they note " Online "trolls" and the emergence of social media are mentioned as reasons sites are abandoning comments"

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This is one of hundreds of active threads here. I admit there might be a "car crash" effect going on here: Even disinterested people will slow down and gawk.

 

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So true Its like a wreck on the highway, everyone slows down to look and just backs up the traffic while nothing gets accomplished as they lose their way .

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This raises an interesting point: I have been a little confused by the marketing blurb around MQA- it seems to imply that MQA is the original master, blessed by the artist, rather than being an indistinguishable compressed version of that original.

 

Is there are evidence that the final master is, or is ever likely to be produced in MQA as opposed to 24/96 (or more rarely I imagine 24/192 or DXD). How would this work? Is there editing software working in MQA? PLugins?

 

If not then why would the label ever want to deliver MQA to Apple? To stop them gettign the Crown jewels? (which is of course odd if MQA is the Crown Jewels.)

 

For me this is the most interesting part of this curious portmanteau product: if it is just a way of packaging reduced bitrate 24/96, then no one should really be perturbed by a claim that it is transparent to the original (it's possible although it might manage to fail. Straight 16/96 would do the job.) But it claims to be better (technically) AND to be the original master. I can;t at the moment see how it could be both of those things.

 

The whole thing about MQA that bugs me is we as users of downloads really don't know what musical copy was used unless the label tells us or it is passed on from a down load site. This whole deal with authentic mastering well if it's so authentic MQA, tell us which master you are using as we have paid for that information. This is more of a magician slight of hand than masters authenticated

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No links. Just my takeaway from everything I've seen from Bob Stuart, including Chris' interview a long time ago. I think it is all very transparent.

 

well transparent is like VW claiming their mileage, don't believe everything you think you read or hear. I think I;ll just wait till the Master Car Salemen himself Stuart tells the world one day what we all want to know. Right now everything is basically speculation.

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Also, exactly what is it "we all want to know?" I've been confused about that since I started visiting this thread.

Thanks in advance. Maybe Chris can put that in his interview.

 

well since we all have been speculating in this thread what we think we know, maybe one day Stuart will tell us, like you noted maybe Chris will obtain the answers in some "interview".

 

I sure hope the MQA users of Tidal and those that purchased these certified dacs haven't been duped as that would be bad for the music streaming and download industry as a whole and your example of "New Coke' is spot on.

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As I've said many times, we'll just have to wait and see. I have a "buyer beware" attitude, so I don't feel so terrible about people buying MQA DACs. But yes, I think that's one of the nice things about capitalism. (See my first post here - I became a CA member to post that because I thought I had something to contribute). Now I'm a little sorry I got sucked in - I have better uses for my time. But I'm just "A Stubborn Kinda Fellow."

 

Link provided.

 

 

And no, I'm not Marvin Gaye trying to promote MQA because I want people to hear it just like in the studio.

 

Or Ella Fitzgerald "Is it Live or Is It Memorex" thinking maybe MQA is a step up from casette tape.

 

I'm really David Byrne. "Same as it ever was.....Same as it ever was...etc."

 

Sorry, no links for me or Ella.

 

 

Analysis is like a lobotomy. Who wants to have all their edges shaved off?

 

Quote By David Byrne

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FYI

 

At a press conference, the Digital Entertainment Group announced that several other streaming services would offer “hi-res” streaming (including Pandora, HDtracks, Napster/Rhapsody). High-level executives from major record labels also stated their support for hi-res streaming, but inexplicably there was no mention of MQA and no opportunity for Q&A. I later learned that all these services will offer MQA streaming later this year. The MQA floodgates appear to have opened.

 

They never actually said they would offer MQA. If you have a link that notes they are offering MQA that would be appreciated

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I talked to Napster and tried the high res streaming. When asked about MQA I was told the company is looking at it. My guess for all the services is that they will stream what the labels offer. I believe the labels are taking back power because there isn't a single service they are beholden to.

 

So that announcement tells us what , that Pandora, HDtracks, Napster/Rhapsody since they most likely get their music from a label so I would assume that, that their supporting labels are going to offer MQA files to them for download or they "might" also offer the same Warner Music MQA files for streaming. Hard to read between the line in that announcement. What I read on Billboard only noted Hi-rez files

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  • 3 months later...
13 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

There's no such thing in either direction when it comes to MQA. We've all seen measurements but nobody has seen evidence that any of these measurements actually matter (good or bad). 

 

I'd love to see a correlation between measurements and what we hear. 

Its all about ears Chris.   Unless someone measured each listeners ears while listening to MQA vs non-mqa music we will never know.  Since each of our ears is "unique" to everyone of us along with how our brain is translating the music we hear, I think its darn near impossible to measure it.  Music will always be "personal" in the way we hear it.

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