MQA is Vaporware

[lucretius]

1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

There’s no free lunch. A screenshot posted a few pages back shows the added cost for MQA on Tidal, most hardware with MQA costs the manufacturer a fee they pay MQA. I say most because MQA gave a few manufacturers a free pass by not charging them per unit. 
 

All costs are passed on to consumers on way or another. 

Yes. If MQA is anywhere in the production, distribution, or playback chain, then costs have been incurred and then are implicitly passed on to the consumer through the services and equipment they buy. 

 

[lucretius]

6 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

And all the old guard press, who pushed MQA like nothing before it, will retire and leave us with a soup sandwich on our plate. 

 

In my neck of the woods, we don't call that soup!

[lucretius]

On 11/20/2020 at 8:51 AM, KeenObserver said:

The answer for people that care for the future of music distribution and have a subscription to Tidal is to just cancel the subscription.

 I cancelled Tidal quite some time ago.  Qobuz is not available to me.  Instead, I have steadily been buying used CDs.

[lucretius]

On 11/20/2020 at 12:06 PM, botrytis said:

3. There is not 3rd unfold - it has been proven to be just an upsampling ploy.

 

Where are the 1st and 2nd "unfolds"?  I don't think the any part of the MQA playback chain can legitimately called an "unfold".  IIRC, all that happens during MQA playback is (1) a blue light is triggered within the DAC; (2) depending on the DAC, a hi-res sample rate number appears on the screen even though that is a baldface lie; and (3) some generic MQA filter is applied -- which is not significantly different than a standard minimum phase filter.  Again, where exactly are the "unfolds"?

 

The only thing those magic 7 bits of MQA are good for is (1) lying to the consumer; and (2) DRM.  Give me back my 7 bits of music*, thank you.

 

*This is even more critical for MQA-CD, an unforgivable blasphemy of an audio file format.

[lucretius]

You know, the minute Bob Stuart started calling it origami, that he was full of it.  The only thing getting folded is the paper currency (an appropriate use of "origami") consumers are being conned out of.

[lucretius]

On 11/21/2020 at 5:18 AM, Rexp said:

Tidal MQA sounds crap through non MQA DAC's. So hopefully its not too difficult to understand the problem if they make all their ouput MQA'd.

 

Undecoded MQA played back with a minimum phase filter sounds no different than decoded MQA.  The problem is 7 bits have been hijacked -- doesn't matter if you have an MQA decoder or not; the decoder was always a ruse, LOL!

[lucretius]

55 minutes ago, Rexp said:

Here is an example of a record that is now only available in MQA and below is the same artist in FLAC, do you detect a marked difference? 

 

 

??? Was there supposed to be sound files attached?  Nonetheless, non-decoded MQA ≠ normal PCM.  Also, both examples must be derived from the same master before we can compare them. 

[lucretius]

10 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

If MQA were truly a good thing for consumers, there would be press releases saying that Tidal has removed the “terrible” lossless CD quality versions in favor of MQA. Instead it’s a switch behind the curtain. 

 

"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!"

[lucretius]

19 minutes ago, Rexp said:

Out of interest, what are you using to listen to non-decoded MQA? 

 

When I still had a Tidal subscription, I captured a few MQA tracks. Since I have an MQA DAC, I can play the files back with MQA turned on or off.  (Actually, the playback comparison can be done with MQA enabled software, if an MQA DAC is not available.)

[lucretius]

6 hours ago, KeenObserver said:

Bob Stuart and Tidal are claiming that their processes are lossless because the FLAC container is a lossless process.

 

Yes, at first, BS thought that because the MQA stream was buried in a FLAC container, no one would notice that it was lossy.  Then after being called out on it, he redefined losslessness as some sort of perceptual losslessness of the analog signal (bits be damned).

[lucretius]

6 hours ago, KeenObserver said:

Bob Stuart has turned into a pathetic shill for MQA.  He was a respected figure in the audio community but he willingly and knowingly put himself in this position.

 

Must have been before my time.

[lucretius]

7 hours ago, FredericV said:

So those without an MQA decoder now get a degraded sound quality as some of the bits were traded for  non-nyquist data as used for the MQA crypto DRM process (so expect a much higher noise floor without decoder), and those with an MQA decoder also get a different sounding version.

 

Technically, one can use MQA enabled software for the playback but this is a moot point.  

[lucretius]

3 hours ago, KeenObserver said:

If these three studios are capable of forcing the industry to accept MQA, are anti Trust laws applicable?  Should these studios be broken up?

