MQA is Vaporware

[kumakuma]

5 minutes ago, StephenJK said:

My point was that JA, as the editor of a publication needs to have some assurance as to not only the validity of the data but also of the intent.  

 

If the data is valid, the intent and source are irrelevant.

 

 

[kumakuma]

3 hours ago, botrytis said:

 

 

but you gotta admit - the typo IS funny.

 

Perhaps revealing how he truly feels about some of us... 👺

[kumakuma]

2 hours ago, StephenJK said:

 

However, I do see a singular focus on MQA with an exclusion on other elements of the audiophile world that embrace pseudo-science such as cryogenically treated duplex receptacles, carbon fiber faceplates and audiophile fuses to mention only a few.  

 

 

 

I don't see equivalence here.

 

MQA is trying to insert itself into the music distribution ecosystem by making it's proprietary and fee-bearing technology the standard delivery mechanism for high-resolution files.

 

In other words, a much more important fight than trying to stop folks from spending their money on snake oil.

 

[kumakuma]

5 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Neither integrate with Roon. Qobuz isn’t available in countries such as Canada. Spotify & Apple don’t integrate with “anything.”

 

Amazon Music HD is only bit perfect with a Bluesound device. 

 

There is also no assurance that these services will stay MQA free in the future. 

[kumakuma]

17 minutes ago, Jim Austin said:

 

Now, posting this here is a violation of our copyright. Take it down please. 

 

 

Playing the copyright card shows you have no interest in actually discussing the issues.

[kumakuma]

3 minutes ago, Jim Austin said:

 

I'm sure you understand that this is ambiguous at best, regardless of what Posner may have written. We'll leave it to our lawyers to determine. Meanwhile, regardless of legalities, your refusal to cooperate has been noted. 

 

Jim Austin, Editor

Stereophile

 

Rather than bullying Chris, perhaps your legal budget could be spend more wisely going after the sites that allow downloading of entire issues of your publication rather than a single page.

[kumakuma]

3 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

the anti-mQa predators posing as impartial jellyfish are the highest priority. 

 

Taken out of context, Jim's writing loses a bit of it's punch...

[kumakuma]

28 minutes ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

As I said Fair Use allows quoting some of a copyrighted work in order to comment or criticize. But if people want to read what is published in Stereophile in its entirety, they should do so on the magazine's site. There is no paywall. This seems like a small ask to me.

 

John Atkinson

Technical Editor, Stereophile

 

This isn't a Fair Use issue.

 

Another site is hosting an image of one of the pages of your magazine. This is an obvious copyright violation. 

 

All you need to do is get that site to take that image down. Once that's done, it will no longer appear on this site. 

[kumakuma]

35 minutes ago, svart-hvitt said:

They never tried to shut down the original picture at sbaf (smaller site) and made drama here instead. Drama is clicks.

 

Maybe Jim and John are still struggling to figure out how this new-fangled InterWeb technology works...

[kumakuma]

9 minutes ago, KeenObserver said:

Speaking of Companies House, what does today's posting from MQA Ltd mean?

It basically says that whatever is supposed to be posted has been posted.

???

 

It appears to be an annual filing that UK corporation must make:

 

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/confirmation-statement-guidance

 

Your understanding appears to be correct. Nothing material has changed at MQA.

 

 

 

 

[kumakuma]

2 hours ago, ARQuint said:

??

 

I believe he is accusing you of being a sock puppet for your boss who has been banned from this site and who is an ardent supporter of this technology.

[kumakuma]

15 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Lee Scoggins is firmly on the record as a proponent of mQa.  And even though you're pointing to what is actually a weak critique of a CD format that has less resolution than Redbook, there's still enough wiggle room for you to face your dear friend Peter McGrath and claim that it wasn't you that said those mean things about mQa.

 

And you managed to drive clicks for your boss.  Bravo!  👏

 

When doing a Google search for Lee and MQA, I stumbled on the following:

 

https://stereocentral.freeforums.net/thread/827/audiophile-grade-wiener

 

@ARQuint These folks need one of your civility lectures!

 

 

[kumakuma]

14 minutes ago, ARQuint said:

 

I'm just saying that there are some who choose to paint with a pretty broad brush. That, because of the two print magazines' out-of-the-gate enthusiasm for MQA, everything they write about, even four years later, is worthless—every equipment write-up, every interview, every music review, every show report, every award feature. That JA's "legacy" has been sullied because of this one stance he took. This is not the best critical thinking, in my view. It's possible to be an uncompromising "partisan" about MQA and still find some value in the work of a group of writers with a lot of experience and who share your love of perfectionist audio.

 

"Out-of-the-gate enthusiasm" is wonderful but refusing to change your mind despite overwhelming evidence that you are wrong is just plain stupid.

