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MQA is Vaporware


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  • 1 month later...
25 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

I find that when they do have the Hi Res of something I am looking for its regular price is at or below HDTracks "sales price"and the others with their never ending sales and email coupon specials.  That, and most of the time they have the 16/44 as well which I sometimes get anyways depending upon the quality of the mastering, etc.

I also find that 7digital sometimes has much better prices and would be sad to see them go out of business.  I only buy above 16/44 if the hi-res mastering is audibly better (e.g. Tom Petty's "Best of Everything" compilation - I found out that the hi-res was mastered much better the expensive way).

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  • 1 year later...
  • 3 weeks later...
24 minutes ago, UkPhil said:

@The Computer Audiophile

We seem to have MQA’s marketing machine rolling again on the back catalogue release from Warner’s,  basically bit depth and sample rate is a thing of the past welcome the new era of masters 

 

https://www.mqa.co.uk/newsroom/opinions/the-original-is-the-best?fbclid=IwAR2ZwJQexdff4iLTVep-SkhO2sgmifTQdPbAP-G4d8m1f0vjT-UFIx0WyP4

I wondered who else could have come up with the copy describing the technical wonders of Eudora Record's deployment of "MQA-CD".

“TUHU” FIRST MQA-CD RELEASE ON EUDORA RECORDS (positive-feedback.com)

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...
On 4/28/2021 at 4:11 PM, firedog said:

The MQA people and the record labels-streaming companies  may be mistaken, but the seem to be looking long term at the whole music industry ecosystem, and thinking that long term they will manage to squeeze large additional "rents" out of consumers and audio companies. 

I don't doubt that's their long term plan, but I wonder how much additional rent and for how long can they really expect to extract  big rents when there is a vast global inventory of unadulterated lossless music in FLAC and other lossless audio coding formats that are technically and qualitatively superior to MQA?  Would there be the establishment of pirate radio stations streaming lossless to cater to the market?  Would there be the establishment of new record labels signing new artists and distributing MQA-less music? Could one or more of the MQA sponsor labels defect?  

 

It would be ironic if the MQA people end up left with the bathwater, and fitting since they are attempting to throw out the baby - unadulterated music.

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11 hours ago, firedog said:

If they can 

If they can get labels and streaming services to substitute MQA for standard PCM it might work. So far Warner seems to be playing along. Lots of people don't download illegal "inventory", which is how Apple and streaming services make money. It remains to be seen how it will shake out.

Agreed, there's a darkening sky and most of the auguries are not good.  But, maybe, also a glint of sunlight

The Q Sessions, Straight From The Studio Pure PCM Recording Available On Qobuz - Bits and Bytes - Audiophile Style

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  • 3 weeks later...
46 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

A gift from Duncan Rolfe and Peter Veth via mQa developments and reviews Facebook page. As a long time member of the group I appreciate them documenting the failure mQa to be a significant part of the HiFi tier of Tidal Music.  

MQA_List 16th May 2021.xlsx 9.49 MB · 11 downloads

Maybe it's my eyes, maybe it's the Facebook source, but glancing at the spreadsheet was the revelation that Pink Floyd and Pinkie (whom I've never heard of) had recorded classical symphonies (apparently now available in MQA), i.e., row 358 (Pink Floyd: Sibelius: Symphony No. 1, Op. 39), and row 359 (Pinkie: Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4, Op. 36).

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
5 hours ago, JoshM said:

 

I hope one of our tech sluths can figure out of the Qobuz and HDT files are MQA-free. 
 

This is a release I was really looking forward to…

I was looking forward to Nina Simone: The Montreux Years, too.  Because of what I think is its uncertain provenance and uncertain authenticity as a unMQA-ed FLAC download, (who said MQA is irony-proof?), I looked elsewhere and discovered that Qobuz has the July 1976 Montreux concert (plus a couple of bonus highlights from her July 1987 Montreux concert) as a 16-bit 44.1 kHz download released in 2011. 

https://www.qobuz.com/fr-fr/album/live-at-montreux-1976-nina-simone/yfu4dl6vmqw4a

 

So I bought it.  It's not only a great concert, it also sounds great IMHO.

 

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17 hours ago, Currawong said:

 

I captured the output of the Qobuz version of track 1, and it looks like MQA, with a band of noise above 16 kHz, so very possibly not. Ignore the extra at the end of the track, it continued to track 2 before I stopped it.  

 

If they did their "white glove" treatment of it, then it might be ok. 

 

1954824117_ScreenShot2021-07-01at13_12_26.thumb.png.c09bc641c3fd09e0a13ba3d59586fbbd.png

 

Thanks for doing the audio analysis!  

 

I was leery that there was a different version in unadulterated FLAC given all the fussing the Metropolis label made about the album being "MQA encoded" and with the interview with the recording engineer singing the praises of MQA featured on the official MQA website.

 

If it's reasonable to conclude that they released what appeared to an MQA-enabled DAC on @UkPhil's system to be non-MQA FLAC , but I presume was actually MQA in a FLAC container, couple questions come to mind:  

 

Does that mean the version of Nina Simone: Montreux Years that was released for download on HDTracks and Qobuz is even more compromised compared to authentic FLAC than a "regular" MQA file,  if it is actually an MQA-encoded file that won't light up the pretty blue MQA "authentication" light? and,

 

How are we to have any confidence in purchasing downloads if they are advertised as 16-bit or 24-bit 44.1 kHz downloads but may be actually MQA in FLAC containers?

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1 minute ago, Cebolla said:

 

You need to be careful defining exactly what you mean by "MQA in FLAC containers" - MQA tracks are distributed undecoded usually in FLAC container files, such as TIDAL's MQA containing FLAC file tracks. Presumably, you are referring to the possibility of already decoded MQA tracks in FLAC container files.  

Thanks for the explanation and clarification.

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