MQA is Vaporware

[PeterSt]

11 minutes ago, Les Habitants said:

Is MQA really only relevant to Tidal users?

 

Hi, welcome !

 

Why do you ask this, when you seem not to like MQA in the first place ?

 

12 minutes ago, Les Habitants said:

So far I do not like really anything I see about MQA

 

 

[mav52]

21 minutes ago, Les Habitants said:

I'm a  new member, first post here. Considering streaming and maybe a new DAC soon.

 

So far I do not like really anything I see about MQA, maybe I'm missing something? Is MQA really only relevant to Tidal users?

No you can get downloads from 2L to compare to, but depending on the music you like, its limited.

[George Hincapie]

2 hours ago, Charles Hansen said:

 

Hi George,

 

No Tidal rents three different quality levels of files. For 10 units (dollars, pounds, euros) you get MP3 lossy music. For twice that much money you get CD-quality (44/16) files, with a few hundred MQA quality files thrown in. For now those small number of files don't cost more, but since MQA is not a charity, it would be unrealistic to expect that to last forever.

 

An MQA file is a pseudo-high-res file. Most start off as 96/24, a few as 192/24, and even a few as 44 or 48/16. With the 24 bit files, the bottom 7 or 8 bits are discarded, and for sampling rates above 96kHz, the audio data above 48kHz is also discarded. (That is how they achieve their smaller file size.) So the easiest way to think about MQA is that it is a lossy version of the original true high-res file - kind of like an  MP3 of a high-res files instead of an MP3 of a 44/16 file.

 

Many people like to either purchase physical discs or downloads, simply because that is something they own. It only takes a few minutes to rip a physical disc, and then one always has a backup copy that is not prone to (inevitable) hard drive failure, plus the artwork and liner notes are very nice. Even downloaded files that you own are easily backed up onto another hard drive, plus once you own the music you can put it on all of your devices - phones, portable players, household networks, whatever. On top of that you don't have to worry about losing your favorite music when the streaming service goes out of business, nor do you have to worry about them raising your rates - ever.

Remember when cable TV first came out and it was just HBO and Showtime for $20 a month and no commercials? Now most people pay around $150 per month for their cable, plus you are stuck watching more commercials than they ever dreamed of on broadcast TV. Why? Because they can and you have little choice. Most people don't like watching re-runs all the time, but most people like listening to their favorite music dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of times. That's when it makes sense to own it.

I know a lot of people who use Spotify free (with ads) just to discover new music. When they hear something they like, they will just by the CD. New CDs are typically under $10 and used ones are typically around $3.

Hope this helps!

 

What a nice response Charles; very grateful to you, thanks.

 

I may give Quobuz a spin then and see how I get on.

[Les Habitants]

1 hour ago, PeterSt said:

Why do you ask this, when you seem not to like MQA in the first place ?

 

Because I am considering both a new DAC at some point, and also streaming capability and services, and I don't pretend to know that much about all of it especially as it might relate to MQA.

[Les Habitants]

15 hours ago, Digital Assassin said:

"real instruments", "real space"..oh god, what pretentious dreck. You clearly don't know the first thing about rock and roll.

 

Enjoy tea time,

 

Yes, maybe good for system demos at a HiFi show or something, but not my cup of tea for musical enjoyment over the longer haul.

 

10 hours ago, firedog said:

Sorry, Sal. don't think your definition makes much sense. On either a 40 year or one year old multi-track rock recording, there's going to be all sorts of editing, manipulation, and mixing.That's just how they are made. 

 

And some of it is made quite well, the major labels have had both hits and misses over the years in that regard. I don't see how MQA can really be advancing the state of the art in terms of playback though, motives other than sound quality seem to be at play.

[PeterSt]

1 hour ago, PeterSt said:

Is MQA really only relevant to Tidal users?

 

OK, maybe others have a better response, but I say : at this moment it seems so, yes. But it may depend on where your emphasis is.