[kumakuma]

47 minutes ago, John_Atkinson said:

And I wrote earlier in this thread that I organized a blind test of MQA that gave the opposite result, only to have other posters on this forum say that a single test doesn't mean anything.

 

Actually, I'll go even further.

 

Your test results have ZERO value to me as there is NO amount of sound quality improvement that would convince me to purchase music that is locked up in a lossy proprietary data format like this.

[kumakuma]

1 minute ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I wonder how thing’s would’ve went if mQa said, “we worked with labels to get master tapes and make new white glove transfers of a handful of tracks. Listen and see what you think. For the other several million tracks we will just batch convert and you’ll likely lose access to original lossless content and the 16/44.1 will be worse than CD.”

 

You mean tell the truth?

 

BS and the boys don't roll that way...

[kumakuma]

2 hours ago, botrytis said:

 

I reacted as laughing because there was no emoji like this.....

 

 

For future use:

 

 

 

[kumakuma]

4 minutes ago, Confused said:

From what I have read, BS has spent an absolute fortune. Does he ever look happy?

 

 

The fact that the fortune he spent belonged to his wife may explain his appearance...

[kumakuma]

16 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Happy and content audiophiles

 

Oxymoron?

[kumakuma]

1 minute ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

It depends on what the meaning of is is. Seems you're looking for an argument. 

 

 

[kumakuma]

5 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Ha! Maybe you don't know the same ones I do :~)

 

I'm actually pretty happy with my equipment and only peruse trade rags like Stereophile and TAS to find new music to listen to.

 

@John_Atkinson @Jim Austin @ARQuint

 

I would be very happy if you could move the music reviews to the front of your publications.

 

I read your publications on my iPad and my right index finger gets tired swiping through all of the equipment articles and ads that come before the good stuff.

[kumakuma]

1 hour ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

To quote from that article: "Once securely in place in the industry, MQA would be very difficult to dislodge, and its very dominance would deter the development of newer, possibly better formats—or even discourage the retaining of such current alternatives as WAV, FLAC, etc., as viable choices in the marketplace."

 

 

If you believe this, why aren't you doing everything in your power to make sure it doesn't happen?

[kumakuma]

17 minutes ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

As Jon Iverson wrote in the article I referred to in my earlier posting, MQA offers benefits to both the record industry and the consumer.

 

And yet the conclusion that he reached in that article is that MQA is not a good deal for the consumer:

 

Quote

Which brings us back to sound quality. A possible format monopoly is all the more reason we should be absolutely sure that MQA is a format whose sound quality we can accept for the long term. But without the ability to even evaluate the format's compression scheme separate from its deblurring component, I don't believe that, over the long term, MQA is in the best interests of audiophiles. I just hope it's not too late. 

 

[kumakuma]

It looks like a bunch of posts from BrassFace were deleted...

[kumakuma]

10 minutes ago, Pierre LeMonf said:

Forgive me, but after parsing through this thread, isn't the quote below pure merde?

 

 

"When music is playing, the EVO's screen displays, along with the album cover, the song and album titles, the artist's name, the stream resolution, the file format, the track's total and elapsed time, and—if the track is MQA—the MQA logo accompanied by either a green or a blue dot indicating whether that MQA recording is engineer- or artist-approved (blue, "MQA Studio"). If the dot is green, it means that the file being streamed is intact MQA, but it may not be the most recent or definitive version of the recording.

 

I got a kick out of seeing my first blue authentication dot. I thought: "This recording is the real deal!" It appeared on the 24/192 MQA version of John Coltrane's cover of "My Favorite Things" (Atlantic/Qobuz) which I heard after I'd heard that same track on a green-lighted 16/44.1 MQA mix."

 

https://www.stereophile.com/content/cambridge-audio-evo-150-streaming-integrated-amplifier

 

Yes, pure unadulterated merde...

[kumakuma]

28 minutes ago, MikeyFresh said:

In reading through that piece, the author finds reason to mention mQa fourteen times. If you add the editor's footnotes, mQa is mentioned no less than sixteen times, in a 2 page review.

 

So many other aspects and features of that product are glossed over, or entirely skipped, in order to fully flesh out the mQa love fest the reviewer evidently experienced. 

 

How anyone reading that review wouldn't be able to read between the lines as to the true purpose (mQa promotion) is beyond me. Shame on the writer, the editor, and the publication as a whole in devoting so much time effort and space to such a sham.

 

I think they do Cambridge Audio a disservice there. What about all of the readers that have no interest in mQa but are force fed that level of garbage just to keep up the crusade? Aren't most other interesting aspects of the product design completely short changed in such a devout gushing?

 

Pathetic.

 

That publication trade rag needs a (real) editor!