MQA is Vaporware

[Nikhil]

I hope the Andreas Koch PF article will put some sense into the MQA believers out there.
It is more than a scam.  As another article put it, it's a land grab.

To all those who talk about the way MQA sounds, I would like to point them towards the BugHead software discussion on here where the developer uses jitter and other techniques to tune the sound.  The sound is glorious.  Of course it's only an example but it really isn't the first time adding some sort of distortion helped to change the sound a certain way i.e. CD markers.  Of course "apodizing filters" sounds very impressive.  Fixing Time distortion? Less said the better ... Mitch's article pretty much nailed that lie.

 Andreas Koch correctly points out that MQA tries to solve problems that doesn't exist.  It is an elaborate fraud.  

 

 

[Nikhil]

 

http://www.6moons.com/industryfeatures/mqa/1.html

 

Sixmoons has posted an article with a pretty damning position on MQA.   Meridien is walking on thin ice.  So far they have done a fine job in waltzing around with all the majors but it they trip up against one brand with the wherewithal to take them on - they are going to be in deep trouble.  It's only a matter of time but when it happens, they will be taken to the woodshed.

    

[Nikhil]

1 hour ago, mav52 said:

 In that written article by 6 moons,  who is Srajan talking about " we received the definitive contract ", " we requested their decoder to develop proper unit-to-unit QC protocols "  etc.. 6 moons doesn't make equipment but Sarjan it appears to be talking about "some ' or 'A' equipment manufacturer.  Its got to be Auralic. 

 

I thought so too.  They did fall behind a little on their new product releases.  

 

Another thought, how do you let someone have so much leverage over you? Who are the guys who signed on the dotted line at the companies that have accepted MQA?

 

[Nikhil]

15 minutes ago, Milt99 said:

It never ceases to amaze me why people on internet forums choose to attack those "in the biz" whether reviewers, biz owners, biz  reps, whomever, especially over perceived syntax idiosyncrasies or opinions.

The undisguised snark, self-superior attitude does nothing but make the poster look like an a$$hole.

I think I even saw fan-boy in one of the posts.

Really? Fan-Boy?

 

I don't agree with everything Charles Hansen has posted but that's beside the point and I'm positive he wouldn't agree with a lot of mine.

SFW?

I know these guys don't GAS about this stuff but one would think that after all these years people would get over themselves & grow up.

 

 

Amen!  

[Nikhil]

41 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

I’d actually say the reverse.  No matter how much people want to say the DRM piece should be significant to the music industry, it really doesn’t suit their economics *yet*, and quite possibly never will.  It’s the fact that it’s a lossy format that may work out for the industry. (It’s essentially the same as if they offered LPs and needle drops.  No DRM required, but you can’t convert it back to a hi res master.) If the music industry wants the maximum number of people to buy MQA streams and downloads, it can’t be pushing the idea you’re listening to a sonically awful version unless you buy new equipment.  It has to market MQA as “better right now than what you’ve got, even better yet with new equipment.”  (The equipment manufacturers, of course, can be expected to heavily emphasize that last part, so for *them*, the built-in DRM is economically beneficial.) 

 

We’ll see if anyone goes for it.

 

 

On some of the other forums I'm on people are going for it hook line and sinker ...

 

[Nikhil]

There are two aspects of MQA - how it works and how it sounds.

 

The discussions here on CA have given insights on how MQA works pretty extensively.  However for quite a few the technical discussions are too complicated and they just tend to go with how MQA sounds. Personally I have found MQA's filter recipe creates a sound signature that is easy on the ears.  I can see and understand why some would like it.  However the leap that this is now "better" is where I disagree.    

 

MQA is just a glorified filter setup that should be done in software.  The nonsense that is MQA - the elaborate hardware qualification process for manufacturers, the "mastering", the DRM aspect and the specious claims of "Master Quality Authentication" is absolute hogwash.  It is pretty disturbing to see how much the music and audio industries are getting behind MQA just to make a fast buck.   

 

 

[Nikhil]

47 minutes ago, Charles Hansen said:

 

 ...  I will be happy to discuss the various ways that digital files can be manipulated, and what I see as the advantages and disadvantages of each. Strictly my opinion of course - this is why there is not just one "perfect" DAC that satisfies all customers.