So at this moment Tidal has the largest MQA catalog (which still compares to nothing) and it looks like it will be way more. So, no others selling MQA really (at least not officially).

HTH

[Sal1950]

18 hours ago, soxr said:

I pay 20 euros per month for Tidal, which is 240 / year. For 110 euro extra, I have access to real studiomasters, and a much larger catalog of studiomasters. And I get to keep my existing 7.000 EURO R2R dac without having to buy a lesser MQA DAC (I have a metrum adagio, no MQA dac is going to come even close).

 

10 hours ago, firedog said:

t may not be the way you would like music to be recorded. But you choice is only to buy the relatively few recordings done by labels like NativeDSD -and you aren't going to find much music of the kind you like there. 

 

15 hours ago, Digital Assassin said:

"real instruments", "real space"..oh god, what pretentious dreck. You clearly don't know the first thing about rock and roll.

Man you guys can read so much into a simple question.

DA, your a funny guy, ha ha.

I simply wondered what soxr thought were the "real studiomasters" worth paying the extra money at Quobuz for? Since they exclude the MQA that Tidal offers, what?  Are these the specialist label offerings, or the high data rate files sold on HDTracks? ???

[Digital Assassin]

1 minute ago, Sal1950 said:

 

 

Man you guys can read so much into a simple question.

DA, your a funny guy, ha ha.

I simply wondered what soxr thought were the "real studiomasters" worth paying the extra money at Quobuz for? Since they exclude the MQA that Tidal offers, what?  Are these the specialist label offerings, or the high data rate files sold on HDTracks? ???

Real simple answer. the "real studiomasters" are the NON processed files that come out of the mastering studio, no POST proprietary DSP applied for a fee.

[Charles Hansen]

11 hours ago, Les Habitants said:

I'm a  new member, first post here. Considering streaming and maybe a new DAC soon.

 

So far I do not like really anything I see about MQA, maybe I'm missing something? Is MQA really only relevant to Tidal users?

 

Welcome, Les Habitants!

Yes, for the moment Tidal is the only meaningful source of MQA-processed files. Apparently there are somewhere around 2500 albums that have been had MQA processing applied. All of the current ones have been processed by MQA themselves, so that represents a big bottleneck as far as releasing more titles.

There is a rumor that Warner (one of the "big three" record labels, the other two being Universal and Sony) have had two of their own mastering engineers trained in applying the MQA process, but to date there have literally only been a handful of new MQA releases since March.

 

There is also talk of HD Tracks (the US-based high-res download store) starting a streaming service this fall that will only stream MQA files. That doesn't make sense to me, as the entire point of streaming is to have access to a vastly larger catalog that one is likely to ever own. As with all things MQA, I think we will have to wait and see what actually happens with the proposed HD Tracks streaming service.

 

The overall opinions are all over the map regarding MQA's sound quality, but the general consensus seems to be that it sounds "better" the CD-quality (44/16) but not as good as true high-res. This makes sense, as an MQA file made from a high-res master essentially provides 96/17 performance. Currently there is no extra charge on Tidal for the small percentage of albums available in MQA, but that is likely to change if MQA ever becomes a significant fraction of the catalog. The math is very simple - it costs more to produce, store, and stream an MQA file than a CD-quality file, so sooner or later that cost will be passed on to you.

 

When purchasing a new DAC, it seems to me that there isn't much of a motivation to buy one that is "MQA certified", as both the Tidal player app and the Audirvana music player will perform the "first unfold" to give MQA's 96/17 performance level with any DAC in the world that can accept 96kHz data. The second step that currently only happens in an "MQA certified" DAC is to adjust the coefficients of its digital filter. This will have a relatively minor effect on the sound, but there are other ways to get there besides buying an "MQA certified" DAC. Auralic has released new firmware for at least some of their products that are claimed to emulate the digital filters used by MQA DACs.

