MQA is Vaporware

[bambadoo]

I was just referring to an interview with mastering engineer Brian Lucey.. 

Unfortunately his site is under maintainance. 

[Hifi Bob]

This might be it:
https://community.roonlabs.com/t/mqa-disappointing/44057/500

[loop7]

9 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Not sure which audiophile press you pay attention to, but I’d say most are pimping the oldest available tech, talking about dragging a needle through dead dinosaurs spinning around in a circle. They avoid most new tech like the plague. 

 

Slightly harsh but rather tough to argue the point.

 

I'm still so very curious how many DACs will launch in the next five years with MQA capability. It seems like MQA logos on product pages are getting decreased play but maybe some manufacturers will be leery of ending MQA support for a very long time due to the press.

[firedog]

11 hours ago, loop7 said:

 

Slightly harsh but rather tough to argue the point.

 

I'm still so very curious how many DACs will launch in the next five years with MQA capability. It seems like MQA logos on product pages are getting decreased play but maybe some manufacturers will be leery of ending MQA support for a very long time due to the press.

I think in a year or two there will be none. When Tidal ends up with little or no MQA no one will care (except for PV and FX) and it won't matter to any manufacturer, or even any consumer, as there essentially will be no source.

Why pay fees and be subject to NDA's and interference in product design for a dead tech...to a bankrupt company?

[MikeyFresh]

5 hours ago, firedog said:

I think in a year or two there will be none. When Tidal ends up with little or no MQA no one will care (except for PV and FX) and it won't matter to any manufacturer, or even any consumer, as there essentially will be no source.

Why pay fees and be subject to NDA's and interference in product design for a dead tech...to a bankrupt company?

 

What a shame!

 

What will become of all that fantastic new EDM produced with the mythical MQA VST plugin then? It's gonna be so blurry and smeared that no one will be able to enjoy it, not even on PA ribbons, complete with a light show.

[maxijazz]

I remember MQA Ltd stated on their website, that MQA is lossless, years ago (six/seven? memory is volatile).
That disappeared after pressure from this community.

Then, new marketing mumbling "perceptible lossless" was introduced.

 

Today i found this 3 years old article: https://www.mqa.co.uk/newsroom/faqs/is-mqa-lossless.

Wording is crafted a way, that suggests the MQA format is lossless, but even better.

So, it seems, MQA Ltd never stopped cheating people into thinking, the MQA is lossless. What a snake company.

[botrytis]

58 minutes ago, maxijazz said:

I remember MQA Ltd stated on their website, that MQA is lossless, years ago (six/seven? memory is volatile).
That disappeared after pressure from this community.

Then, new marketing mumbling "perceptible lossless" was introduced.

 

Today i found this 3 years old article: https://www.mqa.co.uk/newsroom/faqs/is-mqa-lossless.

Wording is crafted a way, that suggests the MQA format is lossless, but even better.

So, it seems, MQA Ltd never stopped cheating people into thinking, the MQA is lossless. What a snake company.

Well, snake oil is prevalent in the audio business. It is what sells.

[firedog]

That page is just another example of their dishonesty. Trying to tell people "the package is lossless". Yes, you packaged the lossy file losslessly - you preserved the lossiness.

 

And all the lying about deblurring, master quality, blah, blah, lie, and lie again.

[Archimago]

2 hours ago, maxijazz said:

I remember MQA Ltd stated on their website, that MQA is lossless, years ago (six/seven? memory is volatile).
That disappeared after pressure from this community.

Then, new marketing mumbling "perceptible lossless" was introduced.

 

Today i found this 3 years old article: https://www.mqa.co.uk/newsroom/faqs/is-mqa-lossless.

Wording is crafted a way, that suggests the MQA format is lossless, but even better.

So, it seems, MQA Ltd never stopped cheating people into thinking, the MQA is lossless. What a snake company.

 

Thanks for the link; a nice page with all the pieces like sneaky "lossless" claims, "deblur" claims, devalues hi-res PCM as "30-40 year-old technologies" (as if MQA isn't also PCM!?) and dramatic "goes beyond the file and considers the entire signal path", therefore better than lossless!

 

I think before all this stuff is gone, I'll make sure to take a snapshot for posterity of this page at least. Good for the historical archives of the life of the audiophile hobby and how certain companies twist words and ideas so dramatically.

[jma2]

The Internet archive will help: https://archive.org/web/

 

For those who are still confused... this is how the "magic" in 2016 "really" worked:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160109113132/http://www.mqa.co.uk/customer/how-it-works

 

 

 

[botrytis]

12 minutes ago, jma2 said:

The Internet archive will help: https://archive.org/web/

 

For those who are still confused... this is how the "magic" in 2016 "really" worked:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160109113132/http://www.mqa.co.uk/customer/how-it-works

 

 

 

 

Which based on their patent is a bunch of utter lies.