 

Yes and yes.

[lucretius]

18 minutes ago, firedog said:

But in the legal sense that isn't what will be happening. There are multiple labels and MQA. Labels choose to have their catalog MQA'd, and then sell that version. In a legal sense this isn't a monopoly or lack of competition.  The labels compete, and the non MQA material still exists. MQA hasn't eliminated it, the rights owners have simply decided to sell a certain version of their files and keep others in the vaults. Their prerogative.

No case for stopping that. The fact that some audiophiles don't like the file version being sold doesn't matter. The labels can also choose to only make mp3 versions available if they wish.

 

While it's not a monopoly, I'd say the big labels make up an oligopoly.  Seems to me that if they all release their catalogs in MQA only, then the big labels are conspiring together and acting like a cartel (non-competition).  In any case, there's not enough interest outside the very tiny audiophile community, so there's no chance a government would intervene to break the cartel (and stop the MQA-only trend).

[lucretius]

17 minutes ago, ShawnC said:

Would Apple care? They might not want this MQA thing apart of iTunes. Their at least big enough or have the resources to bring it to mainstream media. 

 

Yes, Apple certainly has clout. However, AFAIK, Apple provides less than 16/44.1 resolution.

[lucretius]

1 hour ago, FredericV said:

MQA adds nothing with those green fake 16/44.1 MQA CD files for the consumer, it takes away your rights and then sells them back to you as you now need MQA to get what you already had before.

 

Even with MQA, I don't think you can get what you already had before, if before you had pure PCM 16/44.1.

[lucretius]

1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Let's not forget these gems.

 

 

 

 

Do MQA-CD players actually exist? (Not that I want one.)

[lucretius]

3 hours ago, UkPhil said:

And where are there going to hide that one they are going to have to move to 32bit lol

 

Au contraire, higher order folds are dimensionless, so any number of them can fit into existing space.  🙂

[lucretius]

1 hour ago, John Dyson said:

You know, like selling ice to Eskimos (or other similar probably politically incorrect comment.) 

 

Shouldn't that be "selling refrigerators to Eskimos"?

[lucretius]

1 hour ago, John Dyson said:

This is especially true of a boutique kind of name is used, and use of pseudo-science and metaphysics certainly have helped the 'evil' cause...

 

I just hadn't realized origami figures in pseudo-science or metaphysics.

[lucretius]

3 hours ago, Rexp said:

So if you play a Tidal Master at the Hifi setting, you're streaming MQA CD, do you need an MQA DAC or will the player software decode it fully? What happens if you don't have any decoder? 

 

At the HiFi setting, it's unclear whether one is streaming pure PCM, MQA-CD, or MQA (but if IIRC, the stream was only 16 bit).  Also, if it were MQA, then the bits have been manipulated on Tidal's side so that the decoder/DAC does not recognize it as an MQA stream.  Thus, a hardware or software decoder is unnecessary and pointless.

[lucretius]

13 minutes ago, KeenObserver said:

 

What?  Am I missing something here?  Are you saying that Tidal is removing the MQA tag on their streams? Are they giving you MQA and hiding the fact?

 

It's been a long time since I had a Tidal subscription.  But I do remember that when the desktop player was set to the HiFi level, the DAC's blue light was not triggered and, as well, the DAC indicated the stream was 16 bit.  And this was true even if I had pointed to an MQA track previously played and listed in my database.  What I don't know is what the source of the stream was: Whether it was pure PCM or not.

[lucretius]

13 minutes ago, KeenObserver said:

 

People on Tidal are reporting now that their choices on the 16/44.1 level are being replaced with MQA.

 

When I had Tidal, normally for each track, there was a Redbook version and possibly an MQA version (the list of MQA titles wasn't too big then).  Since then, MQA has become much more ubiquitous on Tidal.  Since I no longer have Tidal, I cannot verify if 16/44.1 is being replaced with MQA.

[lucretius]

15 minutes ago, asdf1000 said:

Looks like The MQA Team did not take into account the MQA albums on Tidal that were in both 24/96 and 24/192 resolutions -- obviously, there was not 2 masters.  In fact, I doubt MQA ltd ever seen the masters but were given the same hires albums as HDtracts.

[lucretius]

5 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

No, that is not so. Half of HD-tracks is fake/upsampled HiRes, while MQA 24/96 (24/88) after unfold is HiRes (not so) all right.

Should there be a /s sarcasm tag in that post?