 

Other than that, the way to reach the closest approximation of the "MQA certified" digital filter coefficients is probably to purchase a DAC that has both "slow-rolloff" and "minimum phase" options for the digital filter. Many DACs have one or the other, some have both. Some are user-selectable,  and some just come that way from the factory.

 

If you are a fan of both streaming and high res, perhaps the best option is to use Qobuz for streaming. It's not currently available in the US without signing up through a proxy server, but they have three service tiers - 10 units (pounds or euros) for lossy, 20 units for CD-quality, and 29 units for true high-res, along with deep discount on purchased files. Apparently Qobuz has a much larger catalog selection than Tidal (especially for classical), although for pop music I don't think anybody compares to Spotify. There are persistent rumors that Spotify will offer CD-quality sometime this year.

 

As usual, the best way to select any new audio product is actually listen to it - preferably in your own home system using the music that you know and love.

 

Hope this helps,

Charles Hansen

[Les Habitants]

11 hours ago, Sal1950 said:

DA, your a funny guy, ha ha.

 

Something amusing there? Please do share the joke!

[Les Habitants]

1 hour ago, Charles Hansen said:

 

Welcome, Les Habitants!

Yes, for the moment Tidal is the only meaningful source of MQA-processed files. Apparently there are somewhere around 2500 albums that have been had MQA processing applied. All of the current ones have been processed by MQA themselves, so that represents a big bottleneck as far as releasing more titles.

 

Thanks very much for this most informative reply, I very much appreciate it.

 

1 hour ago, Charles Hansen said:

There is also talk of HD Tracks (the US-based high-res download store) starting a streaming service this fall that will only stream MQA files. That doesn't make sense to me, as the entire point of streaming is to have access to a vastly larger catalog that one is likely to ever own.

 

Yes that doesn't seem to make any sense does it? I already own thousands of albums, streaming offers value to me only if it's on a vastly larger scale than what I already own.

 

1 hour ago, Charles Hansen said:

Currently there is no extra charge on Tidal for the small percentage of albums available in MQA, but that is likely to change if MQA ever becomes a significant fraction of the catalog. The math is very simple - it costs more to produce, store, and stream an MQA file than a CD-quality file, so sooner or later that cost will be passed on to you.

 

Now that does make sense, but not for me. Maybe for Bob Stuart.

 

1 hour ago, Charles Hansen said:

The second step that currently only happens in an "MQA certified" DAC is to adjust the coefficients of its digital filter.

 

Very interesting, so I won't worry too much about a new DAC being "MQA certified" or not. To date MQA's marketing stance on this has been murky at best, at least as I have understood things, not to mention my HiFi dealer!

 

1 hour ago, Charles Hansen said:

Apparently Qobuz has a much larger catalog selection than Tidal (especially for classical)

 

And then there's Tidal, at what point might Softbank/Sprint pull the plug on the HiFi service and with it MQA, since Tidal does nothing but lose money each year? Maybe I'll just wait for Qobuz to be available in Canada.

 

Thanks again Charles, it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

[Charles Hansen]

41 minutes ago, Les Habitants said:

Thanks again Charles, it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

 

Yes, I agree. I really don't understand the whole streaming business model. The artists make next to nothing. No streaming service anywhere has a made any profit to date. Yet steaming is the fastest growing segment of the entire record labels' income. Someone like an Apple can afford to lose many tens of millions of dollars per year on streaming and/or downloads, because they make it up 10x over in sales of their highly profitable hardware devices.

 

But the only way I can ever see streaming be profitable for everybody is if the rates roughly double. Yet how can they double the rates and not lose customers? I'm guessing that the record labels are willing to let MQA spend tens of millions of dollars to throw stuff at a wall. Now they are sitting back to see if anything sticks. For example if adding MQA doubled the rate of Tidal's premium (CD-quality) subscribers, the labels would back it to the hilt.