[Archimago]

Thanks @jma2 for a reminder of the Internet Archives.

 

Anyhow, I found a few moments tonight to put together a "comments and corrections" edit of the "Is MQA Lossless?" page for posterity.

 

Hopefully this will serve as a one-page reminder of why MQA sucks and was such a scam if Bob Stuart, Mike Jbara, Spencer Chrislu, etc. want to still pretend to audiophiles that they missed an opportunity for even better-than-lossless sound quality.

 

I've taken the liberty to sign this piece on behalf of myself and you folks - the "AS Vaporwarers" - given all the input & participants involved over the years.

 

One day, say in 50 years when we're all long gone, as historians of audiophilia research the evolution of this hobby, may they be reminded of this monstrous thread on AS. 😆

 

 

[Shadorne]

6 hours ago, Archimago said:

Thanks @jma2 for a reminder of the Internet Archives.

 

Anyhow, I found a few moments tonight to put together a "comments and corrections" edit of the "Is MQA Lossless?" page for posterity.

 

Hopefully this will serve as a one-page reminder of why MQA sucks and was such a scam if Bob Stuart, Mike Jbara, Spencer Chrislu, etc. want to still pretend to audiophiles that they missed an opportunity for even better-than-lossless sound quality.

 

I've taken the liberty to sign this piece on behalf of myself and you folks - the "AS Vaporwarers" - given all the input & participants involved over the years.

 

One day, say in 50 years when we're all long gone, as historians of audiophilia research the evolution of this hobby, may they be reminded of this monstrous thread on AS. 😆

 

 

Arch & AS Vaporwarers did well to avoid this one scam. It took quite a concerted effort. Well done! It is a victory for audio science and truth.

 

With that major achievement, another obvious area of concern, and the far bigger elephant in the room, are all the claimed audible magical properties of cables.
 

I believe that elephant to be unstoppable, as there is such a large community of vested monetary interests in the gravy train of selling these accessories for good profit. Cables are a much larger community than had any indirect or direct financial interests in MQA.
 

Slay that dragon and Arch & AS Vaporwarers would be remembered perhaps forever?

 

 

[RichardSF]

On 9/14/2023 at 5:19 AM, bambadoo said:

I was just referring to an interview with mastering engineer Brian Lucey.. 

Unfortunately his site is under maintainance. 

Here is the interview on Internet Archive:

https://web.archive.org/web/20180614091331/http://fairhedon.com/2017/11/05/an-interview-with-mastering-engineer-brian-lucey/

[Fx Studio]

5 hours ago, RichardSF said:

Here is the interview on Internet Archive:

https://web.archive.org/web/20180614091331/http://fairhedon.com/2017/11/05/an-interview-with-mastering-engineer-brian-lucey/

 

Looks like I might have kicked off something here with the WAY BACK MACHINE  - LoL

[Currawong]

18 hours ago, Shadorne said:

Arch & AS Vaporwarers did well to avoid this one scam. It took quite a concerted effort. Well done! It is a victory for audio science and truth.

 

With that major achievement, another obvious area of concern, and the far bigger elephant in the room, are all the claimed audible magical properties of cables.
 

I believe that elephant to be unstoppable, as there is such a large community of vested monetary interests in the gravy train of selling these accessories for good profit. Cables are a much larger community than had any indirect or direct financial interests in MQA.
 

Slay that dragon and Arch & AS Vaporwarers would be remembered perhaps forever?

I'll keep my fancy audio cables thankyouverymuch! 😀

 

Humour aside, what won out was looking into the details, and learning to understand the nuances of the science behind digital audio creation and reconstruction.  Just when you think that something is a given, you can very well find something more to learn. Sometimes what you learn goes against common beliefs. But then, if something is a "belief", then it's fallible. We are always limited by ourselves. Learning more and overcoming our limitations is more valuable than whether we are remembered or not. Memories are not permanent.

[The Computer Audiophile]

This was my guess after reading the mQa documents a couple months ago, but I couldn’t figure out why. I still can’t figure out why, but that’s ok. 
 

 

 

 

PICKERING, ONTARIO, CANADA, SEPTEMBER 19, 2023 – Lenbrook Corp., a diversified, privately-owned Canadian enterprise with activities in brand development, technology, and distribution in both residential and commercial audio and the communication sectors, has acquired the assets of MQA, a UK-based industry leader in high-resolution audio encoding.

