MQA is Vaporware

[RichardSF]

1 hour ago, Em2016 said:

I don't even know if there is a difference between recording in MQA and just converting to MQA.

 

There is no such thing as "recording in MQA". MQA is a compression technique. The audio is originally recorded in some format (say 24/96) and becomes compressed/encoded to 16/44 MQA format.

[RichardSF]

9 hours ago, Shadders said:

Think about it, MQA claims lossless, yet offers less than 16bit or less than 24bit presentations. How can this be if it is lossless. So it has to be lossy, contrary to the MQA claims.

 

MQA does not claim to be lossless. When questioned about it, Bob Stuart dances around and tries to deflect the question by offering an "alternative meaning" for the word.

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/ca/ca-academy/A-Comprehensive-Q-A-With-MQA-s-Bob-Stuart/

(scroll down and search for "LOSSLESSNESS")

 

[RichardSF]

On 7/22/2021 at 11:19 AM, KeenObserver said:

How successful has Tidal been in promoting MQA?

 

Does Tidal have any market share?

Tidal hasn't released subscriber numbers in recent years, but it probably has less than 1% market share of streaming music, and Qobuz is even much smaller than Tidal. If you look at charts of market share, Tidal and Qobuz are usually not listed, and lumped into the "Others" category. As a point of reference, in 2019 Roon said they had 100K subscribers (equivalent of 2 football stadiums). In summary, audiophiles make up a very, very small portion of total market share.

 

https://www.midiaresearch.com/blog/global-music-subscriber-market-shares-q1-2021

[RichardSF]

3 hours ago, Archimago said:

Do you know if the reports typically itemize income sources like for example TIDAL streaming side, or hardware licensing for the ESS chips that incorporate mQa filtering?

There is little detail. After all, these are financial statements for the government, not like an annual report of a publicly traded company for shareholders and investors.

You can find filings for MQA Ltd. here: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09123512/filing-history

Here is their filing for the year ending 2019: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09123512/filing-history/MzI4NzY4NTAzMmFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf&download=0

 

You can look up various well known UK audio companies (Naim Audio, Linn Products, Harbeth Audio, etc). For someone like me in the tech industry, their financials are shockingly tiny.

 

[RichardSF]

Steve Rochlin (Enjoy the Music) in a tirade about MQA, without actually mentioning MQA (from about halfway in his essay , look for "It Truly And Deeply Pains Me To Say This")...

 

https://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/viewpoint/0219/Lossless_Streaming_Music_Welcome_To_20_Years_Ago.htm

[RichardSF]

4 hours ago, Stereo said:

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/spotify-rival-deezer-strikes-spac-deal-valuing-it-at-about-1-1-billion-11650297600

Quote

Access Industries, the industrial conglomerate founded by billionaire Len Blavatnik that controls Warner Music Group Corp. Other Deezer investors include Universal Music Group, Sony Group Corp. and French telco operator Orange SA

I found that the music conglomerates also invest in Spotify. What a strange relationship, to invest in streaming services and strangle them with licensing fees at the same time.

 

Quote

Deezer, which has yet to turn a profit, is aiming to reach €1 billion revenue by 2025 and be profitable by that same year. Deezer’s 2021 operating loss was €120.6 million, compared with an operating loss of €88.3 million the previous year.

Their losses grew significantly last year. I'm a bit skeptical that they'll suddenly be profitable within a few years 😊.

 

BTW, interesting topic but I don't see that it's relevant for this thread.

[RichardSF]

5 hours ago, loop7 said:

So I was under the impression TIDAL would have archived Redbook versions but I'm guessing I was incorrect.

TIDAL doesn't own the music. They operate under license agreement with the record label. It's doubtful that TIDAL is allowed to "archive" a copy of anything.

[RichardSF]

13 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

Tidal Music is in trouble because they can't grow their subcribers numbers as fast as the streaming market is expanding.

I think Tidal is safe for the near term. Tidal is the pet project of Block CEO billionaire Jack Dorsey, who pushed through the acquisition. Dorsey has been vague about what he wants to do with Tidal, but he bought it to gain entry into the music industry and it is more than about Tidal's streaming business.

[RichardSF]

2 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

I even know people that pay for YouTube... Thats strange to me. I don't understand why anyone would do that when there are much better offerings out there for streaming music if a person is willing to pay for it.

I've had a YouTube Premium family subscription for many years (originally called YouTube Red). YouTube without ads is great, and YouTube itself is a valuable source of concert recordings that are hard to find anywhere else. I don't use YouTube for streaming music and you can't consider it to be paying for a separate service because YouTube Music and YouTube Premium are combined in the same subscription.

[RichardSF]

15 minutes ago, sphinxsix said:

 

@RichardSF I kindly suggest using AdBlock instead of paying for Youtube and spending the saved money on AS subscription..

Actually I've already been using AdBlock for many years. It didn't used to block YouTube ads and I guess I never noticed when they added the feature because of my YouTube subscription. I also give a regular contribution to AdBlock and if you use it I encourage you to do it too.