 

Otherwise I'm guessing it will end up like Neil Young's Pono - the record labels focusing on the wrong things and trying to charge outrageous prices for the customer's 3rd or 4th purchase of the same title. They never even understood back in the '90s that Napster was responsible for record high CD sales levels. It gave customers a cheap and easy way to listen to new music, and when they liked it, they would buy the much better sounding disc. I seem to recall some statistic such as a heavy Napster user typically spent 80% more per month on music than non-Napster users. Admittedly the situation is different these days:

 

1) The average person has become used to poor sounding MP3 files.

2) The average person can no longer afford to spend $50 or $100 per month on luxury items like music.

3) The average person doesn't ever actually sit an listen to music. They just play a recognizable noise from their phone to distract them from their unsatisfying jobs.

 

Many music lovers I know subscribe to Spotify, as it has the largest catalog and best UI. The sound quality isn't marvelous, but they just listen to it as background music and when they hear something they like, they just buy the CD for $10 new or $3 used. Then they rip it to any and all playback devices and have a safe backup copy complete with liner notes and lyrics and so forth. Redbook CDs can  sound surprisingly good. High-res is just the icing on the cake.

 

Cheers,

Charles Hansen

[Sal1950]

1 hour ago, Les Habitants said:

 

Something amusing there? Please do share the joke!

I'd tell ya

But then I'd have to kill ya

[PeterSt]

All in the context of the core decode only (first unfold) :

 

3 hours ago, Charles Hansen said:

The overall opinions are all over the map regarding MQA's sound quality, but the general consensus seems to be that it sounds "better" the CD-quality (44/16) but not as good as true high-res.

 

Hi Charles - Where do you get these statistics from ... ??

Might your idea be "well Peter, a.o. from you", then there is a misunderstanding at play. And regarding that, I can only speak for myself, but with the little notice that I made it my profession to state what "is" good (the most genuine) or not. So even if I am the only one doing it, I am doing it

a. from the perspective of 1000s of recordings (albums) which have all been different and which I by now know for 40 years (don't we all ),

b. for the customers to whom I deem myself to be accountable,

c. in the context of Phasure being maybe the only instance which focuses 100% on Redbook, hence squeezes all out of that.

In addition, virtually no real Hires exists or at least there is nothing to compare with (but one Yes album comes to mind).

 

1. No matter the detour, this means that about all MQA sounds better than their hires counterparts. Please re-read the above how this conclusion comes to live.

2. All Redbook sounds better than their hires counterparts just the same, but this is besides the subject. However, it is important data for :

3. All MQA sounds different than Redbook the least.

 

At this moment and from my personal perspective (because I can't measure any of it), say half of MQA fails because the process applied does not fit the recording means or mastering means with parameters I can't tell, but I can envision a few - and half of the MQA succeeds because whatever it is what is applied (a DSP process) works out for the better for the recording in question.

Note : When we'd wait long enough and when there would be, say, 20 times more MQA albums available, we will (or I will) start to see the red line in it. This is how I mentioned the 1000s of recordings in the beginning of this post and how empirical finding can do a few things.

 

If the MQA succeeds, it is still not said that it is better than Redbook, and it is still so that it is different. And because it is processed (hence NOT genuine) I can not make up my mind. And you see what happens right away : while we ALWAYS agree about everything in the listening room over here, with MQA we are split. I like it, but the others find it is tiring. At stages I may like the more forwardness, but the others tell it is fake.

And I have to say it again but now more directly : without the Lush USB cable it is unlistenable all over. Pain staking.

Maybe I should add that I try to play at real levels (whatever that exactly is) continuously (like 4 hours in a row) and that with MQA this is not yet possible. Not yet, because I too work with filters, and they replace the MQA filters (because core decoding only). Or maybe it is never going to work out.

 

So *now* you have a data point. One. It maybe worth nothing much. But where are the others that form the general consensus ??