 

 

Very interested in hearing your take Charlie ...

 

 

[Nikhil]

Having gone over the last two pages (whew!) I'm siding with Charles ....

 

Bob Stuart and MQA have leverage over companies who have signed their NDAs and contracts.  

And over what appears to be IMO some secret sauce filters implemented with some silly cooked up procedures.

Would these people have engaged with MQA knowing the information we now know?  Probably ... probably not.   

 

If whatever has been shared in the last few pages helps some companies evaluate their strategies then that's a good thing.

 

[Nikhil]

6 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

On what exactly are you siding with Charles?

 

On exactly what I said in my post.  I think the info Charles shared has relevance.

About the DSD part - I'm not very religious about it but I know where you are coming from.

 

CA has provided an excellent platform where discussions on MQA has been allowed with minimal moderation.  It takes a bit of effort to sometimes follow the discussion with all the tangents that take place but that comes with the territory.  For that you deserve all the credit regardless of your position on MQA.  

 

 

 

[Nikhil]

Quote

I think WD succeeded in doing the equivalent of a "distributed denial of service" attack on this thread by flooding it with a stream of blather that crowded out almost all substantive discussion.

 

+1  ... everybody can see this from a mile away.  

 

On most forums it is considered bad form to post random off topic posts that take away from the subject.   It is ultimately Chris' call to make but I think posting random off topic posts that do nothing to further the subject should be culled and the offending member warned. 

 

We take time to visit this forum to learn something about this hobby and that should be respected.  

[Nikhil]

8 minutes ago, Charles Hansen said:

(The fact that Caelin Gabriel chose a Japanese sounding name for his company makes me very suspicious right off the bat. Why would he want to potential customers to think that he was based in Japan? It's kind of the reverse of Korean company Astell & Kern who deliberately chose a British-sounding name for their company.

...

 

Shunyata is Sanskrit.  Very clever name IMO if one understands the nuance of the term.

 

 

[Nikhil]

1 hour ago, 4est said:

Care to elaborate on that nuance? I am curious, not baiting you. TYIA

 

1 hour ago, Charles Hansen said:

 

Thanks for enlightening me. While I've heard of Sanskrit, I didn't know what it actually was. Apparently an almost dead language from many thousands of years ago from the region now called India, and important to certain religions such as Buddhism. I mistakenly assumed it was a Japanese word, although now that I think about it this could not be right as it would be extremely difficult to pronounce in Japanese, where there are no stressed syllables. It's really only readily pronounced with an accent on the second syllable.

 

Since I don't know any Sanskrit (there are apparently around 50,000 in India who are fluent), could you kindly let me know the translation?

 

59 minutes ago, synn said:

It means emptiness.

 

59 minutes ago, mansr said:

An online dictionary I found lists several loosely related meanings including "non-reality" and "illusory nature." Seems fitting to me.

 

Charles and others,

 

Sanskrit is the Latin of the Hindu universe from which other religions like Buddhism branched off.

The literal translation of emptiness doesn't adequately describe the meaning of the term.

 

Link: http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Emptiness

 

The above link does a better job of it. 

It's the liberation from existing beliefs in the manner of an advanced wisdom. 

 

Regards.

 

 

 

[Nikhil]

15 minutes ago, mcgillroy said:

MQA - and the audiophile press - evidently misread and underestimated their audience. If they just had come out and said "this is DRM-light you can live with, is good for the artists ( = labels) + the format saves bandwidth and sometimes sounds better" they'd saved themselves a lot of trouble and probably had gotten more traction.

 

 

+1  

 

I also don't know how they missed seeing the much bigger potential of the cell phone market.    For all the effort they have poured into pitching MQA to the audio industry, the cell phone / mobile industry would have dropped a couple of milllion dollars without thinking much of it.   This is completely their environment.  Another badge on the feature list to show something new - right next to the MP3 logo.     

 

 

[Nikhil]

9 minutes ago, mcgillroy said:

 

Deals in tech typically involve license and/or patent negotiations and exchanges. Your licence and patent portfolio is the most important asset you have.

