MQA is Vaporware

[mansr]

9 hours ago, Paul R said:

Guess we will have to disagree on this one.  I don’t have a dog in the Bob Stuart hunt going on. Indeed, I think the man just fell in with bad company. 

Bob Stuart is the bad company.

 

9 hours ago, Paul R said:

IRT FLAC, other than a few high end companies, have you seen any digitally distributed master recordings from traditional record companies? If not, then FLAC is technically capable of distributing master recordings, but it ain’t happening. So is AIFF, WAV, ALAC, and a few other formats. Why is such distribution not happening? Is it a technical fault in the formats?

Qobuz has high-res FLAC from many labels both for download and streaming. HDtracks and others have downloads.

[crenca]

1 hour ago, ARQuint said:

 

Let's note what Paul and so many others have observed over the past two years on this thread., It's not a "discussion" if only one point of view is welcome and persons with another opinion are assailed and then advised to go elsewhere.

 

Paul is not here to discuss.  Instead he simply proclaimed "beliefs".  A discussion is not a testimonial tent, or a religious act.  Paul came here to say "the sky is green", and when we said "eh, no, it's blue" he kept repeating himself.  That's not a discussion.

 

Your statement of support is the tired rhetorical act of someone who has lost the argument...

[mcgillroy]

Who is it that these guys show up reliably a few weeks after the last one fizzled out?

[Paul R]

3 hours ago, Shadders said:

[ A whole bunch of stuff I 100% agree with. And said it better than I did. -Paul ]

 

Hi,

The AES paper has serious errors. As pointed out by another poster, it states on page 11 that the MQA filters cause less dispersion, but the actual impulse response shows the pulse is broadened - Figure 14 top figure. An own goal by MQA.

 

 

I agree with everything you said except this point. I think the commercial code out there was deliberately written to limit the resolution, and that it’s current behavior is not a limitation of the technology / algorithm.

 

There are similar implementations of similar technology in other fields that do not have this flaw. Other flaws perhaps, but not this. Ergo - this flaw is on purpose. 

 

Now, the behavior of the people selling/marketing MQA and the recording industry, well, I agree with you completely. 

[Jud]

4 hours ago, ARQuint said:

 

Let's note what Paul and so many others have observed over the past two years on this thread., It's not a "discussion" if only one point of view is welcome and persons with another opinion are assailed and then advised to go elsewhere.

 

You’re correct. On the other hand, the failure to seriously engage on technical topics and concerns audiophiles have about access to non-proprietary hi res means that an actual exchange of ideas isn’t being sought by most folks of pro-MQA persuasion either.  So yes, ganging up on folks who don’t share an anti-MQA point of view is tiresome.  But how much of real value is thereby missed?  

 

When a couple of MQA principals derailed Chris’s RMAF presentation, they used the time not to put forward facts, but to attack the anonymity of someone who did measurements, and to attack Chris’s honesty by implying he’d been given confidential pro-MQA technical information that contradicted what he was saying publicly. All insinuation, no open technical discussion.  If that’s indicative of what’s being missed, it doesn’t seem like a great loss.

[Jud]

2 hours ago, mcgillroy said:

Who is it that these guys show up reliably a few weeks after the last one fizzled out?

 

Paul’s been here since long before you found this place. He was inactive on the forums for a while and is just getting back to them.

[mcgillroy]

1 minute ago, Jud said:

 

Paul’s been here since long before you found this place. He was inactive on the forums for a while and is just getting back to them.

 

I stand corrected!

[crenca]

2 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

You’re correct. On the other hand, the failure to seriously engage on technical topics and concerns audiophiles have about access to non-proprietary hi res means that an actual exchange of ideas isn’t being sought by most folks of pro-MQA persuasion either.  So yes, ganging up on folks who don’t share an anti-MQA point of view is tiresome...

 

You are incorrect.  What is tiresome is "discussions" based on...absolutely nothing.  These are not discussions - they are assertions of half truths, untruths, and misunderstandings.

 

Your equivalency of pro and con MQA positions, and the characterization of a 'debate' is in error in reference to Paul, ARQuint (most of the time)...

[Jud]

12 minutes ago, Paul R said:

 

I agree with everything you said except this point. I think the commercial code out there was deliberately written to limit the resolution, and that it’s current behavior is not a limitation of the technology / algorithm.

 

There are similar implementations of similar technology in other fields that do not have this flaw. Other flaws perhaps, but not this. Ergo - this flaw is on purpose. 

 

Now, the behavior of the people selling/marketing MQA and the recording industry, well, I agree with you completely. 

 

Hi Paul -

 

I think the fact the compression is lossy is intentional on the part of MQA itself, to make reverse engineering more difficult. This indicates to me that MQA is more concerned with protection of its intellectual property than sound quality.

[mansr]

28 minutes ago, Paul R said:

I think the commercial code out there was deliberately written to limit the resolution, and that it’s current behavior is not a limitation of the technology / algorithm.