[RichardSF]

MQA mastered LPs is now a thing.

https://www.analogplanet.com/content/chick-corea’s-new-montreux-years-2lp-set-shines-remarkably-consistent-sounding-mqa-mastered

[RichardSF]

6 hours ago, bambadoo said:

https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/warner-music-universal-music-sued-for-patent-infringement-by-blue-spike-over-mqa-encoding-process/

 

If only it were possible for both sides to lose. Blue Spike is one of the worst patent trolls.

https://www.techdirt.com/2014/09/30/serial-litigant-blue-spike-wins-effs-stupid-patent-month-september/

[RichardSF]

On 1/18/2023 at 4:15 PM, KeenObserver said:

I didn't know that NAD was still in business.

NAD is one of the largest audio brands and was the first mainstream manufacturer to use Purifi amp modules.

https://www.crutchfield.com/shopsearch/nad.html?ibr=1&brand=nad

NAD won Stereophile's 2020 Component of the Year.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/stereophiles-products-2020-component-year

[RichardSF]

On 4/6/2023 at 12:23 PM, Skirmash said:

Would Tidal themselves consider purchasing it? They have sunk significant effort into making MQA a point of difference!

Tidal have skin in the game and I think it's a definite possibility. It wouldn't be Tidal itself purchasing MQA, but Tidal's owner Block Inc. Block (Square) paid $300M for Tidal and they can easily purchase MQA.

[RichardSF]

What do we love to talk about, more than anything else? MQA, of course!

 

This is the most active thread on the forum by far, with almost 26 thousand replies and over 2.2 million views. Nothing else comes remotely close. Let's aim for a stretch goal of 40K replies and 3M views!

 

 

[RichardSF]

On 4/10/2023 at 3:00 PM, Rt66indierock said:

Somebody should about Tidal's Q1 2023 revenue.

 

Why haven't they filed their 2021 reports with Companies House.

Tidal was acquired by Block Inc in April 2021 for 233M USD. Block have not reported separate financial numbers for Tidal (they are not obligated to), but you can find comments about Tidal in Block's quarterly and annual reports: https://investors.block.xyz/financials

 

[RichardSF]

On 7/19/2023 at 10:46 PM, Currawong said:

Are they watermarked though? Last I checked, many albums were messed up this way regardless.

How long ago did you last check? In my experience, UMG stopped watermarking albums on streaming services several years ago, right around when this report appeared (dated April 2020):

https://www.mattmontag.com/music/an-update-on-umg-watermarks

 

At the time, I subscribed to multiple streaming services and the same albums were ruined by watermarking on all of them except Qobuz. After 2020 I haven't encountered the distinctive distortion that was easily audible in UMG watermarking.

[RichardSF]

On 9/14/2023 at 5:19 AM, bambadoo said:

I was just referring to an interview with mastering engineer Brian Lucey.. 

Unfortunately his site is under maintainance. 

Here is the interview on Internet Archive:

https://web.archive.org/web/20180614091331/http://fairhedon.com/2017/11/05/an-interview-with-mastering-engineer-brian-lucey/

[RichardSF]

Canadian company Lenbrook (owner of Bluesound, NAD Electronics and PSB Speakers) has acquired MQA.

https://lenbrook.com/lenbrook-extends-leadership-in-hi-res-audio-with-mqa-acquisition/

[RichardSF]

57 minutes ago, firedog said:

Or try and push the so far failed SCL6?

I don't see any future for SCL6. Even a powerhouse like Qualcomm didn't get far with adoption of more advanced versions of their aptX codec. Meanwhile, Bluetooth standards are evolving and products will be moving in the direction of Bluetooth LE Audio and the LC3 codec.

[RichardSF]

3 hours ago, Fx Studio said:

You obviously missed the significance of this one:  https://www.androidbrick.com/how-to-download-tidal-mqa-albums/

 

The significance is that it's music piracy software. There are versions of such apps on the web to capture files from any streaming service. Are you saying that it's a perfectly valid way to obtain your own copies of MQA files?

 

The author of the app knows what he is offering:

[RichardSF]

Something that struck me is that when MQA Ltd went into receivership in April, Stereophile and TAS went silent on the topic for months. No commentary about it, or even reporting it as audio news. However, with the Lenbrook acquisition both had it up on their websites just hours after the announcement.

[RichardSF]

9 hours ago, vortecjr said:

The additional formats are additional purchases?   

After you've purchased a download from the Qobuz store, you can login to the store anytime in the future and download again in any available format.

[RichardSF]

5 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

When I got to the part about Mike Jbara’s “excellent people skills” my eyes were like 😳

I don't doubt that he does have excellent people skills. Getting to executive level at Warner Music (and in general for the music industry) is all about ability to schmooze, make connections, and close deals.

[RichardSF]

2 hours ago, Currawong said:

I strongly suspect part of the reason Apple came out with high-res was, in part, to kill MQA.

 

You give MQA way too much credit. If Apple cared about MQA, they could have bought it and bend it to their own needs. Apple going lossless was a brilliant move against Spotify, and hi-res was icing on the cake.