MQA is Vaporware

[Les Habitants]

I'm a  new member, first post here. Considering streaming and maybe a new DAC soon.

 

So far I do not like really anything I see about MQA, maybe I'm missing something? Is MQA really only relevant to Tidal users?

[Les Habitants]

1 hour ago, PeterSt said:

Why do you ask this, when you seem not to like MQA in the first place ?

 

Because I am considering both a new DAC at some point, and also streaming capability and services, and I don't pretend to know that much about all of it especially as it might relate to MQA.

[Les Habitants]

15 hours ago, Digital Assassin said:

"real instruments", "real space"..oh god, what pretentious dreck. You clearly don't know the first thing about rock and roll.

 

Enjoy tea time,

 

Yes, maybe good for system demos at a HiFi show or something, but not my cup of tea for musical enjoyment over the longer haul.

 

10 hours ago, firedog said:

Sorry, Sal. don't think your definition makes much sense. On either a 40 year or one year old multi-track rock recording, there's going to be all sorts of editing, manipulation, and mixing.That's just how they are made. 

 

And some of it is made quite well, the major labels have had both hits and misses over the years in that regard. I don't see how MQA can really be advancing the state of the art in terms of playback though, motives other than sound quality seem to be at play.

[Les Habitants]

11 hours ago, Sal1950 said:

DA, your a funny guy, ha ha.

 

Something amusing there? Please do share the joke!

[Les Habitants]

1 hour ago, Charles Hansen said:

 

Welcome, Les Habitants!

Yes, for the moment Tidal is the only meaningful source of MQA-processed files. Apparently there are somewhere around 2500 albums that have been had MQA processing applied. All of the current ones have been processed by MQA themselves, so that represents a big bottleneck as far as releasing more titles.

 

Thanks very much for this most informative reply, I very much appreciate it.

 

1 hour ago, Charles Hansen said:

There is also talk of HD Tracks (the US-based high-res download store) starting a streaming service this fall that will only stream MQA files. That doesn't make sense to me, as the entire point of streaming is to have access to a vastly larger catalog that one is likely to ever own.

 

Yes that doesn't seem to make any sense does it? I already own thousands of albums, streaming offers value to me only if it's on a vastly larger scale than what I already own.

 

1 hour ago, Charles Hansen said:

Currently there is no extra charge on Tidal for the small percentage of albums available in MQA, but that is likely to change if MQA ever becomes a significant fraction of the catalog. The math is very simple - it costs more to produce, store, and stream an MQA file than a CD-quality file, so sooner or later that cost will be passed on to you.

 

Now that does make sense, but not for me. Maybe for Bob Stuart.

 

1 hour ago, Charles Hansen said:

The second step that currently only happens in an "MQA certified" DAC is to adjust the coefficients of its digital filter.

 

Very interesting, so I won't worry too much about a new DAC being "MQA certified" or not. To date MQA's marketing stance on this has been murky at best, at least as I have understood things, not to mention my HiFi dealer!

 

1 hour ago, Charles Hansen said:

Apparently Qobuz has a much larger catalog selection than Tidal (especially for classical)

 

And then there's Tidal, at what point might Softbank/Sprint pull the plug on the HiFi service and with it MQA, since Tidal does nothing but lose money each year? Maybe I'll just wait for Qobuz to be available in Canada.

 

Thanks again Charles, it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

[Les Habitants]

2 hours ago, mansr said:

MP3s sound a lot better today than they did in the 90s.

 

Absolutely, 98+% of my friends and colleagues are perfectly happy with 256-320 kbps lossy streams, and thats unlikely to change even though previous practical constraints such as available bandwidth are no longer real concerns, they don't care about any of that and think lossy streams sound just fine.

 

Thats why I expect Softbank/Sprint to kill Tidal's HiFi tier much faster than they would invest much of anything in it. Maybe they would be encouraged if a competitor such as Spotify were to roll out a similar service and actually gain some traction with it. Trouble is, Spotify might crush them in short order for whatever that available market share is, regardless of any MQA lure on Tidal.

[Les Habitants]

6 hours ago, Ishmael Slapowitz said:

Yes, and any one care to take bets whether Gilles Martin "authenticated" MQA slop processing on his 2018 mix and master? 

 

I wager there is no authentication of any kind.

[Les Habitants]

6 hours ago, beetlemania said:

I peed my pants with excitement imagining the SQ if only Gilles Martin had MQA'd the White Album instead of pedestrian 24/96. Blue lights would illuminate, the music would become louder, and a new Copernicus would birth!

 

It is my understanding that this still occurred, initially even without Giles Martin or Paul McCartney's authentication. Still the blue light comes on, and Copernicus was indeed re-birthed, all thanks to that special encoder in the cloud.

Once Giles heard that BS had developed an algorithm that auto-corrects the severe blurring caused by the Prism ADC, he signed off on the whole thing as authentic, as did Sir Paul. 

[Les Habitants]

6 hours ago, Paul R said:

So far, not seen much. 

 

Nor have you provided any. I too can tout anecdotal evidence, in Québec no one know what MQA is, and they don't care to pay for Tidal either.

[Les Habitants]

7 hours ago, Paul R said:

Yes, I did mean Pono. The question was about selling high resolution music. “Phono” is  inherently hires and has been around a very long time. Not sure how anyone could assume it was a failure. 

 

And there absolutely is more to MQA the theory. Again, what MQA the company does, and the science behind what they claim are separate things. MQA fails in the engineering, not in theory.  If you really do not understand that difference, I can probably recommend some community colleges in your area. Call their math department and ask for help.

 

Not sure how anyone could know if you are referring to Pono as a failure (it was), or "Phono" based on your cryptic reference to both there.

I can probably recommend some community colleges in your area, call their English department and ask for help.

[Les Habitants]

@sandyk I trust you missed Paul's rude, condescending, presumptive, uninformed, and nasty suggestion that Lars need seek community college help with mathematics? He then coupled that with a thinly veiled allegation of stupidity.

You missed that post I take it, or do you agree with Paul there and everywhere?

I'm willing to bet Paul is not the math genius he purports himself to be, rather like Lee Scoggins in that regard I suppose.

I'm sure Lars is too classy to even respond to such nonsense, more likely he will just place Paul R. on his ignore list, knowing that blowhards hate to be ignored.

[Les Habitants]

18 hours ago, Paul R said:

Also, what possible purpose could I have for lying? It's unimaginable.  I just like to talk to people. -PR

 

Wow so you really did roam the streets of Cheyenne, interviewing hundreds of audiophiles, all of whom were giddy over the MQA sound quality on their Tidal HiFi tier subscription?

Tas de merde...