MQA is Vaporware

[Archimago]

12 hours ago, yamamoto2002 said:

Open source free software cannot implement MQA therefore I don't have interest to it, but, today I found this thread is VERY interesting😄, cannot stop reading.

 

Hope you're enjoying the soap opera, Yamamoto-san. 😁

[firedog]

57 minutes ago, ARQuint said:

 

No complaints about any of your observations, Arch, save one.

 

The resonances with  "Money for Nothing" have nothing at all to do with class, income, or any other demographic metric. Rather, it's about people believing that someone else is doing something they are absolutely certain they could do at least as well themselves—and also own their "own jet aircraft." They are indignant, bitter, and envious. Just like some audiophiles, accomplished at their day jobs, who are equally certain that they could be a top audio writer because they're a top-rated vascular surgeon or divorce attorney. That's one of the things I find so cool about the writers at TAS—and the audiophile community in general. There's an astounding range of careers and economic status but, as a unifying thread, an open-minded fascination with the point of intersection between art and technology that's at the core of perfectionist audio, joined to a capacity for critical listening and an ability to write.

I'm pretty sure Archi has a career he likes, and doesn't aspire to be a "top audio writer". Nor do others here. We're hobbyists and don't intend to be anything else. 

People here are serious, knowledgeable hobbyists, and don't like being taken for a ride by a company that was clearly lying (e.g. claiming "lossless") from the outset. If hobbyists can see that, how is it that professionals, some of whom have audio writing/editing as a full time profession, can't? 

And why, if they are professionals, did they continue to deny anything was amiss and promote the falsehoods long after they were exposed? 

So that's not being envious - that's being upset at being taken for a fool. And by people who it was assumed to have some brief to look out for the interests of consumers - their readers. 

Well the truth has been exposed - the publications and some  of the writers involved have no desire to look out for the interests of their readers. Only to promote the industry, themselves, and obfuscate the truth to do so, even when legitimately challenged. Knee jerk self defense and denial is pretty much all we saw from them. A true form of arrogance, as well as contempt for their audience.

 

Your inability to see this is astounding, and reveals a lot more about you than it does about any of us. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

11 minutes ago, firedog said:

if they are professionals, did they continue to deny anything was amiss and promote the falsehoods long after they were exposed?

 

I've been thinking about this one. Perhaps it has something to do with who exposed the falsehoods. How can one hammer against online forums and forum members, then credit them for anything, especially something that could've been seen long ago? That's a rhetorical question obviously.

[ARQuint]

11 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I've been thinking about this one. Perhaps it has something to do with who exposed the falsehoods. How can one hammer against online forums and forum members, then credit them for anything, especially something that could've been seen long ago? That's a rhetorical question obviously.

 

I did my best to credit contributors to this forum for the valuable work they accomplished.

It's not incompatible with a plea for recognition that we are really all on the same team.

 

I'll depart with a couplet from a favorite song from my youth

 

But I'm just a soul whose intentions are good
Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood

 

That's The Animals

1964

 

AQ

 

 

[Stereo]

Anyone interested should ask Tidal about it's future with MQA: 

 

 

[Rt66indierock]

17 minutes ago, Stereo said:

Anyone interested should ask Tidal about it's future with MQA: 

 

 

 

Somebody should about Tidal's Q1 2023 revenue.

 

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

 

And then ask them about the future of the hifi tier with MQA in it.

[KeenObserver]

1 hour ago, ARQuint said:

Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood

 

No problems there.

I think people understand you well.

[Archimago]

24 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

Somebody should about Tidal's Q1 2023 revenue.

 

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

 

And then ask them about the future of the hifi tier with MQA in it.

 

Go for it @Rt66indierock. You've been all over the financial side for years... Some nice, succinct questions should hopefully get him talking. Then again, he might not have permission to say much on behalf of Tidal.

 

@firedog, for the record, both Andrew and myself are doctors. I don't think either of us have any concerns about our careers. Looks like we just followed different muses, priorities, and philosophies when it came to the audiophile hobby and writings. 😉

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 minutes ago, Archimago said:

for the record, both Andrew and myself are doctors

There you go Arch, ruining another mQa narrative that you were a competitor in the industry 🤣

[KeenObserver]

On 4/9/2023 at 5:22 PM, Archimago said:

Let's hope this MQA bankruptcy wraps up quickly with no further concerns.

 

Here Here

[Archimago]

4 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

There you go Arch, ruining another mQa narrative that you were a competitor in the industry 🤣

 

LOL.

 

Come to think of it, even in regards to medicine, I gather much of his career has been with the mixed American private-public health care system whereas I work in public "universal" health care here in Canada (the other day, Supreme Court didn't even want to hear of privatization).