Might they come from mastering engineers ... don't trust them. Not because they are not to be trusted, but because they aren't around. Only the REmasters(' engineers), and we know about them. And btw, I am not making up much, because I witnessed a row (of 12 or so) "key mastering engineers" from/in the US, and according to personal me they should, one by one, better start a job in gardening.

Their focus is different, their $ is different and with that their audience is different as well. It is not us, the audio hobbyist.

Let's also keep in mind how the mastering engineer in aftermath may listen to his own failed remaster in comparison to the way higher DR master used for the MQA version (remember, this is what I sorted out). So no wonder that this will sound better to him, at least to one aspect (airiness, openness). He is also not on the job, when facing Stuart et al. He was actually doing the garden, and then all is different.

 

Last thing : If we listen to Joe Doe, then he may have a consensus of MQA being better, but in regulated circumstances only. Like when the music gets too wild (too many instruments) it becomes harsh and unbearable. This would be the same stance I have myself, but not much from generalities like too many instruments, but with a fair dose of experience heard in the one cymbal already; play too loud for too long and it is tiring, even if you were able to get rid of the "weird filters".

So even Jon Doe agrees with me, but he may not know it. He may be subjective and tells himself "oh what, I didn't like Deep Purple anyway".

 

I hope you can do something with it.

Kind regards,

Peter

 

[mcgillroy]

6 hours ago, Charles Hansen said:

 

Yes, I agree. I really don't understand the whole streaming business model. The artists make next to nothing. No streaming service anywhere has a made any profit to date. Yet steaming is the fastest growing segment of the entire record labels' income. Someone like an Apple can afford to lose many tens of millions of dollars per year on streaming and/or downloads, because they make it up 10x over in sales of their highly profitable hardware devices.

 

But the only way I can ever see streaming be profitable for everybody is if the rates roughly double. Yet how can they double the rates and not lose customers?

 

The business model is to be the last man standing. It used to be in the words of Bezoz "get big fast", now it's "get big at all costs." Amazon lost money for the first 7 years and reported minuscule margins for more than a decade.

 

Digital markets tend to monopolies or duopolies and you have to make your snowball big and keep it rolling.

 

To the platformers - Apple, Amazon, Google etc - music is just one of the many forms of content that keeps the customers engaged. You don't want people go off platform at all and hence you have to offer the content the desire. Else your snowball slows down.

 

Quote

1) The average person has become used to poor sounding MP3 files.

2) The average person can no longer afford to spend $50 or $100 per month on luxury items like music.

3) The average person doesn't ever actually sit an listen to music. They just play a recognizable noise from their phone to distract them from their unsatisfying jobs.

 

Point 2 & 3 lend themselves perfectly to the platform approach: it access instead of ownership and phones/wearables are always present access-points.

 

As for the quality argument the verdict is still out. My suspicion is that sound-quality expectations creeped up over time as better headphones became more widespread.

 

[mansr]

3 minutes ago, mcgillroy said:

As for the quality argument the verdict is still out. My suspicion is that sound-quality expectations creeped up over time as better headphones became more widespread.

MP3s sound a lot better today than they did in the 90s. The reason for this is twofold: 1) higher bit rates are used, 256-320 kbps today vs 128 kbps at best back then, and 2) encoders have improved a lot. Monty used to say he could tell which encoder had been used just by listening, and I believe him. A 320 kbps MP3 from a modern encoder is very difficult to tell from CD quality unless doing a rapid switching comparison.

[Les Habitants]

2 hours ago, mansr said:

MP3s sound a lot better today than they did in the 90s.

 

Absolutely, 98+% of my friends and colleagues are perfectly happy with 256-320 kbps lossy streams, and thats unlikely to change even though previous practical constraints such as available bandwidth are no longer real concerns, they don't care about any of that and think lossy streams sound just fine.

