MQA is Vaporware

[Spike Kasperak]

I have been following this thread for a number of years and i have been waiting for this day to come. Thank the Audio Gods MQA is in the scrap heap of history, along with all the other rubbish ideas and phoney solutions to non existent problems.

 

The audio press who allowed this to happen refuses to acknowledge their folly, even with the news Tidal is replacing their file with real high resolution, and there fore providing the nail in the coffin for MQA. MQA will be a laughable, forgotten episode. What will not be forgotten is the dishonor and shame these publications have brought upon themselves.

 

Spike

[Spike Kasperak]

Even as of a few days ago, the shamless Stereohile editors post this "review":

https://www.stereophile.com/content/ifi-audio-neo-stream-streaming-da-processor

 

This piece of rubbish writing stood out:

"I think I am developing a sweet tooth. Something just felt "right," to pick one simplistic word, about the sonic product MQA achieves. Played back via Tidal Connect, the sound on Coleman Hawkins Encounters Ben Webster (24/96 MQA, Verve/Tidal) was startlingly fine."

[Spike Kasperak]

1 hour ago, JoeWhip said:

I am not a psychiatrist but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, so here goes. The MQA and the audio press issue is a complicated one. Some may generally prefer the sound. That is OK. Some fell prey to the sales job of Mr. Stuart or the audio show demos where they were first told what they would hear and as most folks do, thought they heard it. Some of those folks will realize they were duped, others will not admit for varied reasons, such as embarrassment. Some for financial reasons. Others will hold on due to their feelings that they know more than the masses. Those folks will never admit they are wrong because their self worth is tied up into their belief structure. By all accounts, MQA is an abject failure, but those true believers will go down with the ship At least the rest of us have options for listening not tied to MQA. For that we should be happy.

Sir, a beautifully crafted analysis. I agree.

 

But then we still need to ask the question. WHY were this relatively small group of reviewers the virtually the only ones that time after time, were enamored with the sound of MQA, when it  is clearly, very clearly, a distorted version of the master file. The fact that a fool like Fremer was able to get away with saying "IF digital sounded THIS good 30 years ago, I would be all in"...not, to mention the countless absurd observations by others

 

There comes a point where subjectiveness reaches its end. One can claim they "like" the tasted of grilled cardboard better than fillet mignon, but since the vast majority of sane people don't, it does not make some outlier more valid, just ridiculous, actually.

[Spike Kasperak]

5 hours ago, Fx Studio said:

OK nice talking to you. 

If you are trying to be a comedian don't quit your day gig. You were comical in a different way. 

[Spike Kasperak]

I am not sure who is a bigger joke, this FX clown, or these reviewers, who still bring it upon themselves to mention MQA in every write up, despite the fact it of vast public knowledge MQA is a dead rotting corpse both from a business aspect and as a "format".

 

https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/technics-sl-g700m2-cd-sacd-player-and-streaming-dac/

 

https://www.stereophile.com/content/infigo-method-3-monoblock-power-amplifier

[Spike Kasperak]

Unless I missed, it seems MyTek has dumped MQA. Does not seem to be Trojan Horsed on to this product:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/mytek-digital-brooklyn-bridge-ii-roon-core-preamplifier

 

No apologies to customers, no mention of how MQA is no longer available. How humiliating. I would never spend a Euro with this company.

[Spike Kasperak]

4 minutes ago, Allan F said:

The attributes of a true snake oil salesman.

Yes, time to pull the ripcord on this joker.

[Spike Kasperak]

11 minutes ago, Fx Studio said:

 

Thanks for the encouragement!

 

just STOP. Nobody here gives a Flying F@@K,

[Spike Kasperak]

This "news" is of little or no consequence. NAD is a MidFi company pretending to be sota. 

 

They probably "acquired" MQA for peanuts and to save face for their all in MQA endorsement on their product line.  Yawn.

[Spike Kasperak]

4 hours ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

I am beginning to think that some people lack comprehension skills. I did not say MQA is "not lossy." What I wrote was that "While it is true that the bits in an MQA-encoded file are not the same as those in the original hi-rez file, this does not necessarily mean that the format is 'lossy' in the manner that MP3, AAC, etc are lossy." You omitted the final 9 words in that sentence, thus misrepresenting my statement.