 

Maybe that's where I went wrong... 😬

 

Anyhoo... Back to audio and MQA.

[Jud]

2 hours ago, firedog said:

And why, if they are professionals, did they continue to deny anything was amiss and promote the falsehoods long after they were exposed? 

 

The lifeblood of the magazines is being able to obtain equipment to review. I don't think it's any more complicated than not wanting to stop receiving hardware from manufacturers who licensed MQA for their products.

[KeenObserver]

On 4/9/2023 at 5:32 PM, botrytis said:

Too many audiophiles are into equipment only, nothing wrong with that at all, but I use mine to listen to music. Music is important to me.

I tend to go in cycles. Since I started on movies and surround sound I have gone through six different surround sound and AV pre-amps.

When I think it is time to upgrade I will immerse myself totally in studying the matter to find the best choice for myself. Once that is done and I have set it up to my satisfaction, it will go for years without change. I simply play movies and music for enjoyment.

I pretty much do the same with computers. Once  I have built a new everyday computer and a new workstation they simply become work tools for me.

[ARQuint]

1 hour ago, Archimago said:

Come to think of it, even in regards to medicine, I gather much of his career has been with the mixed American private-public health care system whereas I work in public "universal" health care here in Canada (the other day, Supreme Court didn't even want to hear of privatization).

 

I did spend nearly 30 years in private practice. For the past 7, however, I've worked for a Federally-Qualified Health Center—a group of 50 or so providers that sees people regardless of their ability to pay. No so different than the Canadian system that Archimago's working in except that I see pretty much exclusively poor people. So our  models for health care delivery are actually very much aligned. Our views on sound reproduction might be closer than you'd think....

 

[Archimago]

13 minutes ago, ARQuint said:

I did spend nearly 30 years in private practice. For the past 7, however, I've worked for a Federally-Qualified Health Center—a group of 50 or so providers that sees people regardless of their ability to pay. No so different than the Canadian system that Archimago's working in except that I see pretty much exclusively poor people. So our  models for health care delivery are actually very much aligned. Our views on sound reproduction might be closer than you'd think....

 

Sounds good Andrew. Glad to see we are aligned in many ways. ;-)

[Archimago]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

The lifeblood of the magazines is being able to obtain equipment to review. I don't think it's any more complicated than not wanting to stop receiving hardware from manufacturers who licensed MQA for their products.

 

But even if a magazine were to be at best lukewarm about MQA, I hope that companies still see nothing wrong with sending in MQA-capable gear. Feature sets of devices like DACs these days have become so large that I think most audiophiles know what they need and what is superfluous. I suspect for many of us, DSD is rarely needed, and 768kHz sample rate excessive. A reviewer could just treat MQA like that.

 

To be fair, I have seen magazines like TAS do this - for example the Roksan Attessa recently has MQA ability; this was mentioned among the features for readers, no contentious claims made, no hype.

[The Computer Audiophile]

looks like one company didn’t get the memo. 
 

 

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 hours ago, Jud said:

 

The lifeblood of the magazines is being able to obtain equipment to review. I don't think it's any more complicated than not wanting to stop receiving hardware from manufacturers who licensed MQA for their products.

 

There is a little bit of this with respect to MQA, more of it with respect to product access in general, but I don't see this as a driving force in the MQA discussion. Overall, I've easily received more communications from manufcturers because of my honesty about MQA, than I would've if I'd jumped on the bandwagon with both feet and held the line. Honesty is respected by good manufacturers and good people. As long as reviews are fair, most manufacturers can handle it and will get over negativity. They may disagree with assessments and degrees of fairness though. Like all business, it isn't back and white and there are many other factors at play for everyone involved.

 

If I could purchase every piece of gear reviewed on AS and we could survive on community member subscriptions, I'd do it in a hearbeat though. 

[Currawong]

 

On 4/10/2023 at 1:44 AM, krass said:

I think you’re a bit harsh on his credentials. He has a degree in Electrical Engineering and an extensive background that includes signal processing/ analysis, codecs etc.  That would cover substantial amount of relevant Physics. Audio Scientist suggests a research element… his bio suggests he has also made research contributions in the past, so I wouldn’t dispute the use of that description.

 

You may not like his viewpoint, but he has solid experience & credentials in the audio domain, as well as computing.

 

For someone with not only that, but surrounded by people with extensive expertise in his forum, many people don't understand why he still goes on about SINAD, posting measurements that don't show the settings, for products deliberately gamed to get good results in his set-up. 

 

On 4/10/2023 at 6:22 AM, Archimago said:

 

While all of us will have our own idiosyncrasies and "triggers", Amir, I suspect due to his background as an engineer and as corporate leadership in MS, has his own characterological "lacunae" that we need to be mindful of. ASR has been overall I think a positive for audiophile culture to balance out extreme subjectivism in spite of his nature; certainly not because of it, IMO.