 

Thats why I expect Softbank/Sprint to kill Tidal's HiFi tier much faster than they would invest much of anything in it. Maybe they would be encouraged if a competitor such as Spotify were to roll out a similar service and actually gain some traction with it. Trouble is, Spotify might crush them in short order for whatever that available market share is, regardless of any MQA lure on Tidal.

[#Yoda#]

15 hours ago, Charles Hansen said:

 

Yes, I agree. I really don't understand the whole streaming business model. The artists make next to nothing. No streaming service anywhere has a made any profit to date. Yet steaming is the fastest growing segment of the entire record labels' income. Someone like an Apple can afford to lose many tens of millions of dollars per year on streaming and/or downloads, because they make it up 10x over in sales of their highly profitable hardware devices.

 

I think, nobody know if the streaming business model will ever be profitable for the providers, for most artists for sure not! 

 

For streaming providers it is an investment in an unknown future and most participants without a significant financial background will fail, especially when they address a small target group who still emphasize sound quality of their beloved music and perhaps perceiving an advantage of HiRes, MQA or even lossless streamed music.

 

If at all, MQA will only make sense as a streaming format, but even there it is gratuitous, IMHO. Customers with a high bandwidth access can easily stream original HiRes in 24/192, for those with insufficient internet infrastructure, MQA folded (compressed) files are still too much load.

 

The approach of OraStream looks quite sexy in this consideration but as we can see, Neil Young with the announced XStream service cannot find potent investors for his streaming project after PonoMusic failed unfortunately, IMO mainly because of the Pono promise and the foreseeable refusal by the labels. It is to be expected that HDtracks has issues to find investors as well, we will see. 

 

The labels don't want to sell their "crown jewels", the masters in high, or in best case the original resolution and format as reproducible FLAC/WAV/DSD files, finally. So MQA is a very welcome solution to solve this issue, even if there is no DRM mechanism implemented for now. When all the hype about MQA is obsolete one day, the labels can sell them a 2nd, 3rd time in real 24/96 and eventually again in 24/192 coated as remaster and perhaps for those who really think, they still can realize a difference, in DXD. 

 

As we can notice already, most new albums from major labels are released, if in HiRes, only in the minimum HiRes resolution 24/44.1 or 24/48. HDtracks and other vendors raised their prices for most new albums at any resolution significantly after a longer period of price reduction to nearly CD level. 

 

I wouldn't rely on the expertise of the American audio press very much in this case, most of them are trapped by their prior puff pieces about MQA. The European HiFi magazines in general have been much more cautious about the advantages of MQA. 

 

Highresaudio.com offers the very few reliable "MQA-Authenticated" albums as download and the demand seems to be extremely low, by the way.

[Charles Hansen]

9 minutes ago, #Yoda# said:

The labels don't want to sell their "crown jewels", the masters in high, or in best case the original resolution and format as reproducible FLAC/WAV/DSD files, finally. So MQA is a very welcome solution to solve this issue, even if there is no DRM mechanism implemented for now. When all the hype about MQA is obsolete one day, the labels can sell them a 2nd, 3rd time in real 24/96 and eventually again in 24/192 coated as remaster and perhaps for those who really think, they still can realize a difference, in DXD.

 

Hello Yoda,

 

Spot on, in my opinion. In 1989 the record labels (there were far more than just 3 back then) all simultaneously colluded to pull the plug completely on vinyl, despite it still having a 33% market share at the time. At $8 per LP, CD was vastly more profitable. Nearly 30 years later they are again happy to sell vinyl - at $30 per LP and $50 per "audiophile quality" LP.

 

If MQA takes over, once the hoopla dies down, I'm sure the record labels will be glad to sell the true high-res masters - but this time at $50 to $100 each. History likes to repeat itself.

 

Cheers,

Charles Hansen

[#Yoda#]

10 minutes ago, Charles Hansen said:

 

Hello Yoda,

 

Spot on, in my opinion. In 1989 the record labels (there were far more than just 3 back then) all simultaneously colluded to pull the plug completely on vinyl, despite it still having a 33% market share at the time. At $8 per LP, CD was vastly more profitable. Nearly 30 years later they are again happy to sell vinyl - at $30 per LP and $50 per "audiophile quality" LP.