 

 

Exactly.  MQA has done all the legwork on the patents etc   But where did they go with all that?   The audio industry companies are quite frankly not making a whole of money in comparison.  How much value do you think they created with that move?    In comparison the cell phone industry - with likes of a Samsung who would genuinely pay for something that would give them an edge over Apple IMO - would have been an incredible move.  

 

Apart from the cell phone industry, the automobile industry is a very good target.  Just ask Bose.

 

 

[Nikhil]

44 minutes ago, Indydan said:

I agree that we should try and avoid streaming the MQA versions!

 

Have been doing that from Day One!

 

[Nikhil]

On 5/9/2018 at 12:03 PM, shtf said:

Don't know if this MQA review by International Audio Review's Peter Moncrief has been posted here yet.

Twenty years ago Peter Moncrief was known by some to be head and shoulders over all other reviewers because of his supposedly exceptionally well-trained ears.

Peter was also known to tell it like it is. That he did and this upset any number of product manufacturers. Rumor has it that reviewers (and mfg'ers) would sit around the audiophile campfire telling scary Peter Moncrief stories.

In my limited experience with products I've owned or auditioned and Moncrief reviewed, he seemed spot on in those cases.

Anyway, thus far I've only read the first few pages of his paper but wow! I also suspect this should be quite an eye opener for many and for a number of reasons.
 

http://www.iar-80.com/page170.html

 

I have been reading the Peter Moncrief's article "Digital Done Wrong" from IAR.  Wow!

Has anybody else read the piece.  I am 5- 6 pages into it and my head is spinning.

 

That article flattens everything I've read about digital.    

It is relatively heavy reading but would be interested in knowing what @mansr or @Miska have to say about it

 

Regards.

 

 

  

 

 

[Nikhil]

Not sure if this has been posted here already  ...

 

The McGill University paper titled "A Comparison of Clarity in MQA Encoded Files vs. Their Unprocessed State as Performed by Three Groups – Expert Listeners, Musicians, and Casual Listeners" has been published on AES.

 

http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=19396

 

"subjects did not make consistent ratings of the clarity attribute when comparing (the two formats) ... "   followed by the usual caveats that differentiation depends heavily on listening conditions etc. 

 

Sounds like not a lot of people can tell the difference in the end.

 

 

 

  

[Nikhil]

Prophetic .... in light of what's going on with Tidal and MQA

 

 

 

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[Nikhil]

 

Just downgraded my Tidal subscription from Tidal HiFi to Tidal Premium.

Don't see the point of paying the basturds for "HiFi" when all they do is send junk down the pipe.

 

 

 

 

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[Nikhil]

4 hours ago, firedog said:

Are you finding a lot of albums are only available as MQA?

 

For sure Tidal keeps shoving an MQA version everytime they get the chance.  But it's more than that - at several listening sessions conducted at different locations (not just my own setup) the quality of the Tidal stream was just garbage.   CD playback or local file storage is so much better than whatever you get over Tidal including the silly "Master" versions.  

 

IMO You have to be completely ignorant of high quality sound if you continue to subscribe to Tidal HiFI.

 

 

.

 

[Nikhil]

MQA is actively recruiting on Facebook these days.  Saw this on the TIDAL High Fidelity Music Streaming group.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/tidalmusic/permalink/887531075030390/

 

[Nikhil]

 

Well that TIDAL group is "infected" with MQA - one of every four posts is MQA related.  

 

 

 

 

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[Nikhil]

2 hours ago, John Dyson said:

Another method to 'improve the music': -- but a bit complex, is a recording + software package, all boxed together, ready to *automatically* run/decode on a Windows PC, like a download/install process.?   (I am NOT interested in $$$ profit motive, just interested in the music.)

 

I would be very interested in learning more about what you mean by this.  Perhaps on a different thread.

 

 

.

[Nikhil]

Meanwhile on queue 2L gets trotted out on the TIDAL High Fidelity Music Streaming group

https://www.facebook.com/groups/tidalmusic/permalink/889229521527212/

 

[Nikhil]

2 minutes ago, FredericV said:

Is the Tidal group managed by MQA influencers? I did launch a membrship request, and now it seems I'm banned from this group:

 

 

Quite possible.  I was invited by a friend but left the group a few days ago.

Just too much MQA garbage on there. 

 

 

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