 

The result is, invariably, if you don't heap praise when you review one of his star products, you get an army posting abuse in the comments. This is a perfect example of scientism, not science.  I guess that, just like people who shout out how their rights are being taken away, then go about trying to remove the rights from anyone who opposes them, it's just trying to make money off of people who just enjoy getting angry at false causes.

 

The people that seem to be actually posting something useful about audio measurements and their relevance to what we hear, if primarily in the headphone space, would be the reviewers at headphones.com, which now includes GoldenSound.

[Nikhil]

13 minutes ago, Currawong said:

The result is, invariably, if you don't heap praise when you review one of his star products, you get an army posting abuse in the comments. This is a perfect example of scientism, not science. 

 

+1

 

 

[firedog]

8 hours ago, Jud said:

 

The lifeblood of the magazines is being able to obtain equipment to review. I don't think it's any more complicated than not wanting to stop receiving hardware from manufacturers who licensed MQA for their products.

But the manufacturers - especially for the more expensive items - are dependent on the magazines for exposure and recommendations. 

I can't see them stopping shipments to the magazines just for telling the truth about MQA. They would still need the exposure from the mags. I don't think anything in the MQA NDA would prevent them from sending items for review. Doug Schneider and Soundstage told the truth and continued to get review items  from companies than implemented MQA and plenty of site ads, as far as I can see. 

[firedog]

5 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

looks like one company didn’t get the memo. 
 

 

 

 

How many people have a "collection" of MQA CDs? Can't be many at all: The number of Tidal Masters subscribers is pretty small, so how many have MQA in disc form? What a waste of company resources to target this group. 

[Archimago]

6 hours ago, firedog said:

How many people have a "collection" of MQA CDs? Can't be many at all: The number of Tidal Masters subscribers is pretty small, so how many have MQA in disc form? What a waste of company resources to target this group. 

A quick search of CDJapan where many of these kinds of CDs have been released, reveals 776 MQA-CD titles here in April 2023. Back in May 2021, BS reported about 600 titles. No big growth in that segment. Most of these look like domestic small-scale jazz/classical releases to the Asian market from Universal.

 

Did the Japanese/Asian consumers actually drink the Kool Aid and desired MQA-CD's?

 

[Archimago]

11 hours ago, Currawong said:

The result is, invariably, if you don't heap praise when you review one of his star products, you get an army posting abuse in the comments. This is a perfect example of scientism, not science.  I guess that, just like people who shout out how their rights are being taken away, then go about trying to remove the rights from anyone who opposes them, it's just trying to make money off of people who just enjoy getting angry at false causes.

 

I'm not sure it's "scientism" @Currawong. I guess it kind of depends on how one defines that term.

 

To me that's just aggressive devotion in the case of ASR to pure objectivism by some (or at least devotion to specific numbers like the SINAD perhaps). A subjectivist can also be very scientific and recognize that their subjective perceptions are still governed by science - in this case the complex science of psychoacoustics / psychological mechanisms which determine one's preferences. Subjectivists can be just as devoted to a feature with all its supposed scientific benefits like "deblurring" - for example Peter Veth and MQA!?

 

This is why I think we must remain scientific as audiophiles and embrace both sides, and never be exclusive. Science determines both the laws of the objectivist (physical sciences) and helps us understand the subjectivist (psychology, perceptual and cognitive sciences). Some folks on ASR sometimes (not always) tend toward the "left brain" engineering extreme. And I find that TAS and Stereophile reviewers tend toward the "right brain" artistic extreme into fanciful subjectivity (as exemplified by Herb Reichert's recent review).

 

Taking that middle ground is the hard part and that's where I think true enlightenment is to be achieved.

 

To be relevant to this MQA topic, that middle road of course doesn't mean we can't speak out about things that are just "objectively bad" and plain regressive for the hi-fi pursuit. This is why I think audiophiles of all stripes can agree that we just don't need MQA! (Except for Amir apparently. 😉)

 

11 hours ago, Currawong said:

The people that seem to be actually posting something useful about audio measurements and their relevance to what we hear, if primarily in the headphone space, would be the reviewers at headphones.com, which now includes GoldenSound.

 

I suppose. The nice thing about headphones is that there are no room effects so the measurements can be seen as more directly relatable to sound quality. However, there are still all kinds of interesting subjective preferences to be had!

[The Computer Audiophile]

19 minutes ago, Archimago said:

The nice thing about headphones is that there are no room effects so the measurements can be seen as more directly relatable to sound quality.

 

But, measuring headphones is a soup sandwhich right now. Most of the guys doing it can't agree on the right procedure or equipment :~)