What leads you to believe this? Do you have access to privileged information the rest of us do not?

[firedog]

8 hours ago, Paul R said:

Hi Danny - maybe so. I just find it difficult to believe that releases are mastered in 24/48k or even 24/96. I expect DXD 

, DSD, or at least 24/192. 🤪 

 

 

YMMV

-Paul

Sorry, no. LOTS of releases are still mastered in no more than 24/44.1. if you look at all forms of popular music, it is almost unheard of for recording to be done in anything above 24/96, and even that isn't the norm. Pros don't see it the same way audiophiles do.  Their main concern is preserving the quality during the mixing of lots of tracks. Bit depth is considered more important for this.
Some studios see extreme hi-res as unnecessary - EMI, for example, specifically says they see no reason to work in anything higher than 24/96.  Again, check and you will see that recording in 24/44.1 and 24/48 is quite common. Recording in 4X rates and 8X rates is definitely not the norm at the big labels. Sometimes recordings are upsampled to  4X rate for mixing, and then brought back down for mastering. Really working and mastering in 4x rates or higher is pretty much only at specialty labels.

[rickca]

This is all moot ... whether BS had good intentions but fell in with a bad lot, whether MQA is technically brilliant but was intentionally watered down, etc.  Not even worth a discussion.  It's all conjecture.

[Paul R]

18 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

You’re correct. On the other hand, the failure to seriously engage on technical topics and concerns audiophiles have about access to non-proprietary hi res means that an actual exchange of ideas isn’t being sought by most folks of pro-MQA persuasion either.  So yes, ganging up on folks who don’t share an anti-MQA point of view is tiresome.  But how much of real value is thereby missed?  

 

When a couple of MQA principals derailed Chris’s RMAF presentation, they used the time not to put forward facts, but to attack the anonymity of someone who did measurements, and to attack Chris’s honesty by implying he’d been given confidential pro-MQA technical information that contradicted what he was saying publicly. All insinuation, no open technical discussion.  If that’s indicative of what’s being missed, it doesn’t seem like a great loss.

Yep - and the whole MQA mess came about because Meridian was unwilling to release MLP, which IMO, was/is a legit competitor to DSD.  MQA was their answer to not adversely affect their MLP revenues.  And, I suppose, to keep recording industry execs from going ape **** crazy when they realized what MLP actually was. 

 

Meridian Lossles Packing is the tech behind DVD-A, for those who may not be familiar with it. There is a story with a whole lot of erie similarity in that...

 

Knowing that story is, I think, important to understanding the marketing mindset and goals behind MQA. And to understanding why and how I believe MQA is purposefully crippled. 

 

I think MQA will suffer the same fate as every other copy protection scheme, and perhaps for the same reasons, though that thinking is purely opinion. 

 

-Paul

[Paul R]

16 minutes ago, mansr said:

What leads you to believe this? Do you have access to privileged information the rest of us do not?

 

No, see previous reply with reference to M

12 minutes ago, firedog said:

Sorry, no. LOTS of releases are still mastered in no more than 24/44.1. if you look at all forms of popular music, it is almost unheard of for recording to be done in anything above 24/96, and even that isn't the norm. Pros don't see it the same way audiophiles do.  Their main concern is preserving the quality during the mixing of lots of tracks. Bit depth is considered more important for this.
Some studios see extreme hi-res as unnecessary - EMI, for example, specifically says they see no reason to work in anything higher than 24/96.  Again, check and you will see that recording in 24/44.1 and 24/48 is quite common. Recording in 4X rates and 8X rates is definitely not the norm at the big labels. Sometimes recordings are upsampled to  4X rate for mixing, and then brought back down for mastering. Really working and mastering in 4x rates or higher is pretty much only at specialty labels.

 

Well, my experience is pretty limited to the Austin scene, but even garage bands there record in 24/192k  or higher. A few still do tape actually. 

 

I suspect you know more than I do about the commercial “high res” releases though. 

[crenca]

9 minutes ago, rickca said:

This is all moot ... whether BS had good intentions but fell in with a bad lot, whether MQA is technically brilliant but was intentionally watered down, etc.  Not even worth a discussion.  It's all conjecture.

 

Old Guard audiophiledom is like an X-File episode...just not as clear.

[rickca]

Funny my local dealer who has been in the business like forever still thinks MQA is a huge breakthrough.  He swallowed the story hook line and sinker since it was first announced, and clearly has never heard about any of concerns discussed on this forum.

 

I bet there are lots of dealers out there just like him, naive and uninformed.

 

He is a great resource for analog components.  I sure wouldn't consult with him about anything else.  

[new_media]

19 minutes ago, rickca said:

I bet there are lots of dealers out there just like him, naive and uninformed.

 

 

I bet there are lots of dealers out there who want all of their customers to upgrade to MQA-capable DACs.