 

If you look at the measurements I have performed on lossy codecs like MP3 and AAC - see https://www.stereophile.com/features/308mp3cd/index.html - and APT-X and A2DP - see https://www.stereophile.com/content/chord-chordette-gem-da-processor-measurements - you can see that these codecs discard real music information and compromise the analog noisefloor in order to reduce the bitrate. MQA behaves differently from those codecs, and while the unfolded/upsampled bits are not identical to those in the original hi-rez PCM file, in theory no music information is lost and the analog noisefloor is that of the original recording.

 

All I am saying that MQA is different in principle to codecs like MP3 etc. You are welcome, of course, to regard it as "lossy"

 

John Atkinson

Technical Editor, Stereophile

You sir, are one of the most disingenuous and dishonest people I have ever encountered in the hifi industry. You led gullible fools down the primrose path. The egg on your face is so thick it would take a hammer and chisel  to scrape it off.

 

When you don't have the dignity to admit you were wrong about MQA is a question that will be asked for years to come. No one wonder you were put out to pasture. 

[Spike Kasperak]

4 hours ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

I am beginning to think that some people lack comprehension skills. I did not say MQA is "not lossy." What I wrote was that "While it is true that the bits in an MQA-encoded file are not the same as those in the original hi-rez file, this does not necessarily mean that the format is 'lossy' in the manner that MP3, AAC, etc are lossy." You omitted the final 9 words in that sentence, thus misrepresenting my statement.

 

If you look at the measurements I have performed on lossy codecs like MP3 and AAC - see https://www.stereophile.com/features/308mp3cd/index.html - and APT-X and A2DP - see https://www.stereophile.com/content/chord-chordette-gem-da-processor-measurements - you can see that these codecs discard real music information and compromise the analog noisefloor in order to reduce the bitrate. MQA behaves differently from those codecs, and while the unfolded/upsampled bits are not identical to those in the original hi-rez PCM file, in theory no music information is lost and the analog noisefloor is that of the original recording.

 

All I am saying that MQA is different in principle to codecs like MP3 etc. You are welcome, of course, to regard it as "lossy"

 

John Atkinson

Technical Editor, Stereophile

How has this utter rubbish aged? 

"As MQA needs to be applied at the mastering stage in a recording's production, it doesn't improve the sound quality of your existing CD collection. It is really only relevant to downloads.

John Atkinson Editor, Stereophile".

 

Answer. Not well.

[Spike Kasperak]

4 hours ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

I am beginning to think that some people lack comprehension skills. I did not say MQA is "not lossy." What I wrote was that "While it is true that the bits in an MQA-encoded file are not the same as those in the original hi-rez file, this does not necessarily mean that the format is 'lossy' in the manner that MP3, AAC, etc are lossy." You omitted the final 9 words in that sentence, thus misrepresenting my statement.

 

If you look at the measurements I have performed on lossy codecs like MP3 and AAC - see https://www.stereophile.com/features/308mp3cd/index.html - and APT-X and A2DP - see https://www.stereophile.com/content/chord-chordette-gem-da-processor-measurements - you can see that these codecs discard real music information and compromise the analog noisefloor in order to reduce the bitrate. MQA behaves differently from those codecs, and while the unfolded/upsampled bits are not identical to those in the original hi-rez PCM file, in theory no music information is lost and the analog noisefloor is that of the original recording.

 

All I am saying that MQA is different in principle to codecs like MP3 etc. You are welcome, of course, to regard it as "lossy"

 

John Atkinson

Technical Editor, Stereophile

More utter garbage not based in reality. You can't possibly be that naive.

 

"1 understand that mastering with MQA uses Meridian's "apodizing filter" but fine-tuned to the actual A/D converter originally used. According to Bob Stuart, this is possible because 1) there is only a small population of professional A/D converters and 2) record companies actually keep good records on what converter was used for the original sessions and/or mastering. Almost all CDs from the early 1980s, for example, were mastered with one of the Sony PCM1600 family."

[Spike Kasperak]

52 minutes ago, vortecjr said:

Thinking about this…they could update the decoder code in Roon or Tidal easy enough. The hardware decoders would need a firmware update. Seems doable. 

Why bother? What is the point? Let it die. We should be taking a dump on the grave of this utterly useless fake technology.

[Spike Kasperak]

4 hours ago, vortecjr said:

I’m simply saying that it’s not as hard as was pointed out to update it because the first stage decoding was taking place on a hand full of servers. Was Audirvana another server decoding. 
 

If the code was made open source who knows what might come of it. 

Yes, but again, nothing should come of it. MQA serves no purpose what so ever. It was a Get Rich Quick scheme that imploded and is in the scrap heap. Leave it there.