This acquisition enriches Lenbrook's intellectual property portfolio with an assortment of significant patents and introduces two prominent audio codecs – MQA and SCL6. This merger further solidifies Lenbrook's commitment to excellence and innovation in the evolving landscape of audio technology.

[John Dyson]

12 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

This was my guess after reading the mQa documents a couple months ago, but I couldn’t figure out why. I still can’t figure out why, but that’s ok. 
 

 

 

 

PICKERING, ONTARIO, CANADA, SEPTEMBER 19, 2023 – Lenbrook Corp., a diversified, privately-owned Canadian enterprise with activities in brand development, technology, and distribution in both residential and commercial audio and the communication sectors, has acquired the assets of MQA, a UK-based industry leader in high-resolution audio encoding.

This acquisition enriches Lenbrook's intellectual property portfolio with an assortment of significant patents and introduces two prominent audio codecs – MQA and SCL6. This merger further solidifies Lenbrook's commitment to excellence and innovation in the evolving landscape of audio technology.

Ahh..   the reason isn't likely MQA itself, but the technology in MQA.   When I wrote my DolbyA decoder, I had to work around all kinds of patents, some from R Dolby himself.   One interesting (perhaps) anecdote is the Sony 'DolbyA patent' uses a scheme that directly specifies a filter block that doesn't avoid 'glitches'.   Also, the 'level measurement' isn't even specified.   My scheme avoids all of that kind of stuff, working in an ad-hoc way, unfortunately.   It does avoid any patent that I can find and withstands the onerous environment of the decoder project...   A DolbyA HW unit cannot do it because of modulation sidebands.  (Actually, DolbyA unit can do it, but with serious loss of detail caused by the modulation sidebands.)

 

Anyway -- I do think that acquiring the MQA assets is probably ill advised.

 

John

 

 

 

[Fx Studio]

So not all over just yet....    😅

 

"The announcement ends months of speculation that began in April, when MQA entered receivership. An accompanying FAQ affirms that "As one of MQA's most significant licensees and also the owner of the award winning BluOS high-res content platform . . . Lenbrook is in the business of providing high resolution audio experiences [to] informed customers who appreciate innovation and value having options . . . We believe MQA fits this mission as the research that makes up the foundations of the technology are based on neuroscience and cutting-edge digital sampling. Although MQA is a digital technology, it is an analog-to-analog conception and not simply a digital codec. Put simply, the MQA Encoder corrects for the A/D converter, 'deblurs' that signal and then uses a package that is much more efficient than regular PCM. Fans of MQA speak to its improved transparency, noise stability and temporal effects."

 

 

[Fx Studio]

" MQA has attracted many critics since the technology's release several years ago. Lenbrook's FAQ addresses the controversy head-on. "We have always found it unfortunate that the core attributes of what we understand MQA to be seemed lost in a distorted narrative around some of the technical nuances in its implementation," the FAQ states. "In this fray, the artist-first origins of MQA and the sheer technical elegance of its handling of the entire audio signal path got muddled. We are excited to have the opportunity to clarify the narrative and build on the technology in ways that can better demonstrate their true value, while also promoting innovation in a specialty and premium audio industry that thrives on healthy discussion, subjective views, and debate. "

 

Obviously, congratulating yourselves on burying MQA might have been a little premature..   😜

[bambadoo]

Suddenly Stereophile woke UP...

Pathetic 

[UkPhil]

4 minutes ago, bambadoo said:

Suddenly Stereophile woke UP...

Pathetic 

They probably had inside info and was just waiting......

[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.

[botrytis]

2 hours ago, John Dyson said:

Ahh..   the reason isn't likely MQA itself, but the technology in MQA.   When I wrote my DolbyA decoder, I had to work around all kinds of patents, some from R Dolby himself.   One interesting (perhaps) anecdote is the Sony 'DolbyA patent' uses a scheme that directly specifies a filter block that doesn't avoid 'glitches'.   Also, the 'level measurement' isn't even specified.   My scheme avoids all of that kind of stuff, working in an ad-hoc way, unfortunately.   It does avoid any patent that I can find and withstands the onerous environment of the decoder project...   A DolbyA HW unit cannot do it because of modulation sidebands.  (Actually, DolbyA unit can do it, but with serious loss of detail caused by the modulation sidebands.)

 

Anyway -- I do think that acquiring the MQA assets is probably ill advised.

 

John

 

 

 

 

MQA peeps also did the compression for DVD-A and one or two other flops. Their background should have been a clue.

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, Fx Studio said:

the artist-first origins of MQA

😳