 

My local dealer is really a vinyl guy. He sells Brooklyn DACs and I think their ads mention it as a feature, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard him mention MQA in person.

[mansr]

9 minutes ago, Paul R said:

Yep - and the whole MQA mess came about because Meridian was unwilling to release MLP, which IMO, was/is a legit competitor to DSD.  MQA was their answer to not adversely affect their MLP revenues.  And, I suppose, to keep recording industry execs from going ape **** crazy when they realized what MLP actually was. 

 

Meridian Lossles Packing is the tech behind DVD-A, for those who may not be familiar with it. There is a story with a whole lot of erie similarity in that...

 

Knowing that story is, I think, important to understanding the marketing mindset and goals behind MQA. And to understanding why and how I believe MQA is purposefully crippled. 

 

I think MQA will suffer the same fate as every other copy protection scheme, and perhaps for the same reasons, though that thinking is purely opinion.

MLP is just another lossless codec using predictive filters plus residual. It's decent enough, but hardly spectacular. The main downside is that it is proprietary. Why should anyone use it when the universally supported FLAC performs just as well (or better) and is free of charge?

 

MQA is a different beast entirely. The core idea is to compress the high frequencies and hide them as noise in the low bits of a 44.1/48 kHz PCM stream, granting access to the full resolution only to those who have paid their decoder licence fee. This compression is by necessity lossy. It is mathematically impossible to compress an arbitrary data set to a smaller size. MQA relies on most music have very little high-frequency content in the first place, which means it will typically compress to the requisite half size without much loss. It is also necessary to discard some low-level information from the low frequencies in order to make room for the compressed data stream.

 

No matter how elegant you may think this "folding" is, the fact still remains that nobody actually needs it. The bandwidth savings compared to FLAC are slim at best. Masquerading as PCM is also unnecessary since currently used distribution channels (streaming and downloads) can handle any file format just fine. Specifically, FLAC is already widely used to great success.

 

In a nutshell: MQA is a solution in desperate search of a problem. Until a problem can be shown to exist, there is no sense in entertaining MQA, or anything else, as a solution.

[mansr]

21 minutes ago, rickca said:

Funny my local dealer who has been in the business like forever still thinks MQA is a huge breakthrough.  He swallowed the story hook line and sinker since it was first announced, and clearly has never heard about any of concerns discussed on this forum.

 

I bet there are lots of dealers out there just like him, naive and uninformed.

Dealers are agents of the brands they represent. Their job is to sell more of whatever the latter produce. Whether or not they actually believe the stories they tell is beside the point. Without telling them, they wouldn't sell as much.

[Jud]

15 minutes ago, mansr said:

Dealers are agents of the brands they represent. Their job is to sell more of whatever the latter produce. Whether or not they actually believe the stories they tell is beside the point. Without telling them, they wouldn't sell as much.

 

Don’t know whether the majority of dealers are like this - quite possibly, but it would just be conjecture on my part.

 

I’ve actually run into the opposite problem, when after I told a dealer I’d purchased speakers elsewhere and was interested in looking at amps, he refused to demo anything for me, saying I’d just go back to the dealer I bought the speakers from anyway. (Talk about self-fulfilling prophecy....)

 

The dealer who sold me most of my original system would actually discourage me and others from purchasing from him the “latest and greatest” that had just been given favorable reviews if he thought it wouldn’t be an improvement, or a sufficient improvement, over what we already had.  (He also had a nicely incisive sense of humor about audio marketing. He would occasionally walk over to a wall and shout into it, “The Sound of Bose!”)

[mansr]

3 minutes ago, Jud said:

The dealer who sold me most of my original system would actually discourage me and others from purchasing from him the “latest and greatest” that had just been given favorable reviews if he thought it wouldn’t be an improvement, or a sufficient improvement, over what we already had.  (He also had a nicely incisive sense of humor about audio marketing. He would occasionally walk over to a wall and shout into it, “The Sound of Bose!”)

Is he still in business?

[Jud]

5 minutes ago, mansr said:

Is he still in business?

 

Heh, no.    He and most other audio-only dealers got killed off by the audio-video stores. He wasn’t interested in video.

 

Edit: This was also 25-30 years ago.

[JoeWhip]

Hi Jud, sounds like Jack at Chestnut Hill Audio. I still have the stuff he sold me. It still sounds great.

[Jud]

45 minutes ago, JoeWhip said:

Hi Jud, sounds like Jack at Chestnut Hill Audio. I still have the stuff he sold me. It still sounds great.

 

Got it in one!

 

Edit: I have the original amp I bought from him (after speaking with Richard Vandersteen about it) in my desktop system; the preamp I bought as an upgrade from him in the main system; and speakers I bought from him privately in the main system.

 

He had Philadelphia Orchestra season tickets. I went along with him a few times.

[JoeWhip]

Thought so. He is now retired in Florida and was a friend for years.