 

If MQA takes over, once the hoopla dies down, I'm sure the record labels will be glad to sell the true high-res masters - but this time at $50 to $100 each. History likes to repeat itself.

 

Cheers,

Charles Hansen

 

Hi Charlie,

 

fortunately there are still some beacons of customer and music oriented behavior. Some artists are selling HiRes albums in best resolution as FLAC download in their web stores and some indie labels noticed the signs as well.

 

Cheers,

Thomas 

[lucretius]

44 minutes ago, #Yoda# said:

Highresaudio.com offers the very few reliable "MQA-Authenticated" albums as download and the demand seems to be extremely low, by the way.

 

No rock and pop, etc.

[#Yoda#]

8 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

No rock and pop, etc.

 

Unfortunately not, because the entire Warner catalogue is not reliable. Most current MQA albums are simple conversions from an existing PCM master to MQA and not really "MQA-Authenticated", a black box for resellers and customers. 

[Digital Assassin]

12 minutes ago, #Yoda# said:

 

Unfortunately not, because the entire Warner catalogue is not reliable. Most current MQA albums are simple conversions from an existing PCM master to MQA and not really "MQA-Authenticated", a black box for resellers and customers. 

In other words PCM masters are just run through an MQA Sausage Maker.  Exactly what we all expected.

 

What happened to the "white gloving" of all albums. I can tell you what the white glove was used for.

[Digital Assassin]

1 hour ago, #Yoda# said:

 

I think, nobody know if the streaming business model will ever be profitable for the providers, for most artists for sure not! 

 

For streaming providers it is an investment in an unknown future and most participants without a significant financial background will fail, especially when they address a small target group who still emphasize sound quality of their beloved music and perhaps perceiving an advantage of HiRes, MQA or even lossless streamed music.

 

If at all, MQA will only make sense as a streaming format, but even there it is gratuitous, IMHO. Customers with a high bandwidth access can easily stream original HiRes in 24/192, for those with insufficient internet infrastructure, MQA folded (compressed) files are still too much load.

 

The approach of OraStream looks quite sexy in this consideration but as we can see, Neil Young with the announced XStream service cannot find potent investors for his streaming project after PonoMusic failed unfortunately, IMO mainly because of the Pono promise and the foreseeable refusal by the labels. It is to be expected that HDtracks has issues to find investors as well, we will see. 

 

The labels don't want to sell their "crown jewels", the masters in high, or in best case the original resolution and format as reproducible FLAC/WAV/DSD files, finally. So MQA is a very welcome solution to solve this issue, even if there is no DRM mechanism implemented for now. When all the hype about MQA is obsolete one day, the labels can sell them a 2nd, 3rd time in real 24/96 and eventually again in 24/192 coated as remaster and perhaps for those who really think, they still can realize a difference, in DXD. 

 

As we can notice already, most new albums from major labels are released, if in HiRes, only in the minimum HiRes resolution 24/44.1 or 24/48. HDtracks and other vendors raised their prices for most new albums at any resolution significantly after a longer period of price reduction to nearly CD level. 

 

I wouldn't rely on the expertise of the American audio press very much in this case, most of them are trapped by their prior puff pieces about MQA. The European HiFi magazines in general have been much more cautious about the advantages of MQA. 

 

Highresaudio.com offers the very few reliable "MQA-Authenticated" albums as download and the demand seems to be extremely low, by the way.

HI Yoda:

 

I was under the impression that HRS completely cut ties with MQA.

[#Yoda#]

1 minute ago, Digital Assassin said:

HI Yoda:

 

I was under the impression that HRS completely cut ties with MQA.

 

Not in general. They just refuse all MQA albums with an unreliable background.